Why I run?

I have become deeply introspective on this issue since a good friend asked me two weeks ago over lunch on why I had started running, changed my diet, and dropped 30+ pounds and counting. I did not really have an answer. . . There was no large health scare or single event. Perhaps it was simply my subconcious outsmarting my concious mind that was in denial.

There is no doubt that there are health benefits to my current exercise regime (Hal Higdon's book lists it as high as 7-10 year increase in life expentency). I probably always knew that, but I was also in denial about the truth. My dad died at age 39 (when I was three years old). At some level, maybe I just thought I wouldn't live long anyway. Last year, I was 39 and Cooper was 3; now that he is 4, I am looking forward to doing with Cooper, all the fun things I enjoyed in my youth. Sailing, canoeing, backpacking, running trails to get great pictures, etc.. There was so much life I had closed myself off from; now I want to live as much of it as I can.

This month's "Outside" magazine has WAY to many deep stories about friendship, growing older, and loss. I read part of one story this morning in which a bunch of friends that had grown up working in Outward Bound were returning to a river for a "manweek." One of the friends is caught being introspective and discusses that he is 37 and both his father (cancer) and his grandfather (heart) died at age 50. He seriously thinks he has 13 years left. . .

It is amazing that I am even typing this because my denial mechanisms are usually so tightly trained that no hint of thinking any of this would ever even cross my own concousness, more or less be something that I would publicly admit.

I was also struck by Hal Higdon's book on Master Running. He goes through all the long term studies to come up with the 7-10 year claim above. He sums up his view by writing:

"In all honesty, winning another gold medal hardly motivates me anymore. I'd like my wife and myself to live long enough to see our grandchildren graduted from college and happily married. So I run as many days as I comfortably can and fill in the spots between with other forms of exercise. . . "

Hal Higdon, "Master Running", p.63

"Be concerned with adding life to your years."

Dr. George Sheehan

"The strenuous life tastes better."

Willaim James

Perhaps the only true answer is:

I run because I can!

and I now realize how precious it is that I keep it this way! Sheehan is right; It is not only adding years to my life; it is adding life to those years.