Atomic Tonic

I've never run a marathon. I've never run a half. I've never run over 8 miles in one go or reached 30 miles in a week. I've spent time exercising -- I ran around the block a few times in high school. I've spent many mornings at the gym. An all women's one in a basement in Somerville. A co-ed one on the second floor of a mall in Cambridge. I've used the cross-trainers and the bikes. The rowing machines and the ab machines and the butt thigh and calf machines. I spent a summer biking to the beach and the grocery store on the Cape and another summer rollerblading to work in traffic and coasting down the bike path on the weekends -- but I'd never been a runner.

I started running after my pregnancy with Matilda. I spent that pregnancy listening to my OB tell me that she likes to go for long runs on her kids' birthdays. That she goes back home to run a specific race most years. That sometimes, when she starts out, she's just so happy she's not pregnant so she can run. She's got 4 kids and over 10 years on me. She runs 4 miles most days and at that point in her life, she was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to deliver every woman she saw in her practice. She's in great shape. Always seems happy, never hunched over, never exhausted when just listening to her schedule makes me want to nap.

About six weeks after I had Matilda, I started going to the gym. I started on the cross-trainers and the bikes. The ab machines and the butt thigh and calf machines. After awhile, I tried a treadmill. I was slow but too fast to run for more than 10 minutes. Maybe even 5. I slowed down. I'd run. Then walk. Then run and walk and run and walk. I evnetually worked myself up to running outside. I ran 1/2 a mile away from my house and then the 1/2 a mile back. At first I couldn't run it without stopping to walk. Then I could. So I added a little more distance and worked up to nearly 25 miles a week. I got faster. I felt strong. Tall. I felt good (but always hungry). The first time I ran an 8 mile loop I wasn't sure I'd make it. Coming down the slight hill at the end of those 8 miles, I wanted to keep going.

One of my best runs was in the middle of a snow storm. I was coming over the crest of a hill on a busy street. The sidewalk on this street is a mess, all jagged eruptions from tree roots and dipping driveways, before any snow even touches down. The wind was hitting me in the face and my second pair of pants were so heavy with snow they were falling down. A truck blew past and sprayed me with freezing sleet. It was awesome. It was 5:30 in the morning and I could hardly see three feet in front of me. My clothes were soaking wet. My feet were swimming. The snow was heavy and wet and stinging my eyes but there was a hot shower at home and the knowledge that I'd run 5 miles before a lot of folks are even out of bed. Nothing could touch me that day. I ran 5 miles into a storm. Nothing a commute or an office job or parenthood or marriage could throw at me was going to beat that.

I had a good run today. They've been good all week. Today I dropped Matilda at daycare, wedged my car key into my sports bras and ran from the parking lot. I ran 4 miles. Even with the extra weight I felt light. I went down streets I don't usually run on and streets I used to run on but haven't built up the mileage to run on postpartum. I thought of a friend who recently had a tough time trying to get in a workout at the gym with her infant in their daycare and not enough treadmills. I thought about how that frustration outweighs anytime she did squeeze in on a machine. And then I stopped thinking and I just ran. One kid was at daycare. The other was at home with Niclas. I didn't have a cell phone on me. I didn't have any iPod cords tangling me up. Nothing in my hands. No pockets, no bag, no water bottle. I felt really and truly free. I wanted to just keep going.

Running is fun again.