It’s late February in Yates Field House. All of the treadmills and stair climbers are in use and students eagerly wait in line for their turn to exercise. The runners trot along while watching ESPN, witnessing a thrilling intramural basketball game head into six overtimes, or staring at the cracks in the wall.?They closely monitor their pace and heart rate for 30 minutes. They finish their workouts, quickly wipe any remnants of sweat from their skin, and reset the treadmill timer for the next runner. But you’re not one of them. You’re a real runner.
Runners love pain. Runners will run in any weather. You’d rather kick your way through a pile of snow, risk a concussion by skating across a sheet of ice, and let your lips crack and bleed in the wind than watch Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser insult each other in the Washington Post. You love the summer heat in Washington as much as you like the cold. After running for 20 minutes, you are drenched in sweat, your legs aching in the stifling heat. If the sun hasn’t already singed you, then the mosquitoes will soon poke beneath the beads of sweat and hungrily prick at your epidermis. There are no water fountains in sight, so you lick the sweat from your hands. You haven’t eaten yet today and your stomach growls for food. You munch on the gnats as they fly into your mouth and drown themselves in your saliva. Drops of perspiration and sunscreen sting your eyes and your head longs for Excedrin.
Runners are arrogant. You run through a quiet and secluded neighborhood near Georgetown and come upon a middle-aged man walking his dog. He glares with rage at the shirtless, panting figure as if you are tearing apart his sacred neighborhood covenant and pissing on the Holy Grail in front of his very eyes. He is ready to unleash the wrath of his Chihuahua upon you, until you glare back and he sheepishly turns away. Only you would sprint across Wisconsin Avenue seconds after the traffic light turns red and risk meeting the hood of an oncoming car.? You are disgusting. You elicit more than a few grimaces after returning from a run. Sweat drips from your body as you cough harder than a flu patient and shoot mucus from your nose onto the sidewalk. Students gaze in revulsion and avoid you at all costs. You stumble into the dorm, trudge up the stairs and collapse onto the floor.
But you don’t run only for the sweat, the snot and the stares. You love to race. You wake up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning to prepare yourself to slog through several miles. You are crowded into a mob composed primarily of middle-aged men and women chatting harmlessly amongst themselves. You are unable to move your hands without accidentally slapping the runners surrounding you. The gun explodes and the mob surges forward as if on a prison break. You watch as a pack of paper-thin Kenyans sprint ahead. A group of overweight men, hell-bent on catching the Kenyans, bolt forward.
Despite the fact that your lungs feel like they are being stabbed, your stomach is twisting itself into knots and your legs feel like they are dragging the boulder of Sisyphus, you continue to run. You grab a cup of water from a table next to the road and struggle to pour water into your mouth. You listen as the screeching fans line the road and scream at you to pass the runners in front of you. You sprint ahead and cross the finish line, only to vomit the gallons of spaghetti and tomato sauce you devoured the night before. Before you can fall gracefully into the puke on the pavement, you are handed a free T-shirt and offered all the free bananas and water you can consume. After standing in front of the water table for 20 minutes and draining the cups faster than the volunteer can pour them, you marvel at the fact that you improved your best time by an amazing five seconds.
It is now April, and the weather has improved. There have been days with gentle breezes, sunny skies and highs in the 60s, and there will soon be more. There is no longer a line at Yates, and more and more runners begin to leave the great indoors and rediscover mother nature. They swarm the trails and inch along, admiring the pink cherry blossoms, listening to the chirping birds, and basking in the sun. They are rejuvenated by the weather and encourage other runners to join them. But you have to claw your way through the runners and push through the walkers. You can’t wait for July.
Mike O’Rourke is a first-year in the College. He prefers lampooning runners to actually running.
