1984-5 (?) - I learn to walk. My mom says that I would stop practicing and plop down on the floor when she came in the room. Didn't want to debut a work in progress.
1990-1996: memories of elementary school running are centered on the Presidential Fitness Test. The mile run and the shuttle run, distance and sprint. Neither are a particular joy to me. (I liked dodgeball and playing Star Trek on the playground. Rainy day recess in the library was fine by me, too.
The mile run was 12 laps around the Greenlake Elementary playfield. Mr. Geddicks gave out straws at the completion of each lap to keep track. I remember walking most of the way.
1996-1998: New school, new gym teachers, same Presidential Fitness Test. A high point came in 7th grade running the mile with Maryanna Pinchuk. We were speeding along the loop around the school when somehow we took a wrong turn. So it remains a mystery how speedily we actually were going. The Presidential t-shirt will always elude me. (Walking past the Lab School in Chicago once, I overheard a tearful boy complaint to his father: "But we have to take the fitness test tomorrow..." My heart went out to him!)
1998-2002: Shannon Carney told me once in chemistry that she was running 9 miles that day with the cross country team. I couldn't imagine running that far. I did warmup laps during volleyball and rugby practice.
2002-2006: My four years at the University of Chicago got off to an auspicious start running-wise. The first week I ran along the lake shore path with one of my roommates. I strained to keep up - she was from Vermont and very sporty! Little did I know that the first day of crew practice would consist of a 3 mile time trial, followed by another one the next day, and weekly group runs after that. But who wouldn't want to run at least a little bit with such a spectacular lake to admire in all the seasons, either alone or with friends?
This was when I first heard of someone I knew who ran marathons. Anna was a med student who hung out a lot in the Mac Lab eating healthy snacks and studying anatomy and contagious diseases. She ran marathons. So did Carl, a friend of two of the crew girls. Barb and Emily told me he once ran 26+ miles in the winter, returned to the dorm half frozen and drank hot chocolate. That sounded pretty cozy.
2006-2008: I went to Hungary thinking I'd join a volleyball team, but running alone turned out to be the easiest thing. After an entire day of classes inside the same building, which was also the dorm, I needed air, movement, a change of scenery. I tried to run in a different direction each day, but often linked the run to a trip to the market, and a piece of celebratory poppy seed retes.
At the end of the first year, my friend Balazs invited me to join their marathon relay team. What a feeling, running with hundreds (thousands?) of people along the Danube! I was hooked! In the new year, I ran some 5 and 10Ks and organized some group runs and race teams from the institute. While ice skating in the winter, I mentioned to Balazs I was thinking of running the half-marathon in Prague. He'd already run one and was up for it - come March, our little team of two runners and two coaches (Fuki and Evike!) made the trip to Prague! I'd run something with the word 'marathon' in it!
I signed up for the Seattle Marathon before I even arrived back in Seattle. Since Prague I'd run one more half-marathon and a bunch of smaller races, including one final hoorah up Hungary's highest peak, the Kekes. I didn't know what I'd be doing in Seattle exactly, and signing up for the race gave me a sense of structure. I was going back to Seattle and I was going to accomplish something!
A few days after Thanksgiving, after the prescribed 12 weeks of training, Ivan and I ran the marathon in fine form, and I managed to qualify for Boston. I had three goals going into the race: 1) to finish, 2) to break 4 hours and 3) to qualify for Boston (3:40). I really would have been happy reaching even one of those goals, but everything went wonderfully, and I qualified with a time of 3:33. We had friends cheering on the course and from far away, and every bit of it helped. So that's how I got to this point, less than a month from Boston, and looking forward as much to the friends and family this occasion will bring together as to the run itself!
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