Running for My Life

I've circumnavigated the globe.

It's been done before, of course, but not by me. Magellan was first, though he didn't survive his expedition. Magellan's men took nearly three years to go around the world. I took closer to thirty, in spite of a shorter route. I chose the direct approach and followed the equator. Hypothetically, at least. I traveled on foot, though not a single footstep fell in equatorial climes. I ran, or jogged, in Arizona and Kansas and New Mexico and California. Other places, too, a few miles at a time. It was more like stumbling by the end, perhaps, since I accomplished my goal of running 24,901.55 miles (the circumference of the earth at the equator) at the age of sixty-two.

Actually, I probably covered the distance a little earlier. I ran a lot before I started counting. Well, not a huge "lot," but since I was thirty-three when the count began, it seems likely that I managed hundreds, maybe even thousands, of miles before that. In grade school, until the rest of the boys began growing long legs, I was the third fastest in our class. Okay, it was a small class and I was actually fourth because there was a girl who could beat all of us. Considering my pace these days, it's likely she might still beat me. But I'll bet I've covered more ground.

You might call this taking the one-step-at-a-time metaphor to extremes. But I survived to complete my goal and that puts me one up on Magellan. On the other hand, he knew what he was doing when he started. I didn't figure it out for years.

Ferdinand Magellan's expedition left Spain in 1519. Mine began in Arizona in 1978. And I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet Magellan didn't set out because of body image issues. I never got long legs like most of my classmates. I topped out at a bit over five feet seven inches. That's short of the six-two I intended. Of course, I didn't get my PhD, either, nor is my career as an astronaut progressing as once intended. You don't always get what you want, especially without effort. And that was why, on February 11, 1978, I began circumnavigating the globe.

I went looking for a friend at his work place not long before that. I was startled when he told me his office mate said "some short, stocky guy" had been by. I went home and actually looked in a mirror. Not a pretty sight. All those beers and that fast food had left me bloated and flabby and ready for one of those t-shirts with an arrow pointing down labeled "beer," or "baby" for that matter.

I was young enough to be very attracted to beautiful women. Well, I still am. But the image that peered back out of the mirror that day wasn't going to attract any. In fact, I realized I required that mirror, or leaning forward, to view an important part of my anatomy. That could help explain why I hadn't dated seriously for some time. I stepped on a scale after I peeled off everything that wasn't me. One hundred and fifty-five pounds. I know. We're not talking morbid obesity here, but I had been the only eighth-grade boy who didn't have to diet to qualify for the under-one-hundred-pound basketball tourney. And I drove my high school/college sweetheart crazy by stubbornly weighing less than she did, no matter what I ate and she didn't. Not that she was plump. She topped me by about five pounds on a five-four frame with a classic thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six chassis. I was just skinny. Until I discovered beer.

Beer and I became close friends when I moved to graduate school at the University of Arizona. At Wichita State University, grad students went out for coffee. At UA, it was beer, and our conversations were funnier and I fell asleep easier. And I began developing a tiny paunch.

On that day in front of the mirror, said paunch was no longer tiny. I stared at myself, not for the first time, in disgust, and decided, also not for the first time, to do something about it. Thanks to Joanne Woodward, I actually did.

On February 1, 1978, CBS aired a made-for-TV movie, See How She Runs. It was about a middle-aged divorcee, made miserable by her ex and their daughters. She took up running to shed a few pounds, then her life changed dramatically for the better as her running became serious and the Boston Marathon turned into a realistic goal. It took me ten days to psyche myself up for it, but if running could turn life around for Joanne Woodward, I was willing to give it a shot.

I was ill equipped to begin my journey. I didn't even own a pair of shorts. That was because I had skinny legs and knobby knees. They hadn't looked so bad under an absolutely flat stomach, but I hadn't had one of those for a decade. I'd taken to hiding them. So I wore jeans. I didn't have good shoes, either. Not even tennis shoes. Just a pair of canvas slip-ons-what were sometimes called topsiders. They were comfortable enough for lounging and easy to get in and out of. Their rubberized soles even got fair traction, but they provided no real cushioning or support. I don't remember what I wore up top. I had lots of t- and sweatshirts. It was a sunny afternoon in February and I may have worn either. It didn't matter, since I nearly died, and neither heat nor cold were the problem.

My expedition began modestly. I lived on an elongated block in north-central Tucson. I later discovered, according to my car's odometer, that it was half a mile in circumference. Half a mile is not far, though it's probably a good thing I waited to check the odometer until later. I didn't jog from my house to my front gate. I was still working up my resolve. But at the gate, I pointed myself east and began running. I set a modest pace. I knew I was in bad shape. Before I hit the end of the block and my first turn, I had indications of just how bad. I wasn't sure if there was enough air in the world's atmosphere to fill my sudden needs. And it got worse. By the time I circled the block and turned east again, my only worry was whether I would survive long enough to get home. My lungs ached. My heart raced. My muscles burned. I was gasping and my pace had slowed to an agonized trot. But Joanne Woodward had persevered and my gate was just down the street.

I got there. When I opened that gate and began walking to my front porch, the only thing that kept me on my feet was the humiliation I would suffer if the neighbors saw me collapse and I had to explain why. There was a chair on the porch where I often sat and read in pleasant weather. I fell into it. Literally. And sat, and did not read or do anything but pant and wait the half hour it took to get my breath as the nausea gradually receded.

Fun, huh? Something to try again? Joanne had, though I was beginning to think that might have all been Hollywood magic. Nevertheless, two, perhaps three days later, I circled the block again. I set a slower pace and finished in agony-a big improvement over near death.

I bought tennis shoes and shorts. I got to a mile. Then two. Then even more. After a couple of weeks, it occurred to me that I should keep track of my mileage. It might help me stick to running and push me to improve my distance. That's when the logged mileage for my circumnavigation began, though it would be years before circumnavigation became my goal.

I bought a real pair of running shoes. They had leather uppers back then, but they made me feel like I could fly. When Nike introduced air cushions, I took a pair for a test run and experienced my first blowout of something other than a tire.

There are few things I've taken up in my life to which I became so quickly and totally devoted. Not that there weren't moments. Early in my running career, while on a two mile run, a young lady ran to a corner from one direction as I arrived from another. We found ourselves jogging side by side. She asked how far I was going and how long I'd been running. I could have taken this as a good sign. I had actually been noticed by an attractive woman who initiated a conversation. But I found it nearly impossible to talk and breathe. I gasped out an answer or two before she gave up on me and lengthened her stride right out of my life.

But I was getting results. I'd changed eating habits, starting a version of the Atkins diet long before it turned popular or I ever heard of it. I cut out French fries. And cut down on portions. I limited myself to a single cheeseburger, or a couple of pieces of fried chicken and some coleslaw. I was still allowed desserts, of course, but not so often or as large as I liked. I even cut back on beer.

By the end of that summer, I had achieved dramatic results. I regularly ran four miles, sometimes more, and virtually never missed a day. I'd lost thirty-five pounds. I was back around one-twenty, and would have driven my former girl friend crazy again if I hadn't driven her away years before. But my belly wasn't quite flat yet. I still wasn't satisfied. Then people who hadn't seen me recently began asking if I'd been ill. Like some lost soul wandering into a tent revival, I'd converted on the spot. When my prayers were actually answered, I'd turned devoutly fanatic. I was headed for some sort of runner's anorexia, in spite of beer, ice cream, and junk food.

I checked the mirror again. I looked past that belly that wouldn't quite go away. I had muscles now. But that's about all, just sinew and bone except for the belly. My face looked healthy and tan, but it had turned gaunt. I was reminded of how Shakespeare described one of Caesar's assassins as having a lean and hungry look. As I remembered it, that guy didn't get many girls. Neither, I thought, would the guy in my mirror. So I started eating regular portions again, though I continued to avoid the fries-usually, anyway.

Sometime near the thousand mile mark, I quit smoking. I had taken up smoking because the girl who was so troubled by my weight hated cigarettes. After she dumped me, I adopted the habit and really showed her. If she ever knew. I'd been smoking for thirteen years then and I decided she'd suffered enough. I quit, cold turkey. Twice. The first time I lasted about eight hours. One of my coworkers had quit smoking a few days before. Without thinking it through or preparing myself for what I was about to endure, I decided I could quit if he could. A couple of weeks later, I gave up smoking again. And took up suffering instead. For weeks, I absentmindedly reached for a pack or my lighter every few waking minutes. But it got better. And I didn't resume the habit again, even when that coworker did.

The miles came easier after that. I ran most days, regardless of weather. I ran in summer's brutal heat (Tucson's is truly brutal) and winter's freezing cold. I adjusted, wearing only shorts and shoes and a sweatband (and lots of talc for the diaper rash), or layers of sweats with gloves and a watch cap to keep my ears from freezing. Whatever, I ran.

I never ran a marathon. In fact, I never ran in any formal event. I was competing only against myself. The only one I wanted to outrun was that skeletal figure wearing a cloak and carrying a scythe.

They say, if you can run half the distance of a marathon, you can run the whole thing. I think they lie. I did that once-thirteen and a half miles. I found the wall and left it standing. I didn't run long distances often. I worked. I had a life. Fitting a run into my busy schedule was sometimes hard, but it was also a compulsion. On my best year, I averaged four miles a day. I didn't run every day, of course, but I ran so often and so far that I topped 1400 miles. That was decades ago.

Magellan's crew saw many wonders on their adventure. Since mine mostly took place along city streets, I've encountered fewer. Lots of car wrecks, of course. Most of them fender-benders, but some were worse. And, of course, I've had to maneuver through that traffic. I was chased by a couple of cars whose drivers turned their attention elsewhere. Both managed to look my way before running me down. But the woman making a right turn at a red light never didn't see me till she hit me. Fortunately, she wasn't rushing her turn and the thud I made as I bounced off her hood moved her foot to the brakes. She didn't knock me down. Hardly bruised me, though from the way she screamed at me for being in her way-in a marked crosswalk and with the pedestrian signal in my favor-she may have wanted a second chance.

I met lots of dogs. Most were friendly. A couple proved seriously unfriendly, but I only got nipped once, and that by a puppy I foolishly decided was no threat.

Lots of people have yelled insults at me during my voyage. A few yelled encouragement. Some even whistled. And beautiful women noticed me again. One married me.

While I ran, I wrote my books. There's a zone you reach while running, as long as your body isn't complaining too much. It's a kind of Zen-like state that requires no conscious thought and allows the runner to achieve a remarkable mental focus. I plotted my novels, tried out dialog, and delved into motivation. I carried on internal conversations with my characters, letting them explain what should happen next and why they should do or not do the things I wanted. Running was one of my most useful writing tools. It still is, occasionally.

The last years of my voyage grew harder. I had knee problems. Lots of joints that complained from time to time. But I developed a routine. I ran four or five days a week, nearly always going four miles each day. The miles came so steadily that for years I knew I would finish circling the globe sometime in the fall of 2006.

It didn't happen. I hit another wall that last summer. I developed a heel spur. As I experimented with orthotics and different shoes, I developed incredible blisters that stopped me dead. When I could limp out the door again, summer had turned Tucson's streets molten, and the humidity of our summer monsoons rendered my natural evaporative cooling system inoperative. Instead of the seventy mile months I'd been averaging, I dropped into the teens. I began to worry that, like Magellan, I might not live to complete my goal.

Cool weather returns, even to Tucson. It did so yet again in the fall of 2006. My mileage began to increase again. Finally, on January 23, 2007, I passed the 24,901.55 mile mark. I had finished. I had completed a hypothetical circumnavigation of the globe at the equator in just less than twenty-nine years.

The problem with going in a circle is, of course, that you end up where you started. On the day I finished, I weighed one hundred and fifty-five pounds again. An aging metabolism helped, as did my wife's cooking and my weakness for desserts. I gave up beer long ago-mostly. But I replaced it with wine. And, sadly, the pounds are now on a shorter frame. I'm shrinking. Age and all those miles compacted my excess weight-right into that belly that's always annoyed me by refusing to turn washboard flat. So though I've come back to where I started, I'm not in the same place. Just as you can't step in the same river twice, you cannot run around the globe without the world changing under you. I had become sixty-two, not thirty-three, but at least I could walk out my door and run around the block without a problem. I had gotten older and grayer, but not all of me was bloated and flabby at the end of the voyage.

No cheering crowds greeted me at the finish line. No brass band or flowers or flags or dancing girls. Hardly anyone noticed, or even knew I'd been doing it.

So then what? On the morning after, I put on my shoes, shorts, and togs, and I hit the street again. I've continued to do that, when the heat and my aching joints allow, ever since. I'm still running for my life. And since I like to have goals, I suppose I've started a second circuit. I began heading west this time, so I guess I'm retracing my steps.

I don't expect to cross another finish line. Add the years my first trip took to my age when I finished and it's clear I couldn't be back until I'm ninety-one. And, the reality is it won't be nearly that soon. I'm slower and have taken to swimming, instead, when it's warm in Tucson. It's nearly always warm in Tucson. More likely, I will have to run until I'm well over one-hundred to complete a second circuit. In the unlikely event that I make it, I'll expect crowds and bands. But if I fall along the way, you may gather those same multitudes and carry me to my funeral pyre on my battered arch supports. Then watch as my smoke and ashes run with the wind. Not just around the world this time.

Around the universe . . . at least for a start.