The Starting Line

Yesterday, I finished my Master's Degree. Though it was a little anti-climactic, culminating in a one-page journal entry about how my whole professional life relates to two tragically repetitive books we read this semester, for me, it was momentous. No more weeknights trying to ignore the TV while interpreting my public budgeting texts. No more early morning alarm clocks signalling the time to get back to my computer screen. No more weekend guilt for the hours spent on anything other than school work.

And yet, beyond superficial relief for the restoration of my brainpower, there has been a larger thought on my mind for the last few weeks and months. What's next? I have never felt content to reach a finish line. The finish line, if you think about it, is really just the starting line for your next adventure.

After three years of mornings, nights, and weekends spent staring bleary-eyed at my books and papers, hashing out an advanced degree, it feels right that this finish line become the starting line for a more active lifestyle. My roommates for the past few years can vouch that my strained relationship with running can be credited to the guilt I felt for abandoning my books for long enough to hit the gym. I often agonized for so long about whether or not to exercise that I would waste at least as long as it would take me to run a mile just figuring out if I should put my sneakers on or not.

Anyone who knows me knows that I care deeply about my job and my students. I work for an organization called Bottom Line, which provides free, one-on-one counseling to low-income, first-generation students. We help them get into college, and then we stick with them to ensure their success. I strongly believe that Bottom Line is a one-of-a-kind organization because our leaders also refuse to believe in finish lines. They developed an exemplary program for urban high school students that ensured the vast majority would be accepted to a four-year college. But they weren't satisfied until they had built one of the nation's first College Success programs, and now boast a 73 percent graduation rate. "The Bottom Line," as Dave would say, "is a college degree." This year, however, Bottom Line will employ its very first team of career counselors, now that we have realized even college graduation is yet another starting line. The bottom line, it turns out, is a job.

So, nearly graduated, fully rested, and itching to run, I'm announcing my intention to get to a new starting line: Hopkinton, MA, the starting line of the 2013 Boston Marathon. I will be running to raise money for Bottom Line, to support the organization's continued growth and to inspire a new class of students to push toward the next starting line. Am I terrified? Yes. But isn't that the point?

Why Run?

Running is a habit I developed, believe it or not, out of boredom. My first experience with running came in high school, back when my personal philosophy was that running was reserved for "when something is chasing me." To escape our compulsory sports requirement for the winter trimester, my friends and I signed up for recreational cross-country skiing, which was notoriously lax. Our faculty advisor (I refuse to use the word 'coach') would roll up to the parking lot and take attendance from the comfort of his heated pick-up truck while we stood around picking the ice out of our bindings with bare fingers. He would watch as we waddled our way out to the soccer fields, and take off once he saw us get as far as the tennis courts. Most days, we waited five minutes, turned around, and headed back to the library to get our homework done.

However, one fatefully warm winter, we had no snow. None. On those afternoons, we were imprisoned in the indoor track (with the track team, I might add), and our faculty advisor reluctantly stayed and supervised. And so, left with no other choice, we walked, or jogged, or sometimes ran. Most of the time, as we ran, we sang James Brown's "I Feel Good," which we had arranged into a trio (and, as I remember it, Amanda rocked the horn solo on the bridge.) Most days, though, I didn't feel good, which I later discovered was because of exercise induced asthma, triggered by the cold. It was even worse when I had to run outside later in high school; my lungs continuously burned and I had a wheezing cough that stuck with me for weeks after the season was over.

It wasn't until my senior year of college that I discovered I could love running. I was a coxswain for the men's crew team, and winter training included a few weight lifting sessions each week. One day, I got bored while the men were lifting and hopped on the treadmill. I ran and people-watched until I had accidentally run a mile and a half without thinking about it. And it felt great. My lifting-day runs became a welcome routine. I began to understand my favorite thing about running--the uninterrupted time to let my mind wander. My brain was on a schedule for every hour of my college life: take quick notes in this class, write this paper, plan this meeting, choreograph this dance routine, apply for this job, run this practice, solve this friend's problem, lie in bed at night and think about everything you'll have to think about tomorrow. Those hours on the treadmill or the road were the only part of my day that I didn't have to think about anything.

Though my relationship with running has been decidedly on-again, off-again, it's the clarity that always keeps me coming back. I eat and sleep better when I'm running. I feel physically and psychologically stronger. Even if I don't hit the pavement with questions on my mind, by the end of a long, hard run, I somehow have answers.