The only people that run marathons are the people who think they have no feet.
When I was in college, I ran a marathon because of a letter I got from the US Navy. MIDN Brady, the letter read, this letter is to inform you that you have been placed in Category IV. Your weight is outside of US Naval Academy regulations.
Among my friends that have never been in the military, this letter has lent me a certain notoriety. I am the only person they know who has ever been informed on US government official letterhead, that I was fat. As a result of that and a tiny room populated by one overbearing roommate, I decided to begin training for the Marine Corps Marathon.
It was one of the best ideas I'd ever had. Nearing the end of a ten mile run always made me feel thinner and somehow made my roommate more tolerable. Running outside the walls of the Naval Academy gave me a taste of the freedom that was still, after three long years, an interminable ten months away. Entering the first neighborhood after the Severn River Bridge, I'd slip on the blue non-regulation running top, stealing the scent of bounce dryer sheets from the houses around me. In my pale blue top, I could have been any woman. I could easily have turned down any driveway and emptied my laundry in the garage. I could have buried my nose in the warm towels before I carried them in to my children and my dog. For a few minutes, I was able to forget that I had a fluids exam the next day, and that my home was several states away. The smell of that laundry reminded me what it was like to live in a neighborhood, before I was in possession of official government notification of pudginess. When I ran, I forgot that I had no dog, no children and no towels.
Now that I have a daughter, a lab and a pile of dirty laundry, I continually resolve to run more. I have four hundred and seventy two reasons why I don't make it to the gym, but the truth is that I don't want to badly enough. When I am ready, I will run again. I will run because it allows me to pass my own home in the dark and look longingly into the windows, the smell of warm towels calling me home.
