Pun Inspiration: Running
I have never been athletic.
In fact, any attempt I’ve made over the years to be “sporty” has been relay embarrassing.
As a kid, I was placed in basically every sport you could try. Soccer, basketball, golf, tennis, lacrosse, baseball, swimming – you name it, I probably treaded going to it. I was the kid who volunteered to be the goalie in soccer so I could sit between the posts for most of the game. When I was grudgingly put in the field, I often would stop and untie my shoelaces just so I could retie them. I thought this was a good sneaker-y cover for not wanting to run for another second. In baseball, I’d make flower necklaces in the outfield, stride-ntly refusing to participate as a player. My basketball team in middle school lost all but one game. The score of that game? 3-2. For god’s sake, I struck out in TEE-BALL. You know. The sport where they literally tee up the hit for you and all you have to do is make contact.
My impressively bad track record in sports became kind of a running joke in my family. But the memories still chafe my sole a little.
I was more incline-d to stay inside. I was artistic, not athletic. I was happy to spend my time drawing, writing stories, or reading. And my sit-on-my-butt medal was often tested when my outdoorsy, active best friend insisted we knee-ded to climb the trees in our neighborhood.
Given all this, you can probably understand why it still feels like a stretch to claim that I, the flower-necklace-building-outfielder, would now consider myself a runner. It’s more than mile-dly surprising that I, the sit-between-the-posts-goalie, have run a half-marathon. It just doesn’t seem to track.
In college, I mocked my roommate’s threat that she would convince me to run three miles before the end of our sophomore year. Now, my college-self mocks me. “Who’s laughing now, you silly runner? How much money did you pay to go run? FOR FUN?!? You mara-moron!”
But here’s the racy truth: I now love running. Well, love/hate it.
My path to running is kind of a bittersweet story, though. Like I said, I was toe-tally adamant that I would never shoes to run. At least, not when I wasn’t being chased. And for 22 years, I proved this was the pace.
Then November 12, 2011, everything changed for me.
It was that day that my father became paralyzed.
The story of his paralysis is long, complicated, and painful. But from that day until he died a little less than six years later, my father couldn’t walk. Hell forget walk, he couldn’t turn over on his side without help.
Suddenly, I felt desperate to use my legs.
So, I started running. I even stepped up my commitment levels by buying my first pair of running shoes. It was – and still is – tough. The first time I ran three miles, it felt more like five kill-ow-meters. But I was motivated in a way I never had been before. When my legs burned or I felt the agony of de-feet, I relished the pain as it course-d through me. I reminded myself: “At least you can feel your legs. At least you can move your feet.”
Running became a way to appreciate what my dad had lost. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that it provided an interval of relief from the turmoil in my mind. Running became a heel-ing experience. The first time my mind went blank during a run, it felt like a miracle. It was as if my brain was somehow now Under Armor, protecting me from the sadness, frustration, grief, and stress.
And thus, running came to serve two purposes in my life. First, it was a way to appreciate what my body could do. And second, it was a way to escape when reality was too much.
It still does that for me; ultra satisfying even when I’ve taken time off and have fallen from pace. And it beats the hell out of any flower necklace I ever made.
Pun Count: 28
In an I-Deeley World 
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