Running

Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds . . . encouraging one another.

—Hebrews 10:24–25

Running taps into all my fears about myself, that I’m not strong, that I can’t make it, that somewhere between my mind and my body, something important is broken. Every few years I run once, out of guilt and self-hatred, and that one time is so terrible that it buys me a few more years of not running.

Then my friend Kirsten became a runner—a devoted, healthy, strong, long-term, long-distance runner. It threw me for a bit of a loop. I thought, If she can do it, maybe I can do it.

So I started running. When it was hard, which was all the time, I reminded myself of the things she’d told me: give it time, respect the three-mile run, just lace up your shoes and don’t think about it so much.

When the actual day came to run the marathon, she flew out from San Francisco to run with me, and when she walked into our hotel room, I burst into tears, nervous and relieved that my partner had arrived. It sounds cliché to say I couldn’t have done it without her. This time, though, that cliché is absolutely true.