Michigan Runs – A Running Memoir

Both my parents and my younger brother were avid runners, competing in state races, setting school records, and even starting running clubs. I tried to run with this sort of competitive attitude, but after coming in dead last in a track and field event in 7th grade, I gave up on my little dream of carrying on the family legacy and went on to pursue other things.

It wasn’t until college that I began running again. I started slow, going out once or twice a week jogging and walking the 3 mile loop around the small campus. Not only was this a tactic for keeping that dreaded Freshman 15 at bay, but I gradually realized that these jogs were more of a mental massage than anything else. I never ran very fast – it sometimes took me 45 minutes to complete the loop – but the euphoria afterwards was enough to persuade me to tie up those shoes every few days. I found myself meditating on one subject for a good mile, letting the idea bounce around my mind like pre-throw dice; it wasn’t that I necessarily made sense of what I was thinking rather it was a lack of logic and straight thinking that was so appealing. I began to map out history papers or choreograph dances (I was majoring in dance at the time). Sometimes I would think of nothing at all, and other times I would be so consumed with thinking about some boy that I would miss the turnoff for my dorm and end up lapping the campus twice.

When I transferred to the University of Michigan, my running took on a new form. The campus was larger and so was the city so I began running to get to know my surroundings. I impressed my friends with my keen sense of direction and could get any out-of-town visitor through the back streets of Ann Arbor on the shortest, least congested pathway to our house. I developed different trails throughout the city that I would pick depending on my mood: if I felt like tackling a huge hill I would jog over to the rows of fraternity houses, snickering at the hung-over college boys and gagging at the raunchy odor of stale beer leaking out their doorways. If I felt lazy I would jog through the family neighborhoods where there were few people who would question my painstakingly slow pace. I ran through the arboretum – a nature preserve cared for by the University – and began memorizing trees and tricky root obstacles instead of front lawns and street signs. Game days were the best times to hit the streets as it seemed the entire town – save those few students who pre-gamed a little too hard and failed to make it into the stadium – was corralled away watching the hyper-masculine boys battle it out on a patch of grass. During those Saturday mornings I owned the town and except for that distant drone and a few indistinguishable scores coming from the megaphone, the steady tread of my shoes on concrete made my personal soundtrack in that peaceful world.

To be a runner in Michigan means you must be a warrior, unless of course you decide to be a seasonal runner, in which case you are simply christened a wimp. As most of you who are reading this are in fact runners yourselves, and so you know that when you have to run, you absolutely HAVE to run. Running is a drug, and a few days without your run plunges your body into a state of withdrawal. You may become volatile and on edge. Random outbursts become more frequent and you find reasons to run errands and do more housework. In the end, the only cure is to just go, no matter what the weather. On one particular January evening, this meant going out at 10pm as snow was steadily piling up in the streets and sidewalks. To undertake such a feet (no pun intended), you must wear wool socks instead of the usual under armor “engineered for maximum support” brand, as well as long underwear top and bottom with sweatpants and a sweatshirt overtop. Then comes a pair of good gloves and a hat which may or may not be removed a mile or so into the jog. And finally, for those who are already insane enough to face this weather head on and refuse to run on a treadmill like a rat on a wheel, you may want to hit the bong on the way out so that by the time you are down the street you forget about the extra 20lbs on your body or the ankle deep snow that is making your quads and hip-flexors burn with each step. You are practically fast walking and moving only a step or two faster than those other poor students making there way back from the library and who are looking at you with the utmost disbelief and possibly wondering themselves if they should spend less time with their brains in a book. You, on the other hand are high either from the exercise or the weed, so you barely see or notice these other souls trekking through the streets. You are focused instead on the snow directly in front of you, pinkish from the streetlights overhead with complementary blue shadows showing you where or where not to step. About a half-mile into your absolutely ridiculous jog you begin to question your own sanity and decide that at the next intersection you will turn around and head home. But hark! What is that coming at you on the other side of the street? (You are of course running on the street because it is the only thing plowed and not just on the side of the street but right in the middle where the car tracks are, so that if a car’s headlights start to grow behind you, you have to pause, step into the snow, and resume once the car has passed.) You see on the other side of the street, just as you are about to turn to head home, another absolutely insane jogger making his way through the nighttime winter wonderland. Your heart starts to beat faster, you become elated, and an energy you did not know existed in your bundled body rises in your blood stream and you smile, wave even. You are seconds away from jumping up and down embracing this stranger when you realize that he is in fact so completely focused on the slippery path ahead of himself that he fails to notice you. You are left to your personal struggle through the wet snow and end your run having gone only a mile though it seems you have been running for hours. You come back to the house elated, your roommates look at you as though you are legally insane, but at least know you won’t feel obligated to do mass amounts of crunches in your living room in order to get a good night sleep.

-Jae Gerhart
Berkeley Resident
University of Michigan Graduate