In a world that revolves around time, running makes me forget about it. I have never worn a watch while running, or at all for that matter of fact. I do not like how a watch takes hold and leaves marks around my wrist. I do not like how a watch can be controlling, making me revolve around its numbers until they are all I see. Watches are just something that have never looked good on me.
Time is something I try to run away from when I run. It is the only time in my day when I do not have to think about it. The time that is. When people ask me how long I run for, or how fast my mile time is, I look at them blankly. I don’t know? I was running. Not watching the clock on the wall.
I hate stopwatches. I always have. Which is why I find it so surprising that for four years of my life, I ran four seasons of track. Every spring during high school, I continually found myself writing my name down on the track sign-up list.
A track meet is made by a stopwatch. Not by the runners who are actually running in it, but by the time that the stopwatch records when that runner crosses the finish line. One second or one millisecond can change everything from first place to fifteenth. My two male track coaches lived by a stopwatch. At every practice and meet, they always had one in their hand. I grew queasy of how they would clench the watch with their palms, holding it upright, clicking it to start and end every race. Running for me is timeless, so why then did we have to time every lap, every mile, every step? Then again this was track.
I was beginning to think I chose the wrong sport.
One of the only reasons why I signed up for track to begin with was because somebody told me I was good at running. And once I started running track, people began to tell me I was too good to stop. So there you have it. The reasons for why I ran track. Not because I particularly wanted to, but because once I found out that I was good at something, why should I not want to keep getting better at it? Why should I skip out on winning races, earning awards, getting my name printed in the paper, and traveling long distances to semi small towns where my mother and I would not leave until the early hours of morning because my 2 mile races were always the second to last event?
Why should I skip out on all the glory of being a great track athlete?
My freshman year of high school I started off strong. As nervous as I was, I think it was my nerves and the thought of getting beat that made me run faster. Before every race, when the time came for my foot to come to the curved white line, my stomach jumped into my throat. I never threw up, like many of my teammates did, but I still felt like I was going to. The gun would shoot, the stopwatch would start, and off I would go. Running. The one thing I knew how to do at this point. I would run for as fast as I could for as short of a time as I could (so my actual time running on the track would not be for so long). Who wants to spend all day running around a circular and monotonous track? Not me.
So instead I would win. I would win big.
At first, I stood out in the 1500 meters. Not always placing first, but at least in the top three spots. In my last two years of Varsity track, I took over the 3000 meters. Breaking the school record that only a few years before my good friend had set, and eventually finding myself standing atop of the first-place podium at our league’s Sectional finals. I even made it to State qualifiers three years in a row for the girl’s 2-mile race. Though I try to forget the one time I fell over the girl in front of me and ran the remaining 11 laps with blood dripping down my knee. My coaches did not seem too worried. They were never too concerned with the girl runners. Especially the good girl runners. Like me.
Perhaps it was because at the time of my striving, when I was earning the most points through winning long distance races for our girls team, our boys team, especially the long distance runners, only dwindled. It was not unusual for me to bypass or beat the 3000 meter times of the boys I was running against. At smaller track meets, we would run the girls at the same time as the boys for the 2 mile race. This is when I would stand out. By the fourth lap I would pass boys who tried to stay ahead of me for the first few minutes. By the fifth lap I would take the lead, leaving them looking like fools.
I felt like the county’s Iron Woman. I felt like the strongest person in the world. But the crowd never seemed to cheer me on when I passed the beloved boy runners. I could only hear my mother’s voice yelling “Go Mall!”. That was all I needed to hear. The silence made me run faster, triggering in my mind the thought that if I could pass one boy I could pass them all. And sometimes I did.
I suppose it was a good thing then that for four years of my running life it was controlled by a clock, a stopwatch to be more exact. It made me realize my potential as a runner, the fast times I could have while running if I really tried. If I really thought about it. In the beginning, I was only interested in my placement. As long as I came in first place what was the problem? Wasn’t that all that mattered; to be a winner?
No.
That is what the stopwatch made me understand. Running under a clock pushes us to our extremes. It scared me so much that it chased me to beat my best times. By the end of my track career, I had gotten both my 1500-meter and 3000-meter times down to the lowest they would ever be. I do not know if I could run 2 miles in 11:26 today, but I know that I could have at one time.
Now a wooden plaque is hanging on the wall in my high school saying that I did.
Today I do not run with a watch. Or a stopwatch. Running to me cannot be timed. After running around in circles and under the clock for four years it was time for my track days to end. After my last track meet, I never wore my track shoes again.
One of my track coaches asked if I was going to run cross country when I went away to college in the fall. No I told him.
“But you’re so good,” he said as he sat behind his desk. It was a few minutes before first period and students began to pour into his room.
“I can still be good and not run for a team. Maybe I just want to run on my own. Maybe I just want to run for myself,” I told him. I really wanted to say Maybe I just want to run without the clock, but when he would run with me during track practices he always wore a watch. He always timed our runs. I never asked him how short or long they were after we finished. Did that irritate him? My carelessness to know compared to his precision. There are all different types of runners. Some who live by the time and some who cannot stand it. I was the type of runner who did not care about time. He was the type of runner who could only run with it.
I have seen many runners like this, many of them men, many of them still asking me what my mile time is or how long it takes me to run a 5k. I still look at them blankly. I still believe that time does not matter. Not now. Not ever. At least not for me. I am just that type of runner. I prefer to run free.