‘For My Health’ (Physical, Mental, Emotional)

Cracking Whys #3

Photo by Min An.

Hello. I didn’t think there’d be much to say about physical and psychological well-being as a reason for running. I mean, exercise is healthy, duh. But then I looked at what I thought was a boringly obvious why through the skeptical eyes of a stranger I met on the street, and changed my mind: The “health” why deserves a few words, regardless of how clear-cut it may seem. As a way to give it its due, here is the story of my encounter with an elderly gentleman who decided to interrupt my run with his opinions.

This is the third in a series of posts examining the whys of ultrarunning. You know, those whys everybody says are so important to have. Because every action is answerable to reason.

I’ve already written about chasing my limits and choosing effort, and before that, the question was, Why Ask Why?

◱ ◲ ◳

I was headed home after an intense interval workout, tired out of my mind and tripping over the uneven sidewalk. I had but a guess of how I appeared on the outside, but I couldn’t imagine my face or body projecting anything other than the detached inertia into which my mind had lapsed.

A masked stranger flagged me down as I was passing by him. A surgical mask, it was, not one suggesting I scream and run in the opposite direction. He was an older man, stunningly ancient-looking really, neatly dressed, and lanky and stooped in a way that made his overall resemblance to his cane a little unsettling. Said cane was softly tapping the ground with the same urgency I read in his eyes, while his free hand was being used to wave at me.

Assuming he needed directions, I blinked away the mental fog and toddled to a stop. “Yes?” He didn’t come closer or even turn fully toward me, so I didn’t pause my watch and likewise kept my body half-turned toward the part of the world that did not have this stranger in it.

“Why are you running?” he inquired, prefacing his question with so many pleasantries that he sounded like Jane Austen had penned him. His warbly, breath-filled voice struggled to escape through the mask.

Despite his Regency-era politeness (and possibly date of birth), my immediate instinct was, as it long has been, to mutter something about needing a bathroom and keep running. It’s not the question itself that bothers me but the fully formed opinions that often hide behind the innocuous veil of courtesy and manner.

On the other hand, perhaps I was being too cynical. I’ve had my share of unsolicited remarks from strangers, but why should this sweet old man pay for the presumptuousness of others? What if he was genuinely curious and merely wanted to offer encouragement?

He was still tapping the ground with his cane as if eager for the conversation to continue. I looked more closely at his face above the mask: His slightly raised eyebrows were still asking the question, and his eyes had narrowed into crescents with deep wrinkles at the corners, betraying a Duchenne smile. I smiled back. Yes, he would definitely like to hear about my training for my upcoming race and—

“You don’t need to lose any weight.”

Whoosh, goeth the veil. To substantiate his assertion, he followed it with that rapid north-to-south-to-north once-over that people appraising your appearance often can’t help but give you. My feeble attempt at a withering glare went unnoticed. He continued:

“I’ve lived on this earth for 92 years, you know. It’s not good for your heart to put it through so much strain. Also—”

Don’t say it.

“—running wears out your joints, and when you get to be my age—”

Don’t say it.

“—your knees will hurt all the time.”

Ding ding ding!

Jane Austen wouldn’t have approved of what I had to say to that trifecta of cliché misconceptions. Impressive as it was, his age did not justify comments about my weight or body shape, nor their presumed-by-him connection to my running. And neither was age in itself a credential for expertise in health matters.

​

step one: stay calm

Here’s reason #3,756 why running is great: It teaches me to recognize my emotional, knee-jerk reactions in frustrating situations and seek a more considered response—for the sake of my own sanity. At that moment, I decided that instead of clocking him with his own cane swallowing my exasperation and walking away, I would find a way to turn this into a positive experience. That’s right: I was going to blast him with the kind of poise and patience you learn when you go off-course at mile 80. Take that, you punk-ass nonagenarian.

His eyebrows came together momentarily when I reached for my wrist to pause my watch. The beep seemed to stir another question within him, and he lifted the cane toward my wrist but then seemed to lose interest.

​

step two: regain control

Our interaction so far boiled down to his (very politely) foisting his opinions on me and my being too tired to do anything about it. Not a great start. But he obviously believed in the soundness of his advice and made every effort not to appear rude or intrusive (including the slew of forgive-me-fors, if-I-mays, and do-you-minds with which he’d opened his monologue). So, to paraphrase Hanlon’s razor, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by an attempt to help.” There was a productive path forward. First things first: let’s get back on track.

“You didn’t let me answer your question.” He didn’t seem to remember he’d asked one, so I reminded him: “You stopped me because you wanted to know why I was running.”

I let him decide whether he agreed with that while I weighed the different answers I could give him. The proximate cause for my running—training for my race—wasn’t likely to interest him, so perhaps a more distal one. I’ve no shortage of those—this is my third essay on running whys, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. But which why, if any, would resonate with Pop-pop? I knew nothing about him or how to hold his attention. Perhaps I should’ve just told him to subscribe to my newsletter.

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step three: set an objective

When strangers bother to demand justification, I’ve found it’s seldom for the unobjectionable. So it was with this particular stranger, to whom running had to be justified not because he couldn’t come up with a reason for it on his own, but because he already had one against it. Despite our opposing perspectives, however, I was willing to bet we shared more than a patch of sidewalk. My turn to make some assumptions.

The objections he’d masked with a question ultimately translated to concern for my health (which concern appeared so genuine and heartwarming that it stood at great odds with the things coming out of his mouth, and caused a persistent cognitively dissonant hum in my head). The other masked thing was his face; I wasn’t sure whether he wished to protect himself or others, but either way, it was another indication that health was important to him. Lastly, he was in his nineties. Of course health was important to him. As luck would have it, health was also important to me, and happened to be one of the many whys of running. I decided that this—prioritizing health—would be our common ground. You know, besides the sidewalk.

Presently, my new friend was showering me with compliments:

“I only asked because, well, it’s good for a woman to have a little, and if you’re trying to, you know, I’m sure your husband likes you as you are.”

I’m not married, and oh my god. “Of course he likes me. I’m a delight.” Confused stare. “But getting back to your question. Ninety-two, you said? That’s impressive.” He’d had a birthday a month ago, apparently. I wished him a happy one and many more. “I hope I get to live a long life, too, and if I do, I’d like to be fit and healthy enough to enjoy it. There’s plenty of evidence running helps with that in more than one way.” And if I could insert hyperlinks in verbal conversation, I would.

His cane, which I was beginning to suspect was an affectation rather than a necessity, was now busy drawing little curlicues on the ground. He was still smiling at me but now had an air of tamed impatience about him. “And how do you know that?”

The same way I know the Moon and the stars are still there during the daytime. “I don’t know much of anything. Luckily, many smart people dedicate their entire careers to studying the effects of exercise in general and running in particular.” I made a show of marveling at the complexity of human health, then took a deep breath: “Good health is one reason for running, but weight and body shape aren’t necessarily indicators of it. And I’m sure you’ll understand if I chose not to discuss my own health with somebody I’ve just met.”

If he had a desire to argue, he didn’t show it, but I suspected this did little to change his thinking and less to make him relish my company. I was okay with that. I was also not done.

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step four: persevere

Having drawn an entire art piece on the sidewalk, my audience of one seemed ready to leave. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t interested in a lecture from me. Perhaps he hadn’t expected it. I doubted he had expected me to listen, either. Well, buckle up, Gramps.

It was time to hit him with my second secret weapon: giving a damn about what he had to say: I was going to stand there and let him tell me about the things that mattered to him, and I was going to be the most sickeningly attentive stranger who never asked for his opinions. Now, what would he like to talk about (that had nothing to do with how I looked or my life choices)? Oh, of course.

“Do you have any grandchildren, if you don’t mind me asking?” The bid to gain his attention succeeded. He beamed: “Six! And two grand-granddaughters!” His cane must have been measuring the cadence of his thoughts because his speech was much slower. By now I understood the cane to be an extension of his communication: he drew shapes with its tip when he was thinking, wobbled it side to side when talking, and tapped the ground with varying intensity when he was excited or for emphasis.

He proceeded to regale me with stories about his offspring’s offspring(’s offspring). Quite the handful, some of them, apparently. He bragged about all their achievements and complained about how “those know-it-alls have wax in their ears.” I learned that the youngest granddaughter “also runs around a lot” and “needs some meat on her bones.” I suspected my resemblance to her had made me his target that day.

A know-it-all in my own right, I suggested he’d have more success showing her he cared about her by taking an interest in her hobby instead of trying to tell her how she should look. “I know I would’ve liked to hear that from my grandfather if he were still alive.”

Circles and waves on the pavement. “Well. Do you like it?”

“I do.” Boy, that took a while. “Running makes me stronger.”

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step five: victory?

I was aware the credibility of that last statement had been undermined somewhat by the set of intervals I had just finished. Running might make me stronger tomorrow, but right now, I probably looked more like running had tried to murder me.

It didn’t really matter whether he believed me, anyway. I wasn’t under the illusion that I would change his mind about anything. And honestly, his granddaughter was a grown woman, she could fight her own battles. My ambition had been to walk away from this interaction confident and unbothered, having had my say in how it unfolded.

◲ ◳ ◱

The cane was inscrutably silent now that its master was finally using it for its intended purpose and had relinquished his weight to the handle with both hands. His eyes were smiling again—at something, somewhere. His family, perhaps. He already seemed to have forgotten all about me, my weight, and my running. Of course he had. I was, after all, just a stranger.

We bid each other goodbye—I nodding mine, he waving his. I knew our lives weren’t going to change as a result of our conversation: his—because my words mattered little to him; mine—because it had already changed when I took up running, got myself lost/injured/frustrated a bunch of times, and learned I had a choice in how it affected me. I am beyond grateful for that.

As with many runners, the sport has trained me to be its advocate. I will proclaim its health benefits even to deaf ears. But among its less obvious gifts, the ones no stranger could hope to infer just by looking, are patience, mindfulness, empathy, confidence. None of these qualities are exclusive to running, of course; it’s just one place where you can find them aplenty. And then it’s any place where you can let them empower you.

A Reading Recommendation

❝What followed was the most intense racing, if not running, experience of my life. It felt like this was the reason I was put on earth. […] The agony, the dizziness, and the fatigue were entirely gone, and I started flying up and down the trail with just one simple desire burning inside of me: to run.

—Chris Zehetleitner, Runhundred: Heart Versus Heat at Western States 100

Runhundred truly captures the roller coaster of emotions that is ultrarunning. Riding the roller coaster is one

Chris Z

: part Levelhead, part Punk, all heart, all the time. Things are planned, things don’t go as planned, then things super-duper don’t go as planned. And then, they go as dreamed in his wildest dreams. Call that luck, Western States magic, or an old lady at an aid station—I think Chris just really, really wanted it.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed your time here, please share “‘For My Health’ (Physical, Mental, Emotional)” or this newsletter with a friend. Then go and do something slowly.