Day Two: A two mile run on a 5 mile track

Day 2, Ran 2 miles, Total Miles 5, Miles to Go 995!

So I did it again...got up and ran before work. Felt good. I ran two miles. I don't want to overdo it at the beginning. Three the first day set a base, but variety is the spice of life they say and two was just fine for today.

It was a different run. It was not raining like the day before and I decided to run out of doors, on the SMU track that surrounds the soccer field. The sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful crystal blue with traces of clouds so perfectly spaced that it reminded me of the painted sky at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, as if only man could make something so perfect. The sky and the sun were deceptive, though. I soon realized that it was cold, very cold and the wind made it feel that much worse. Hatless and gloveless, I regreted my impulsive decision to run outside....The fact that only one other runner was on the track confirmed my suspicions that I had not made the wisest choice....But run I did.

I know that track....a earlier iteration of it, in the same place, 33 years ago was where I ran 5 miles for the first time.... I still think of it as my "5 mile track"....my Rocky Balboa moment of triumph, hands raised at the top of the courthouse in Philadelphia, just like the first Rocky Movie. I did not run 5 miles today....but I relived the memory.

It was in the fall of 1977. Recently married, we were living in a yellow hulk of an old apartment building named Hillcrest Manor directly across from the law school. It was married student housing and still is today, looking exactly the same as it did when we moved in after our honeymoon...oddly spaced window unit air conditioners sticking out in a haphazard manner that always made me think of a homeless person's smile when half the teeth are gone. It was two months before my wife would sit on the dilapidated couch in the living room and we had had to scrub for days to remove the layers of grease on the cabinets and counter in the tiny kitchen, left by the wok cooking Asian students who had lived there before us.

We moved to Hillcrest Manor because we were poor and it was cheap. The good news was that I was attending law school on a full scholarship....room, board, books, tuition, two trips home....the only way this poor Tyler Texas boy via Shreveport, Louisiana, could have attended SMU. The bad news was that the scholarship was set up for single scholars, not married ones. The "room and board" part of the stipend was based upon me sharing a room in Lawyers' Inn, the law school dormitory that has long since been converted into offices as the tastes and wealth of law students changed and none wanted to live in a dorm, sharing a room and a community bath.

Married scholarship recipients were given the equivalent of the cost of a shared room in Lawyers' Inn which, in 1977, was $201 a month. The rent, which might have included some of the utilities, for a one bedroom apartment at Hillcrest Manor was $196 a month, leaving a grand balance of $5 a month for living expenses. The good news was that my wife had found a job in her field. The bad news was that her "field" was religion. She was employed as the research librarian for the North Texas Conference of the Methodist Church with the gross salary, before taxes and social security, of $360 a month. We had a car payment for our one car, and other expenses....She did a great job of learning how to live on less than $20 a week in groceries and took the bus downtown each day to the First Methodist Church where her offices were. But that did not keep her from sighing one day "I've never lived like this" which in my too sensitive ego I converted into much more than I am sure she meant, and went out looking for a part time job.

I had started running in my last year of college, but at that time, running a mile was a big accomplishment. At law school, as I dealt with the stress of school, adjusting to married life and yes, the part time job at a downtown law firm I took to supplement our meager earnings, I found I needed an outlet. Running was the easiest. It was solitary and could be done almost any time. There was a loop around the university of two miles. I worked my way up to running this loop a few times a week....felt good about it.

One day of particular stress, I decided to run a few laps on the track that I passed every time I ran the loop. I felt strong that day. I had already ran a mile by the time I reached the track. I intended to run a couple of times around and continue my run, but something compelled me to keep running. First a mile and then a second until I realized that I had already ran 3 miles, my farthest. I felt great! I wanted to run 5 miles...knew I could. And so I kept running the laps. Three and a half miles, four miles, four and a half and then....Viola five miles. It felt wonderful, I was jubilant like child after his first bike ride. It reminded me of the time a 12 year old nephew had ridden the Runaway Mind Train with me at Six Flags over Texas amusement park. Overcoming his intense fear, and after having chickened out once in the line, he climbed into the car with me and off we went. White knuckled he did not utter a word or scream as we careened along the track like a bobsled at the Vancouver Olympics. But when we finished, and he disembarked...he yelled "I've got guts!"

That was the feeling I had after that first 5 mile run....I knew I was a runner and I was hooked.

The two miles today felt good....added to the three from yesterday, I had my 5 miles.....995 to go!