A running life

 

Distance running has been a central part of my life since 1972, when I first joined my father for a jog around the local YMCA track, on an impossibly banked wooden surface above the basketball court. I forget how many times it took to make a mile—something in the range of 50 or 60 laps.

My father’s friends at YMCA were, like him, mostly World War II veterans, who spoke in hushed tones about their wartime service. I remember when I was twelve or thirteen overhearing one of them comment: “George, that kid can really run.” The comment elicited enormous pride in the heart of a young teenager.

Today, 53 years and over 100,000 miles later, I’m still running. I don’t generally run for any competitive reasons—although I still relish the thought of smoking someone half my age on a race course. I run because I run. It is moving meditation. It is a way to see things that 99 percent of the world will never, ever see or experience. I have run up mountains, across rivers, into tough Brooklyn neighborhoods, to visit girlfriends, to get away from toughies on motorcycles. The whole gamit. 

Running has fostered relationships with others, but mostly it has been a haven from this confusing and sometimes cruel world. Running is the glue that holds my beleaguered brain and spirt together.

 

Running in Greece

It is hot in Greece for at least half the year. There are few places that one would describe as especially flat terrain. Drivers are maniacal. And until relatively recently, running/jogging was seen as a endeavor for foreigners and crazy people. But this has changed in recent years. I’m a member of a running club in Downeast Maine, with about 40 or50 members. And I’m a member of the running club in Kalamata, with about 350 members.

Today I left our house before the heat built up and ran up the mountain to the top of the pass that leads down to Koroni. Yesterday I ran to the beach, enjoyed a morning swim in my birthday suit, and ran back up the mountain. Tomorrow I hope to run in (if I can elude the guard) or around the 12th-century Venetian castle in nearby Methoni.

The possibilities are endless. Here are a few photos from my most recent runs in the southern Peloponnese.