Streaker

I can finally announce that I’m a streaker. No, I’m not 45 years late in showing up for the streaking I witnessed in the mid 1970s. This is the 2019 Runner’s World Run Streak, a challenge to run at least one mile every day from Memorial Day to the Fourth of July.

The mother of one of Oliver’s baseball teammates is a runner and she challenged the ball players to do the streak. Karla’s whole family signed up. When Karla invited me to join, too, I said, “Okay.”

A short time after that conversation, my brain exploded.

Hey, wait a stinkin’ minute! This is a silly thing for a 65-year-old man to do! I haven’t exercised regularly since I was in high school PE class 50 years ago!! And, besides, a spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous decision like this usually leads to no good!!!

After I gathered up the gray matter that had been scattered around, I wondered what I was going to do if I couldn’t wiggle out this ill-advised commitment. How do I get started on this nonsense I have gotten myself tangled up in? 

I knew of the existence of websites that will help the likes of me go from “couch to 5k,” so I checked them out. In the spirit of full disclosure, however, for me it was a modest “beach chair to 1.6k.”

On Memorial Day, our first run was completed while we were on Maui. Each morning about six o’clock, we ran down Uluniu Road from the condo to Waipuilani Park and back, cheered on by the delightful songs of tropical birds at daybreak. After Karla and the kids returned home, I ran by myself each morning. The first morning of solo running, I passed a woman on her sunrise walk that we had seen before. “You forgot the kids,” she informed me.

I kept up the run streak after I returned home. One thing I know for sure–it is much more pleasant to run in Hawaii at six in the morning than in Kansas at six in the evening.

I quickly discovered that running in Kansas, even early in the morning, required carrying a mop for my ever-elongating forehead. I worried about being blinded, not by the salt-saturated sweat that flooded the eye sockets, but from the points of the mineral-infused stalactites that formed on and swung from my eyebrows. It could happen.

Okay, there’s something we need to get straight right now. I’ve used various forms of the word “run” several times so far. We probably should take those usages metaphorically as something where the intention is to be a run but it only kinda looks like the real thing. Jog may be a more accurate term. Sprint doesn’t fit at all. Especially in the early days, jog-walk-jog-walk was the sequence of events, something I learned in the “couch to 5k” literature review. But even that is a tad deceptive. A phrase like “Tim Conway shuffle” or “Quasimodo lurch” may be a more precise way to describe what’s been going on.

To get the full portrait, however, you have to turn up the sound. Along with an insole-cushioned thump thump you hear a frenzied gasp-inhale followed by thump thump and an equally furious gust-exhale. Thump thump gasp-gulp, thump thump gust-gale. Thump thump wheeze, thump thump tornado.

Mix the audio with the visual and you have a pathetic waltz from which the accidental audience hurries to shield the child’s view even as she wrestles to turn her gaze away from such a bizarre spectacle occurring on the sterile streets of a stereotypical suburban neighborhood in the Heartland.

Oh, and here’s another thing. Can you imagine the volume of laundry generated by a streaker? Especially in the Kansan summer sun? A few sashays around the block and you end up with piles of moldering running detritus. If you had stopped by the house for a visit in the past couple of weeks, I may not have been able to offer you a place to sit. And I couldn’t offer you a cold drink since I had consumed them all. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Here’s another light-bulb moment I’ve had in the past few weeks. A runner has to be a world-class negotiator. Drivers waiting to turn the corner have been patient and polite as they waited for me to lumber on. Dogs, not so much, even dogs on a leash. Several days ago I met our neighbor and his dog at the intersection of Antioch and 125th. They were about to turn the corner and go in the direction I was headed. The man pulled the leash tight and said, “We’ll follow you.” I nodded and kept plodding down the street. I hoped the dog didn’t pick up on my vulnerability at the moment. I was about to shift to a walk so my breathing could catch up with my heart rate, but I kept running. I ran longer than I intended just because I had a dog lunging toward my backside.

Well, anyway, here we are. This tortured tango has finally arrived at July 4, the last official day of the 2019 Summer Run Streak. (Of course, participants are encouraged to continue. Hmmm. I’ve already used up my one spontaneous decision for 2019, so I’ve got to ponder this scenario some more. Hmmm.)

Today’s run was another family event. Karla’s family showed up at the house at 7:49 this morning and we did the final streak through our neighborhood. Stella beat us all back to the house. Of course she did. She completed a triathlon four days ago with the third fastest time on the run segment for girls in her age division. Only six of the 41 boys were faster than Stella on Sunday. Six-year-old Miles can now run a full mile without walking a ways. Today, Oliver ran with purpose. While we hoofed it around the block, Judi was fixing an egg, bacon, and cheddar cheese casserole and, even better, a double-batch apple fritter casserole.

Me? Well, I still have some issues. I confess that I was a bit concerned that I might ruin the holiday before it barely had begun and blow the house down with all the huffing and puffing going on.

Not to worry. I’m getting closer to running a full mile without walking a bit. So, I did it. I ran for 39 consecutive days. That means I can truthfully say that I’m a streaker. If I muster the courage to move past “hmmm,” maybe when I’m 66 I can honestly claim to be a runner.