When I run I inevitably find myself at some point counting my steps. I have no idea what started this practice. The earliest I recall counting my steps was seventh grade. We were running a timed mile at the beginning of the school year in PE. 2 loops around the fence that surrounded the playing fields where I had spent so much time playing soccer, tennis, or pickup football games. It was a boring loop. I found that two of my steps fit neatly into the distance between fence posts and began counting to 8 and starting over. The significance of counting to 8 is one I have never figured out, but I still count to 8, usually.
Now, 30 years later I will find myself in one of those mental funk sections of a run, not a bad stretch, but one where my constantly roaming mind needs a place of attachment, counting. It is almost always on a section of level ground with the past and future trailing out in either direction with little or no change and I am creating it through counting. I have moved by my steps in sections of 8 through obscure back roads, bike paths, suburban sprawl, gray urban mornings, bark chip running trails and around that 1/4 mile oval of a track. I mark time and space and my own passage through each by counting strides.
We take other steps too. I stepped out of the corridors of high school with a piece of paper in my hand that said my time was up. I wandered the streets in search of meaning looking through plate glass windows in hopes that some spark would give me direction. I stepped into the halls of the ivory tower and found it empty of meaning for my 18 year old mind and went back out step by step in search of something more sincere. I followed in the footsteps of other travelers who sought meaning outside the carefully constructed 9-5 work place.
What I missed was that I had stopped taking those carefully measured 8 count steps that inevitably lead me back to myself. I had stopped running.
This is a step in a new direction for me. While I have written excessively about my two 100 mile races, I have written almost nothing about how being and running are inevitable intertwined for me. If you are still reading this, it is likely that they are intertwined for you, or you are wondering if they are.
