An Injury Can Be a Near-Mortal Blow to a Life Lived To Run.

ne of the best T-shirts that I’ve ever seen had “I Run To Live” on the front in orange letters. That’s me! I run to live!

Running is what makes me feel alive. On the mornings when I want to turn around and go back to bed or just lie down on the path and quit, I am grateful for the wind on my face and the sun streaming through the clouds to dance on Lake Michigan’s waves. I feel a connection to the runners I see each morning who share my dedication. I don’t know them by name—the guy who wears only shorts, winter and summer; the kerchiefed lady who wears a bandana on her head; the speedy fashion plate who wears makeup no matter how early it is; the tall guy with the amazing stride. We smile and nod; sometimes we say good morning or comment on the weather as we pass, each absorbed in our own reverie. For the

Photo courtesy of Anne Martino

A The author running in Shanghai with Peter Neumann.

last six weeks, I have not seen my nodding, smiling running pals. I have been sidelined with an injury. Craving my 20-mile-a-week habit, I’ve been taking a closer look at what running means to me.

I thrive on running’s gift of power, the invincibility that comes from hauling myself out of bed to run six miles in 22-degree, windchill-frosted darkness or running farther than ever before. I know that I’ve trained not just my body but my mind to push beyond what I think is possible. Running, to me, is more mental challenge than physical achievement. There is a pride in the strength that gets me out the door and keeps me going even when I want to stop.

A PUPPY LOVE THAT GREW

My love affair with running began at 12 at my first track meet. I bounded through high school cross-country and track, adding longer distances in college to ward off the freshman disease of adding 15 pounds of body weight. By then I was hooked running half-marathons regularly, and my first marathon came at 32.

Running has been the most constant fixture in my life. It has stayed with me like a loyal family member through all of my crises. I’ve run through broken hearts, deaths in the family, graduate school, and work stress. I managed to run even when I lived and worked in Shanghai for two years.

Tethered to a treadmill because of poor air quality (coal burning and heavy particles in the air because of construction), I refused to give up my first love. On Sundays, I would hire a taxi to drive a group of like-minded expatriates and me an hour outside the city for long runs. In Shanghai, I discovered that running was a means to explore the rice paddies and small farming villages in the countryside. I would run for hours, enjoying the camaraderie and freedom of bounding through green spaces after being trapped in a concrete world all week.

I loved the discovery: pig farms, fisheries, orchards, a small church, a factory, a quarry, abandoned buildings, haystacks, grain, and freshly laundered clothes drying in the sun. We found paths through bamboo forests and did hill work through brush, blazing our own trails.

It was fun to run as if there were no obstacles. My legs would often be scratched and bleeding and my shoes soaked and muddy from running through hip-high moats in the rice paddies. It was follow the leader, finding new routes, getting lost, dead ending, and wondering how we would get back where we had started.

I can’t imagine a life without running.

Back home in Chicago, I am proud to call the 18-mile lakefront path my home turf. Snaking along the water, Chicago’s lakefront path follows the waves and offers the best views of the city. When I was offered a job in Paris, I turned it down in large part because I didn’t want to give up sunrises along the lake, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and finding my stride. Until I moved to Shanghai,