Motivation Meets Culture: Or, I Have Registered for my First-Ever Race,the Cellcom Half

Greetings, Yearning Strifers,

Last night I registered for my first-ever race: The Green Bay Cellcom Half Marathon.

This marks a big moment for me. In my life, my Running Motivation has been entirely separate from my pursuit of Running Culture. I don't do races. So it's also a big deal that I'm doing the Ragnar Relay with you all.

Let me explain.

I was a sedentary, bookish child, who mainly ran (or galloped) as a part of whatever imagination game I was playing in the woods with friends— "Pioneers with Forts," "Horse-magic-village," that kind of thing.

I didn't like gym class, both because it involved sweating and because you had to move your body publicly, in front of people— people who liked to make fun of you later, and forever.

So my first real running experience came with field hockey my freshman year of high school. Our school's team was legendary and hardcore— we even went to field hockey camp in the summers. We ran a lot in practices, and we had a lot of those.

First we ran 6 laps around the big field, then we did stickwork, then finished with sprints. I liked the part in the middle, the whacking of the ball with sticks. I hated the running. (I didn't mind the public part of it, though, because I worked hard at and had excellent hair.) After 2 years of JV, I quit and joined the drama club.

I didn't run again until one evening in college, when my friend Jaymi and I ran laps around a big field, got side stitches, and then sat in our dorm eating a bag of microwaved cheese popcorn.

In my late twenties, I began running for real during my PhD program, when my body felt like a balloon string tied to the giant inflated head I was cramming with information. I ran in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the hilliest course I've known, through a city park near my house, in cool winters and blistering summers, with my dog, and, later, with the man who would become my husband, Chuck.

After a painful start, it was an excellent lifestyle. I was motivated to run by the need to engage my muscles, by the city's gorgeous architecture, by the Ohio River, by killer hills, by my sweet Sheperd-Chow dog, by the sexy legs of this new man I was dating.

But I never raced. I followed Running Culture through Runner's World magazine, through the anecdotes of friends and uncles who ran marathons. I stood on my balcony at 7 am and watched the runners from Cincinnati's first Flying Pig marathon stream by— some stopping to pee behind my building.

Racing wasn't part of my Running Motivation. I moved to Wisconsin and continued to run in snowier, colder winters and humid summers, 3-4 miles at a time. I was motivated by the accomplishment of running in -5 degree weather, by David Sedaris audiobooks, by flocks of honking geese, by the glimpses of the Bay.

Then I had 2 children 19 months apart. And then I became a distance runner. Don't get me wrong— I love my children, and they are great kids. But on top of a full-time professor-life, and my sporadic attempts to write fiction and nonfiction, my children require constant management.

My motivation has been leaving the house for 60-180 minutes at a time. By myself. Listening to This American Life podcasts and memoirs and The Murder of the Century instead of someone screaming for milk. Turning my body into an arrow of motion, instead of a pillow or foodsource or kickboxing bag.

In August of 2011, I ran my longest distances ever: 13.1 miles, 14.45 miles. All very slowly. I was motivated to see just how far I could go. It turned out I could go far.

This spring, I'll turn 42. I almost can't type that, it's such an unbelievable number to me. But I realize that I won't always be in this kind of shape. If I ever want to join Running Culture, the time is now.

Now! Rah!

Now, my Runner's Motivation has merged with my pursuit of Running Culture. I registered for my first race in May— and I'm excited to be a part of a team this August. This team. Our team.

So now, here I go. And now, I can also say: here WE go. I look forward to the sharing the adventure with you.

Yours in Yearning and Strife,

Rebecca