Running, Endorphins, and Ultra-marathons

11:00:02 AM Kelsey Halling: so, I finished born to run.

11:00:15 AM Kelsey Halling: wanna do a 50 mile race when we're 27 and at our peak?

11:00:21 AM Running Buddy: duh


I don't know that we actually will.  Talk to me in 3 years.


Between reading Born to Run, running the Pittsburgh half marathon, and running a 5k with my girls from Girls on the Run, running has dominated this month.


Luckily, the wet coldness that was April and the better part of May has suddenly broken out into 80 degrees and sunshine. So with no spring, Pittsburgh has catapulted into summer. And that means running weather.  It's light out early, it stays light out late, you don't have to wear 20 layers, and you don't spend the first hour with your lungs burning waiting for your body to get numb so that you stop feeling the cold.  No, instead, you throw on a t shirt and shorts and run out of the house, and have a great time and wonder why you ever stopped doing this so much.


My favorite part of Born to Run, wasn't the crazy stories of ultra-runners (though they were inspiring), or the evolutionary evidence that homo-sapiens were in fact born to run (though that was fascinating), it was the recounting of the sheer joy of running.  Of what it feels like to reach that point of mind-body-spirit connectedness that is all consuming.  The realization that not only is running fun, it makes us better people.


Around mile 2 of last weekend's 5k, we hit another hard uphill, and the girls I was running with were starting to slow down.


 "If you keep working this hard," I said, "then you'll get endorphins, and that will feel great."


"What are endorphins?" they asked.


"Well, when your body works really hard, it releases these chemicals, called endorphins, which make you feel good as a reward for working so hard."


They nodded before one of them leaned into the hill and took off yelling "Come on, body!"


It was awesome.  We finished the race in 40 minutes.  I was so proud of them.

Run Baby Run

I was 19 when I ran my first 5k.  Basically an adult.

One of the things I remember noticing were how many kids there were running that race.  Up until then running races had seemed completely beyond my capability.  After that first 5k however, I was hooked, and continued increasing the length and frequency of the races I'd enter until I ran the Philly marathon last fall.

I could go on and on and on about how much I love running, but that's not what this post is about.  This post, is about a program called Girls on the Run.  Girls on the run is an international running program for girls in 3rd-5th grade.  For three months the girls meet twice a week to run, and the program culminates with a 5k race.  In addition to running we discuss issues like self-esteem, peer pressure, and healthy living habits.

I've wanted to get involved with this program for a while, and this spring, was finally able to work it into my schedule, so I am an assistant coach.  It is so. much. fun.

For one thing, now that I don't babysit anymore, I am hardly ever around children.  My friends aren't having kids yet, I don't teach, and it's dawned on me that it's very strange how I am completely detached from an entire segment of the population.

Secondly, I had forgotten how little 8-10 year olds are.  They are adorable.  And still at that age where they're goofy, and nice to one another, and it breaks my heart to think that in a couple of years they'll turn into mean girls.  (I think they'll come out on the other side of puberty just fine though.)

Third, getting to share my love of running with these girls is awesome, and it's also so cool that they're getting introduced to running in a 5k already.  I wouldn't have changed the fact that I was singing 6 hours a week at 10, but I would have certainly preferred Girls on the Run to intramural soccer, and it would have been cool to begin my love affair with running earlier in life.

Spending time with these girls helps to put things in perspective as well.  Last week we discussed emotions.  At one point during the conversation one of girls was talking and said "...I mean, because most people are really happy and content, so..."  She continued talking, but I don't think any of us coaches heard the rest of her point.  We were totally fixated on the statement "most people are really happy and content."  She said it so surely, like it was an obvious statement.

How awesome, for that to be your view of the world, and how awful that it isn't more true.  We are so good at making our own problems, when really we should be the happy content people these kids think we are.