Story Time

As I think you all know, I am doing a program called Run For It! with some of the girls at my school. It is a program loosely based on Molly Barker's Girls On The Run. Both Girls on the Run and Run For It! work with pre-adolescent girls on issues of self esteem, confidence, community, health and fitness. Every Thursday we (the girls along with the adults Mel, Jenny and Me) take over the field at our school for an hour of fitness, deep thinking and fun. We do laps each week increasing our distance little by little. The girls love Run For It! They talk about it constantly. They squeal and giggle during warm-ups. They participate whole-heartedly through relays and obstacle courses. Then we do laps. This is where things get a little, umm, less fun. The truth is laps are boring. Some people might even go as far as saying that running is boring. I am not one of those people, but once upon a time I was.

When I first started running as a grown up, I really struggled. I couldn't breathe, my legs ached, my ears made that obnoxious whooshing sound and after about 1/100th of a mile, I'd start walking. And boring? Oh you know it!! Still, for some reason, I kept with it. My friend Susan became my running partner and would talk me through those grueling 2 milers. She kept the stories flowing, just chatting and running like it was the easiest thing ever, I would run next with her and would sometimes manage a word or two, but it took a while before I could participate in a real conversation. That was forever ago, since then I have not only run a marathon, but talked for the entire 26.2 miles. It goes without saying I'm a big fan of stories during runs.

So last week when on lap 5 of 20 the girls started to say things like "My legs hurt", "My back hurts" or my personal favorite "I'm already on lap 18" I felt a moment of panic. How can I get these girls to keep running? How can I get them to love it? That's when it dawned on me. The girls needed a story. So I told them one. It was about my first track meet in high school. My friend Van and I were probably the least dedicated athletes on the planet. We had an early dismissal that day and decided to go grab something to eat before our meet. We went with our girlfriends to the South Pacific on Eastern Ave in Malden. We split a pupu platter and a couple of virgin pina coladas and then hopped on the bus to head for the meet....long story short (the girls got the long story sans pina coladas) we were two unhappy campers when it came time to run.

The girls loved the story so much that today they started requesting stories as soon as we hit the field. While we warmed-up Jenny told a story about a hike she did in North Bend. It was a very short story, but the girls ate it up. More! More! More! When it was time for laps I had a cloud of girls around me. I could barely move. I elbowed one little friend in the face because I didn't see her next to me. She could have cared less, she was front row for story time. Tell us a story! Tell us a story!

My mind was blank and then I pulled from the vault a very old story. One that had little importance and no moral whatsoever. This was a story about the time my friend Steve Powers & I took the Peter Pan bus home from college one weekend. UMASS is two hours from Boston, but the unfortunate part of taking the bus is that you have to stop absolutely everywhere. Even more unfortunate on that particular weekend was the fact that the only bus that we could get tickets on was a bus with a layover in Worcester. We went from Amherst to Springfield (out of the way for those of you that don't have the geography of Massachusetts memorized). Then from Springfield to Worcester we made a bunch of small stops. Once in Worcester, we had to switch buses. The bus was soooo crowded that Steve and I had to split up. I saw a seat open toward the back, he hunkered down with a little old lady in the front. I could see him from where I was sitting. I remember it as a hot and sweaty day, but it could have been in January for all I know. I was close enough to the bathroom that I could smell that awful cherry air freshener the Peter Pan company loved, mixed with the always lovely odor of urine and poop. (Don't worry I left this part out, too, though I did mention to the girls that perhaps some of the people on the bus never had the hygiene talk that we had had in Run For It last week). Like Steve, I was sitting next to an older woman. The woman I was sitting next to got closer and closer to me every time we turned a corner, by the time we crossed into Framingham she was partially on my lap. Around that time I looked up and Steve's new bff was offering him a lollipop-honest to God. My woman was a heavy mouth breather. She groaned and spoke quietly to herself. Once in a while, on top of the breathing and the mumbling, I'd hear a genuine and hardy laugh coming from the front of the bus. I'd know that laugh anywhere. Steve and his bus buddy were living it up. I swear at one point I saw that woman pinch his cheeks. When we finally arrived in Boston I stumbled off the bus. I looked at Steve and he smiled at me, "That wasn't so bad after all," he said. What could I do? I tucked that moment away for 15 years, only to pull it out for a group of 6-11 year olds running around a field. Still it was a story worthy of a half mile, and for that I am grateful and so are my girls.