Love on the Run

I’m often asked if I met husband on the run.  I did not.  Our meeting was a classic love story (we met in a bar).  There were high heels (mine) and Doc Martins (his), but not a running shoe in sight.  Back then I ran sporadically and he didn’t run at all.  It was my good influence (positive peer pressure?) that led him to the open road.  It was not love at first step.  After many miles he grew to love running like I do.  After many, many miles.  We mostly ran together back then.  Today we seldom run together.  We run at the same time, but not together.  He’s too fast for me.  [I used to be too fast for him (insert joke about being the fast girl his mother warned him about), but that was a long time ago.  Still, I remember those days fondly.].  He’s got the speed, but I’ve got the endurance.  I think I’d have the advantage in any footrace over 50K.  Together I’m convinced we’d win The Amazing Race.
 
Kathrine Switzer has a theory about married couples and running: 

If a man starts running and the woman doesn’t, the marriage can survive. If both the man and the woman start running the marriage will probably be a lot better. But if the woman starts and the man doesn’t, it will never last (Marathon Woman, pp. 203).

 
I’m not as jaded as K.V. S. (and I think she was mostly joking – although a second source asserts that back in the ’70s runners were known for high divorce rates), but I have watched a few tenuous relationships fall apart when one half of a couple becomes an endurance runner.  But just a few and those relationships were already on shaky ground – the catalyst happened to be running, mostly because it was convenient.  More typically, once someone starts setting (and meeting) exciting new running goals their physical and psychological state improve and it’s hard for that to not have positive spillover effects into other aspects of their life.  When the non-running half is supportive from the sidelines, like waiting with breakfast after a long early morning run or coming out to cheer at races, I think the running can enhance the relationship.  I’m convinced that although husband and I run apart (apart but together), the shared experience and tolerance for a cupboard overflowing with water bottles, early weekend mornings, and running shoes everywhere (someday my most disastrous running injury will involve me, a midnight trip to the bathroom, and a misplaced running shoe) is a relationship-maker, not breaker.  I know he’ll be my biggest fan (and not just because he’ll be my only) in Boston.  And I know, if need be, he will help me off the toilet the next day.