wogging,+repetition,+and+transfiguration

One of the things I hated most when I was in high school—oh those formative years—was running. There were ways to get out of running: 1. Fall 1995, mandatory timed mile-run, when I ran only three out of four laps 2. Winter 1995, forging documents so that I could get out of gym class

To be fair, I don’t know what the point of all this was, all this trickery. I mean, I was on both the basketball and lacrosse, and had to attend practice five nights a week. And yes, there was running there too. I made fun of my friends who espoused the “run for fun” motto, whether as part of the cross-country or track team. I couldn’t understand it.

Fast-forward ten years. I run two to four miles at least three days a week. At first it was really difficult. I would run for a couple minutes, then walk for a couple minutes, run again, walk again. In the beginning my ankles hurt, but they got used to it. Eventually my arches started to hurt, so I bought new shoes. Paid a visit to the foot doctor. Refused to pay a $120 bill for a podiatrist-certified foot wrap. It was just plastic and an ace bandage after all.

I have been running the same two to four mile route for the past year. Those worried about safety tell me that I should change up my course, especially since I run at dusk. Alone. With no identification. My mother is a worrier. Her complaints about my running were especially fervent in the weeks after [|Diva de Loayza] died. I tell my mother that I carry my cellphone with me. That’s still not good enough for her.

When I lived in Albany I would sometimes run with my partner. Sometimes run in the rain with my partner. My partner did not refer to our runs as ‘running’. My partner called it wogging—walking half the time, but never fully running. What is the differance between jogging and running? Just because I time my miles at ten minutes?

It’s difficult to run in urban areas without making contact with other humans. Smiles are fine. That’s contact. Comments from the pizza delivery guy, such as “I’ll give you a workout,” are not fine. That is also contact. “Excuse me!” from the hood of a car on the corner of Third and Adams Street. I look over but don’t reply so as to keep the channels of communication as narrow as possible. “Can you teach that girl up there how to jog?” I look up four or five stories. There are two girls hanging out the window. “surething,” I say, without missing a beat. The girl in the window yells at the guy on the hood of the car, but I can’t make out what she’s said. “Teacher! You coming back?” I turned my head back slightly so that he could hear me, “Yeah, I run back this way.” But I didn’t run back down that street that day. I was in pain and couldn’t go on, and ended up taking the short way home that day.