The Itch

Growing up, my family lived in a house with a wooded back yard. In the summers, my brothers and I would spend most of our time in these woods riding our bikes on trails that we carefully designed. These trails snaked around trees and over hills and through shallow creeks. We built towering tree houses in those woods. One was three levels high with a zip line on the top tier. Three brothers, each with their own outdoor living space.

We lived a big chunk of our childhood in those woods, making memories and dreaming big. We reigned in that forest, but we were not alone. There were other things living in those woods. Dangerous things. Things that slithered, things that stung and poisonous things that grew on trees and had leaves of three. 

One afternoon after a day in those woods, I came in the house to a look of horror from my mother. My face had broken out with red angry welts. My eyes began to swell shut. After a few hours, my face was swollen, and I had become unrecognizable. My head had developed the shape, texture, and color of one of those dodge balls we used to play with in the school gym. Mom lathered my face with pink lotion and had me lay on the couch.  And then she gave me this impossible mission:

"Whatever you do, do not scratch it."

There is an oval magnet on the back of my car that reads 26.2 in white letters with a solid black background. It's faded a little and covered in road dust and water spots. Maybe you've seen one or sport one yourself. These magnets or stickers, which come in various mileage options, say something about us. We put these magnets/stickers on our cars because we conquered something significant, and we want the world to know about it.

But when a non runner sees our magnet/sticker what do they think? When they ask why, what is the answer?  

Generally when people ask me about the magnet they have three questions:

What does the number mean? 

You actually run that many miles in one day? 

Why the (enter expletive) would you do that? 

Every runner has a reason. I've met many of them and read about a lot of them and they all have different answers to the question why.

They run to make a living. They run simply because it's fun. They run because they looked in the mirror one day and didn't recognize who they saw. They run because they loved and lost someone. They run to raise awareness. There is no right or wrong answer to this question but there is one thing we can all agree on. It began with a subtle nudge, a gentle prodding.

We saw something, listened to something, read something, or experienced something. The desire to run started as an itch. It was an itch that disguised itself as a thought or a feeling that began in the mind and slowly moved its way into our hearts. It spread into our everyday thoughts and we couldn't help ourselves. It became an itch that we just had to scratch.

I felt the itch again a year after my fourth marathon. It didn't take much. I caught glimpses of runners on the sidewalk as I drove. It was late summer when marathon training would have been in full gear, and I imagined that these runners were getting ready. They were logging those last hard runs and fine tuning their pace and form. They looked determined and focused. They were quick on their feet and their gait was fluid. I've been in their shoes and knew what they were feeling. In those moments, the itch had surfaced. It was something I could no longer ignore. 

A few months later I signed up for marathon number five, still with no answer to the question why other than I couldn't help myself. I had to do it again. I did what my mother forbid me to do as a child and decided to scratch the itch one more time.

There is a desire in all of us. The desire to accomplish things. The desire to better ourselves and to reach new heights, to make a difference. This desire begins with a dull prodding that comes from somewhere deep within us. It's something in our subconscious that starts as a whisper and slowly turns into a roar. It begins as a tickle deep down in our gut and ends up surfacing as that irresistible itch.

What is your itch?