The Runner
I don’t know why I got into running. I’ve always hated it. Running was something that other people did – people with longer legs, deeper lungs. Jocks. I really can’t remember having run for more than a minute in my life without feeling like I was going to die. But this spring, after a long winter trying to shave off some pounds doing cardio in my basement, I wanted to run. So one fine Sunday in spring, I set out with my iPod playlists and running shoes and ran for as much as I could handle over a half hour period. I pushed passed the one-minute ‘feel like I’m gonna die’ barrier and ran for several minutes at a time, lungs heaving between intermittent hauls off the asthma inhaler. The inflated sense of pride I felt at my accomplishment afterwards was only slightly thwarted by the pains in my chest. These pains grew in intensity over the next few days and finally landed me in the doctor’s office. Ruling out a heart attack, it was determined that the running had someh...