Finally realizing how people react to long-distance runners
This might seem like a strange column from a marathon runner. For years I never thought about what non-runners ever thought about people who run marathons. In college, I ran the 440 yard distance and hurdles and sprints. I thought that anybody that ran around the track more than twice was a little strange. We ran sprints, stretched, did exercises, and ran more sprints. The two milers on the track team just ran around that track for the entire practice. It seemed that their personality was a little distant and usually very calm. I figured that they got that way from having to think about something while they ran around that track.
I was in Lockhart this week for a few errands. When I drove back to San Marcos on that road from Lockhart to Martindale it occurred to me that I used to run that road training for marathons. I was driving around 60 miles per hour but it seemed like that flat stretch took a long time to drive. I never thought how far it was while I was running because there was usually a group of four or five runners.
We would stop in Martindale at the gas station for water and then head on to San Marcos. After getting a look at that long, desolate strip of highway it made me understand what a normal person must think seeing a group of people out in the middle of nowhere running down the road.
One of my favorite runs was to run from my house to the Hunter intersection near Riley’s Tavern and back. It was 13.5 miles and not much traffic. One weekend I ran to Hunter and back, ran through San Marcos and headed out toward Aquarena Springs Drive. I turned right at the access road and ran down to the Little League Fields, and then headed home on Hopkins Street. Because it was a good 20 or more miles it made a good marathon training run. I started to realize what a person must think when they saw me out on Hunter Road. Then they saw me again on the access road, did some more shopping, and then again running through town. They were shopping for three hours or so and kept seeing this strange person running all over town. I would see them later in the afternoon at a store and could see them looking at me, giving an elbow to each other, and pointing at me. The comments were probably like, “Look, look, there’s that strange guy we saw running all over town. Let’s not get too close. Man’, that is one strange dude!”
Another favorite run back then was the Freeman Ranch road to Wimberley. This is before it was rerouted and was a dirt road most of the way. We usually had a group of anywhere from five to ten runners on this weekend-morning run. We all stopped at the Cypress Creek Café for plate sized cinnamon rolls afterwards to celebrate the run. There was a herd of longhorn on the ranch that we ran by on many of the runs. The cattle were usually quiet and did not give us much notice. There were a few times you would get a young steer lowering his head, pawing the dirt, and giving us a closer look. Those times had us tensing up the muscles and the heart rate picked up a bit into flight mode. On more than one occasion we had to wake up a rattlesnake stretched out across the road soaking up the warm sun. I just missed stepping on a big coral snake on one run. There was a favorite tree we would get near to cool off in the shade. That changed when we found a copperhead snake liked that same tree. If there was a heavy rain the river overflowed the road. We would take our shoes and socks off, hook our toes over the edge of the road, so we wouldn’t be swept downstream, and side stepped to the other side. Put the socks and shoes back on and continue the run. The good thing was that as the cattle watched us run by we could not hear them comment, “There are those strange people again.” The Freeman Ranch run was always an adventure.
When you try to find a run that is 20 or more miles, and you do not want to run around the same route several times, you start looking to run to a nearby town. One run we did on a regular basis was to head out Post Road (Five Mile Dam Road) to Kyle. We would run through Kyle until we hit the hit the southbound access road. We followed the access road to the highway rest area and then back on Post Road to San Marcos. We usually parked at the football parking lot and took off from there. We had water stops at the gas station in Kyle, and at a house near the train bridge that let us use the hose in his front yard for water. It never occurred to me when somebody asked, “What’d you do this weekend?” I answered, “Not much, a group of us ran to Kyle and back for a training run.” For a non-runner that had to be a strange response. The idea that anybody would actually run to Kyle and back for something to do on a weekend makes them think, “You need to get a life.”
I don’t know why that stretch of road from Lockhart to Martindale made me realize how other people looked at us. I guess it was that for some of the distance there is not much to look at and you would wonder, “Why would anybody be out here in the middle of nowhere running down the road?”
You do not see many groups of runners out on roads that much anymore as the two lane roads are now four lanes, heavy traffic, and fast cars. Runners now head back into the lesser traveled county roads where people don’t drive as much.
