Mens sana in corpore sano

Every other morning during the summer after my mother died I would set my alarm for 6 a.m. to squeeze a short jog in before the sun rose to re-heat the limestone rock beaches and red tiled roofs. It was that time of year in Hvar when nothing had the chance to cool down. My sister and I would lie in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, fans blowing, hoping our exhaustion would be enough to temporarily render us numb to the hot breath of the island.

Quickly I would take my final few turns up the road to Pokonji Dol where the sun would slap me in the face as it began to rise, firing up the cicadas in the scrub pines and turning the sea to gold. Those mornings, and I assume all the other mornings when I chose to bake an extra hour in bed rather than run, an old woman would be walking the same road. She always dressed in a black skirt and navy blue shirt with a black handkerchief tied around her white hair and black sandals gracing her small shuffling feet. Her few teeth were revealed as she half-heartedly responded to my reverential “good mornings.” Unlike many of the older women out and about at that time of day, she wasn’t walking to market. She didn’t have a shopping bag or purse, just a cane.

Sometimes when I’m running here in Boston and I pass someone with the latest trendy sneakers, GPS watch, and fanny pack filled with various products that promise greater endurance, I see where the stereotype of the non-professional marathon runner come from. White. Wealthy. Competitive. Not everyone has the time or money to spare to train and run a marathon, right?

I don’t believe that old woman on Hvar considers herself privileged. Where would walking fit into her hierarchy of needs? More importantly, how did exercise, whether walking or running, become so secondary in many of our lives? Running for very few people today means survival – tracking animals, hunting them down. But moving our bodies was, at some point, the most important human necessity. Our bodies were built to move like our brains were built to think.

I believe my running is as basic a need to me as eating or sleeping. Every new day brings with it an internal ache signaling a need to move. Sure there are days when, if I weren’t training for the marathon, I would probably not opt to run 17, 18 or 22 miles, but there are also days when I feel like I need to run even farther than that to re-balance myself from the stresses of the day.

Even though many of us are sitting inside at this time of year watching outside temperatures drop below zero, remember what your body was built to do. Nothing can clear your thinking like a brisk evening walk under a full winter’s moon or a long stroll at dawn, underneath a burning summer sun.