10 Years From the Couch to the Starting Line

by Dawn Brushammar

As a teenager I played soccer year-round. This meant traveling team in the summer and the fall, indoor soccer in the winter and varsity with my school in the spring. That required running, but I was always running toward a ball or an opponent. That is, there was a point to the running, a greater goal. I never understood my friends who went out for the cross country team. Running for the sake of running was out of the question for me. Even a one-mile run scared me. I was always last on the training runs I had with my soccer team. It was like there was a mental block that I could not break through. A knee injury finally sidelined me from soccer for good, and then I was off to college.

During the next four years, I followed the All-American college diet plan: pizza several times a week, beer by the bucket and runs for the Taco Bell border in between. I was fat. I did not participate in any sports of any kind, save the beer bong olympics. College was a time for expanding my intellectual horizons and my waistband. Luckily I had my understanding husband (then my boyfriend) who loved me at any size and a great group of friends. Despite constant nagging from my mother, I saw nothing wrong with my couch potato ways.

After graduation, my Swedish husband and I made our first move over the Atlantic to go to grad school, and I started jogging. Well, I tried. I would just cry and whine and tell my husband that I did not want to go. It was his initiative and I was having no part of it. I did end up running my first 5k that year in Sweden, but I suffered the whole way and hated it. I was mostly there for the free picnic afterward. Another four-year period of gluttony followed. During that time we were back in Chicago, living large in every sense of the word. The money flowed in, and the pounds went on. I thought I was happy, but looking back I was very far from being personally fulfilled.

Fast forward to the summer of 2001. We headed back to Sweden with a container full of our possessions in tow. I had no job, no friends, no life. I could have easily settled into a routine of eating, sleeping, watching bad American sitcom reruns and nothing else. But the first spring in Sweden something strange happened to me. We had no car, so I was biking everywhere and enjoying it. I was eating healthier and feeling stronger and more fit. I got a crazy idea. For some unknown reason, I was determined to run Tjejmilen, a 10k race for women in Stockholm in the fall! I think it was more the camaraderie among thousands women that appealed to me than the actual race. I needed to belong, and I also needed a goal. What I really needed was to get off my butt and do something.

I found an online training plan to follow, and started off running for thirty seconds and then walking for thirty seconds and then repeating the process over and over and over. I had my digital watch set to beep at the intervals. The first couple of times thirty seconds was an excruciating eternity to run. I had my eye on the watch the entire time. During the early weeks of the run/walk schedule I made sure to blast music in my headphones. I favored angry and determined music, such as Pink. I needed some sort of rage to keep me putting one foot in front of the other. The weeks went by and the proportion of my time spent walking dropped according to schedule. Not only was I feeling better physically, but the sheer fact that I was keeping my schedule and not cutting corners was surprisingly empowering.

Finally I was at the point where I could run for thirty minutes straight. Then forty. Then I started leaving the headphones at home and listening to the birds and my feet pounding out my determination on the forest floor. One day I even got back to my apartment door and felt a twinge of regret that my workout was over. Something in me was changing, and I liked it. My runs became something to look forward to instead of a burden. The time spent logging kilometers in the forest, whether alone or with my husband became a time of reflection and relaxation for me.

Unfortunately, a death in the family caused me to miss the 10k Tjejmilen race in 2002 but in 2003 I ran in six races on two continents. I got to run my first Tjejmilen in August. When I crossed the finish line, my time was 1:02:52. I had hoped to get in under the hour, but I was still pleased. There were thousands of women ahead of me and thousands behind me. I was a runner! It took me ten years to become one, but it happened.

Now I run because I want to, not because I feel I have to. Every mile or minute I add on to my long run on Sundays makes me even prouder than the last. I have already signed up for many races in 2004 and plan to train outdoors through the cold Swedish winter. My New Year started with a 5k race at Disney World during a visit to Florida in January. Six months later I will take on my biggest running challenge yet. I will be running my first marathon through the streets of Stockholm, Sweden. A year ago I would have said anyone was crazy for running a marathon. Now I think I'd have to be crazy not to get out there and give it my best shot.