Running & Relationships

Chicago, strict grids, and friends

A photo from inside the Loop. I like how the light on the wall looks so regular, but even as I took this photo it, like everything in life, rapidly changed.

Last week, I got to go on a four day trip with some old friends, including Les,* my old running partner from all the way back in college. Our lives, never particularly similar, have recently intertwined as middle age, kids, and careers have shifted and aligned. We all met in Chicago, and I was super interested when Les told us that we were staying near the 606, an old elevated train track that has been converted into a 2-ish mile long running and biking track. 

We got to check it out on Saturday morning, when, in the blazing-but-somehow-not-humid Chicago sunshine, we ran from our place to the old tracks. The route itself is classic Chicago. We right-angled our way through a flat, regular grid of exceptionally sturdy-looking row houses, all with amazing windows, and then took a ramp up to the park. The park is lined with native plants, including grasses and flowering bushes and even several copses of young and flourshing beech trees. The planting is so deft that you’re in dapppled light much of the time, avoiding the over-exposed, baking heat that tend to characterize running path-based runs. All in all, highly recommend on the route if you’re going to be in Chicago and staying in the Logan Square area. 

Neither Les nor I have been running with partners lately. Les has always been more social than I am, and has had several regular running partners over the years. But the complications of schedules and the exhausting nature of work and parenting mean we’ve both fallen off the partner runs in the last few years. We run solo now.

We tried to get back in the rhythm of running together as we zig-zagged through the strict Chi-town grid. Our runs have always been characterized by me tending to race and Les tending to let me, which is nice of her. Saturday was no exception. I don’t mean to race, and I do try to hold myself back, but I chomp at the bit and always have. We fell right back into it; I was conscious of being a half step ahead the whole time and chided myself silently, and she ignored how annoying it is. True partnership! 

Since I don’t take my phone on runs, I don’t have any pictures of the 606. But I do love this photo of the elevated train tracks. Again, repetition and change inhabit the same moment.

Once on the path, we jumped out of the way of bikes going too fast and switched running on the inside and the outside periodically. We talked about shoes, routes, mileage, parenting styles, apartments, schools, and job prospects. We turned around at a fountain, taking drinks and splashing our hands in the cool water. We passed people; people passed us. Some guy told us we were doing great. We registered that we were going too fast about 7 times and we slowed down only to gradually speed up. We resolved no problems and hit no walls. 

At our off ramp we decided to stop and walk back to where we’re staying. It was only about a 3 mile run in total and maybe even less, which is vastly lower than her normal mileage and even low for me, but it was enough. We were tired and hot; we were stretched and sweaty and normal. We walked and talked. 

There was nothing exceptional about that run, except that it was a 15 year gap since we’d done it last. Fifteen years and the problems have changed; the injuries have changed; the conversations have shifted. But the run and the relationship remain. The exhilaration and the bounce and the sense of freedom and comfort persist. The fun is still there, and so is the friendship. It was just a normal June run on a pretty, urban path. But because of Les and because of who I am when I’m with her, I felt like the fastest runner in Chicago that day. 

So whether you’re heading out with a club, with a friend, or solo, for today, remember: go run.