Exercise

I went out running this morning, just a couple of miles around the rec yard track followed by ten, 100 yard sprints.



I’ve been running since I was a freshman in college back in 1977. In my 20’s and 30’s I ran a lot of 10K and 15K races. You’d pay an entrance fee, run the course and get a t-shirt and usually a couple of glasses of beer.


By the time I was 40 I decided to run a marathon. Ran and completed it, went out drinking with friends from work and decided to memorialize my run with a tattoo on my shoulder.


Running always was my “out”. No matter where I was I’d put my running shoes on and hit the pavement. I’d get lost in my own thoughts, try and figure things out.


The last year before my arrest, I started cutting back on my daily miles. In its place, I drank. I know why. I couldn’t handle the solitude. Every time I ran I was overwhelmed with thoughts of “you’re gonna get caught; you’re going to prison; your wife will leave you; you’re gonna lose your kids; everything you worked for, everything you love will be gone.” I’d be running back to the office (I ran every day at lunch) with sunglasses on so no one could see me breakdown in tears. I’d go home at night and chug five or six scotches just to numb the feeling of inevitable doom.


Then I got locked up and was housed in the Henrico jail. For six days short of one full year I got outside less than 20 days. I couldn’t run. I’d walk the dayroom (pc word for cellblock) and drop down and do pushups.


The receiving center (perhaps the worst, most poorly run facility I could ever imagine) at least had a small outdoor rec yard where you could see trees.


Finally, last November, I came to Lunenburg. The morning after my arrival I went out on the third of a mile gravel track and began running: one lap; two; three; seven; ten; fourteen. I wheezed and I coughed and I sputtered, but I ran.


For the first time in years I was free, free of thoughts of gloom, of despair. I ran around the track reciting the words to Psalm 23 –


“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . “


The words from Isaiah 40 –


“yet those who wait on the Lord will be given new strength. . . they will run and
not be tired . . .”


I suddenly realized in that run that hope lives. All my worst fears had been realized: I was in prison; the only woman I ever loved divorced me; my sons turned against me; I gave up all my property; friends abandoned me. I had nothing . . . but my run. God gave me my running back.


I think about all that has transpired these past two years, how much I’ve learned, how much I lost.


Guys in here exercise for a number of reasons. They’re trying to combat boredom, they take their health seriously, or they just want to look good on visitation day.


But, there are men in here who view their weight lifting or running as I do. They find their spirit, they talk to God, they sense their liberation.


Prison, by and large, is a constant battle to do what’s right in an environment that is built completely on what’s wrong.


I find my purpose, remember the good, loving man I am, look forward to the future, put my left foot in front of my right and slowly start silently singing “God Our Help In Ages Past”.
And, the laps add up.