MENENDEZ: Running with Leslie
Humans have a rather complicated relationship with running: there’s the hellacious elementary school Presidential fitness test in which ten-year-olds are required to sprint back and forth across an un-airconditioned basketball court, slapping the out-of-bounds line as they scramble to beat an ever quickening, loud beep of elimination. There’s the sadistic high school cross country coach who has specifically chosen the largest hill in town for sprint workouts; the last runner to make it to the top has to jog back down and sprint up over and over (on exhausted legs) until her time miraculously improves. There’s the pictures of happy, sweaty friends on Facebook (filtered on Instagram) who’ve just completed yet another half-marathon when we claimed a victory last week after making it a full fifteen minutes without stopping. There’s the long-list of expensive and inconvenient impact injuries: shin splints, stress fractures, plantar fasciitis, patellofemoral pain syndrome, Achilles tendonitis, iliotibial band tendonitis, hip misalignment — and of course — the overwhelming amount of discomfort and heaving for air in the first ten minutes of running in general.