Running Short
An Essay By Adam Wojack
With fellow soldiers after a fun run on a U.S. base in Baghdad, Iraq in 2007. I’m second from the left, and covered in sweat.
I started running in high school in California, where I grew up, because I wanted to be on a team and had friends who ran track. I tried pole vaulting, but didn’t have the upper body strength or sprint speed, so I switched to distance running. I was terrible at that too. I remember being lapped during my first 2-mile race, and again on the 1-mile. I stayed on the team, though, and ran cross-country the next fall, but was mediocre at best. I thought I’d never be a good runner.
After dropping out of college in my early twenties, I decided to join the Army. I wanted something new and adventurous, and needed a way out of New York City after a difficult few years. In preparation for basic training, I ran in baggy sweats along the East River on cold winter mornings. Some days, I found myself behind spandex-wearers who looked like they’d been fast their whole lives. I’d run their pace to test mine, and found I could keep up. When I took my first Army physical fitness test a few months later, I clocked almost 12-flat on the 2-mile run, and was one of the first finishers. I realized I was no longer terrible. Since then, I’ve considered myself a runner.
“I showed up for [PPTC’s] Saturday morning runs until other pursuits took over; then, the pandemic struck. I’ve been running solo in the park ever since. But I haven’t forgotten the group feeling.”
I made the Army a career. After 9-11, I was stationed on a U.S. base in Germany with my wife and three children when my unit received orders to deploy. This would happen several more times over the next 10 years. But whether home or away, running was a steady comfort. I became obsessive about 2-mile times, always trying to push it into the 11s, feeling if I only ran harder or longer I could enter this zone – a place where other problems couldn’t keep up. On a deployment to Iraq in 2007, I knew my marriage was in trouble. Many nights, I couldn’t sleep. To combat this, I went for runs at night around the large base in Baghdad, trying to tire myself out. It mostly worked.
When I did go through divorce proceedings a few years later, I kept running, as hard as I could to blow stress from mind and body. I ran so long one morning at Fort Bragg, North Carolina that I woke up that night with shooting pain in my hip. I took a couple of days off, but couldn’t stop running. I found once I warmed up, the pain went away. It came back though, in the form of stiffness, before and after. And it stayed.
I retired in 2015 as an Army major, and found myself back in New York City for the first time since the 1990s. I became a high school English teacher and put down roots in Brooklyn, near Prospect Park. All this time, I kept running. I’d run 5ks, 10ks, half-marathons and a few full marathons (3:29 personal best). I’d also picked up a love for playing soccer while on deployment to Afghanistan.
Those days, when I wasn’t running the Prospect Park loop, I’d run wild on grass or turf, chasing an inflated ball. The way I ran on the soccer field, I knew, was a substitute for pushing it during those 2-mile fitness tests I no longer had to run. But the hip injury from Fort Bragg persisted, and I felt increasingly stiff after each game. I hadn’t yet realized my problem wasn’t the running.
As I confronted those first years post-military, living alone in Brooklyn with my three grown children elsewhere, I had few personal connections. Only a new love for teaching English – and soccer – kept me occupied. But I noticed I wasn’t making friends out of new acquaintances at pickup games or in school. Worse, my hard-charging ways were causing problems at work, and teaching was something I didn’t want to risk losing.
I think everything started changing after I went to counseling at the VA in Manhattan. I remember these weekly sessions feeling like punishment. But after they ended, I realized I no longer wanted, or needed, to run so hard. I remembered what I enjoyed about running: the glide, controlled breathing, the coat of sweat. I also realized I wanted people in my life. I looked around for a running club, thinking that doing what I loved with like-minded others was a place to start. I joined PPTC in the summer of 2019.
I showed up for the Saturday morning runs in July, August and September – 8, 10, 12 miles – until other pursuits took over: a Saturday morning writing workshop and a great new relationship. Then the pandemic struck. I've been running solo in the park ever since. But I haven’t forgotten the group feeling: smiling faces, fit bodies, small talk, and seeing the same folks the following Saturdays. It was extra fun for me because I had no marathon-prep stress to carry along.
I ran for the joy of it, and for the pleasure of company. I look forward to this again.
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PPTC is a diverse and supportive team. We want to showcase and celebrate the diversity of our club and membership, and encourage everyone to share your stories with us.
text and photo: Adam Wojack
edits: Rachael DePalma
produced by: Alison Kotch