Before I left Brooklyn, I threw away a pair of running shoes. They were the first pair I’ve owned and actively used for more than a year (even though lately the word ‘active’ has meant running one to three times a week). They were Nike Pegasus, as usual — the only model of running shoe I’ve felt comfortable in since my days on the OSU team, when Nike was our sponsor and therefore our only choice.

Side note: Before those days, I had been pretty faithful to Mizuno. The idea of having to run in Nike running shoes — even the Bowerman series — irritated me at first and made me cringe and grab for my shins and knees in phantom pains after each run. Those pains didn’t actually exist, and after a season or two in the Pegasus, Nike became my favorite running shoe.

I came to the realization today while scanning the racks in Famous Footwear for something, anything, that I could run in without destroying my feet or legs, that that was probably the last expensive pair of running shoes I’ll buy for awhile. Until I have a job, at least, and until I’m running more than 25 miles a week consistently, I don’t deserve nice things, like expensive running shoes and sleek new shorts.

I had bought this final pair of Nike Pegasus at a cute little runner’s boutique in Corvallis last August when I was getting back into somewhat reasonable racing shape (the last time I’ve done THAT in a year). I also bought a Nike Plus watch, and when I threw out my running shoes in that juicy, Brooklyn metal trash can I forgot to get the little pod out of the sole of my shoe — dammit.

There’s this fad that seems to be washing over all my Facebook friends across the last year or two. As I’ve gradually “retired,” I’ve become more and more casual about running — I’ll go through spurts of great motivation where I run 35-45 miles a week, but these are punctuated by dry periods where I run maybe once a week. As I’ve slowed down in running, they’ve discovered it, seemingly for the first time — they’ve become vigorous about it. Zealous, even. People who would have scoffed at the idea of going for a run at all in high school and refused to work out anywhere but in the warm, dry gym on the elliptical machines in college all of a sudden are these hardcore, cut, watch-wearing harriers.

They might not be fast or racing for time, but they’re into it — they’ve joined local teams, they run half marathons and marathons, they do triathlons and somehow sneak their way onto highly-coveted spots on Hood to Coast teams. They run 45 miles a week at 9 minute pace and think nothing of it. For them, it’s not mental. They are not neurotic, which nearly all “real” runners I know are. They don’t punish themselves by busting out 7 miles at 6:30 pace after not running for a week. They don’t berate themselves for not running fast enough or often enough — they don’t fight with themselves to just get out the door.

I’ve always loved to run, and I always will run — no matter if I’m competing or how often I have time to do it. It’s a huge part of who I am and it has been since I was probably 8, if I can pinpoint an exact age. When I’m stressed or upset or depressed, I have to run. If I seem off when I talk to my parents on the phone or in person, they ask if I’ve been running. When something’s going wrong in my life, it’s always exponentially improved by me getting back into shape or just hitting my favorite running spots a few times. But it’s always been a struggle, because I’ve always been obsessed with being “good” and “fast”, and I’ve always done my training runs way too fast, which unfailingly led to frustrating injuries and early season burn out.

I was mediocre for most of high school, so I spent a summer and a winter running six to seven miles every night until I finally cracked the top five in our district. Walking onto the team at OSU and working myself up the ladder there was tough, but maybe not as tough as the daily struggle of just getting out the door sometimes.

For me, running was usually angry, heated, fast, fierce, ugly. Especially before I left for a run every day, I’d be lacing up my shoes and hating myself and hating the hills I knew I was about to drag myself through and hating the IT band ache that still, to this day, will never go away. But I knew if I didn’t go, I would hate myself even more, so I groaned and spat and shook my head. My stomach curdled and finally turned — and I would sacrifice a sock in the middle of the berry-stained woods somewhere because I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.

But after — after. Even if I was slogging back to my car with one sock, a million stinging cuts, sweat in my eyes and three new blood blisters on my hideous, raggedy feet, I could not begin to describe the feeling. Accomplishment, euphoria, knowing that you kick ass — the feeling that wow, I’m in better shape than I thought I was. Wanting to seek out a race or time trial, because damn, I’m ready.

It’s different, now. I’m less neurotic — now, when I go for a run, it’s because I want to, not because I have to make up whatever I didn’t run yesterday because I need to meet a mileage quota by Sunday and oh my god I’m already seven miles behind. I run slower now, too. The miles of trials have taught me that, for me at least, gut-wrenching diarrhea usually comes with busting out the first three miles of an uncomfortable run at 6 minute pace, so I start out slow and work my way up. I like to run alone, now, because I’m not doing it just for the sake of getting it done and over with for the day. And I’m never tempted to bring an iPod (for the record, I haven’t run with music since I was 16) because I want to live in it. I want to remember it. I don’t want to escape it anymore. It’s more of a comfortable, fond relationship, like a long talk with an old friend, than a daily love-hate battle.

I was feeling old and fat and out of shape a few weeks ago in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which has a 3.5 mile running and biking loop around it that I decided to do twice that night. There are always, ALWAYS runners on that loop, which is both good and bad for me. In this little sphere of my life, I am maybe the most competitive person I know, so no matter who’s in front of me or how far away they are and no matter how out of shape I am, I groan and, completely involuntarily, end up dragging myself past them, panting and wheezing and entirely hating myself the whole time.

I met my match that night. Usually people hate that competitive jerk that brushes past them a little too fast and a little too close, but that night a short Latino dude — clearly not a runner — was not going to let me pass him. I drafted him for probably two miles, edging forward and falling back. I weaved a little, and he weaved too, not allowing me to pass. Eventually I caught up with him, feeling like a lanky and uncoordinated gazelle running next to a fitter but smaller warthog, and we ran together for awhile, going probably 7:30 pace.

When we came to the only hill in the park, which is gradual but long,  he finally fell off. I sort of chuckled to myself, thinking maybe I still had it, and chugged on for a few minutes — then immediately hated myself again when I saw the next person in front of me and subconsciously made the choice to tackle them, too.

I think I’ve run twice since that run in the park a few weeks ago. So no, I don’t still have it. Not even close… especially evidenced by the fact that today in Famous Footwear, I finally settled on some Nike Reaxes, or whatever the hell they’re called, for $65.

They don’t hug my feet. They don’t cushion my high arch or make my IT band feel like it’s being protectively coddled from disaster and injury. In fact, they feel almost like running in a pair of Vans, but I don’t deserve those fancy, expensive shoes anymore — unlike my newly running-starved Facebook friends, who are in the honeymoon phase of their relationship with running, a relationship yet unmarred by injury, burnout and plateau. And until I’m back there where I always want to be and consistently running more than 25 to 30 miles a week, I’ll duck my head and dutifully slog it out in my cheap (cardboard) Nikes.