There is a fine line between sadness and depression, and one can become the other in a split second.  I have written many times about why I run and how much I love it.  But rarely do I talk about how running brought me from an impending depression in 2012. 

Some of you may know this but in June 2012 while in formation, one of my fellow Soldiers opened fire and killed my battalion commander.   As someone who has deployed countless times you would think that I would be used to death.  But I am not.  I have been lucky by not having lost any friends or family in the war.  But more importantly you expect things like this to happen in a deployed environment… not at home.  I am not going to go into the specific details of that afternoon but I will tell you that seeing someone I respected being murdered in front of me was simply the most intense and horrible thing I have witnessed.  Even after only being in the unit as his second in command for two months I respected and looked up to my commander, and the Soldiers did too.  I mentioned this because this event managed to do something that not even my weird thyroid problems were able to do: it almost sent me into a depression.

I am not going to claim that I had PTSD but I can tell you that I had a very hard time coping with it.  I could not sleep, I had mood swings that ended in crying and I retreated into this internal cocoon that seemed perfectly safe—a place where I could not be harmed.  The only person that was able to reach in and bring me out was my dad, who to this day I think God kept him around one more year to help me through this crisis. 

I was angry at people who would tell me “you have to move on” or “you should see someone” after only two or three months of this happening.  The words: throat punch would come to mind every time I heard this.  But I am a leader and we do not have mental problems—we are warriors and we can handle anything.  Or so I thought.  But I refused to get help.  Instead I turned to the one thing that centered me: RUNNING. 


It was not planned; it just happened.  The first night it happened was two nights after the incident.  I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating.  I looked to the corner where my running shoes were, changed clothes, laced them on and off I went.  I did not even think about it.  It was 2:00 AM.  I do not remember how long I ran but I remember how while I ran, everything seemed to be muted.  And I liked it.  And so, every time I had a nightmare or felt like the sadness was enveloping me I ran… and ran… and ran. 

So, when I hear the phrases RUNNING KEEPS ME SANE or RUNNING MAKES ME STRONG, I feel like whoever came up with those phrases is a kindred spirit.  Because running indeed kept me sane and it made me strong.  Those phrases have become sort of a cliché but indeed they apply to me.  It got to the point that for the first time in my life my parents started getting worried about all the running and with reason: while running kept me sane, it was breaking down my body because I did not rest nor noticed the pain.  I was falling apart with pains that were not normal.  But inside the physical pain became nothing in comparison to emotional pain I was feeling.  Luckily my dad, who was a Vietnam vet who saw many horrors and has been in this place of grief, finally halted me and made me realize that I needed to stop and face this thing I was going through.  And I did because I felt stronger.  Yes too much of a good thing can be bad but I caught myself in time.  Looking back, all that running and the introspection that came with running made me stronger and gave me the courage to deal and face all the emotions I was trying to avoid.  It kept me sane.

Yes, I have always run because I love it but since 2012 I run for my emotional sanity.  I run because, as I have mentioned before, it is my happy place.  So on this day when we celebrate National Running Day, may we all who enjoy running continue to do so and may our bodies and spirits carry us through the miles ahead.   To all of you who run: y'all are amazing and I am so proud of all of your accomplishments whether it is your first time running or achieving that elusive PR on your marathon.  You are a runner and thus part of an awesome community.  Why do you run?