Running is breaking down barriers for Adam Crawford, but it’s not the act of running, it’s the therapy provided.

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Beneath the Surface is peeling back the layers of this onion we call sports.

Running is something I never thought I would enjoy. In high school baseball we ran as punishment for not doing something correctly or not working hard enough. We would run along the outfield fence from one foul pole to the other, commonly referred to as a pole. After each practice or each game, win or lose, we’d run a minimum of four.

By the end of the first pole my feet would begin to crumble like Achilles heel as the ground pounded my spikes into the bottoms of my feet. Running was not something I was good at, nor enjoyed. As a high school kid who lifted a lot of weights, and prided himself on how much weight he could lift. All running was to me was a reminder of my weakness.

In 2007 I joined the Army, and my perspective on running began to shift. It was less of a reminder of weakness and more of a reminder of my potential. While I wasn’t good at running, I was never in last place and I never quit. I slowly started to see improvement, because in the Army they measure progress religiously when it comes to physical training. As I noticed my run times begin to drop and my ability to maintain a specific pace without a watch, I was encouraged.

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I continued to run when required but as the years pushed on it became more and more of a hassle. The daily group runs and constant scrutiny for not running two miles at blazing speed started to wear me down a bit. Running was part of my job and not part of my life. I was better at it than I had been my entire life, and the occasional run during personal time was a reality, but it wasn’t something I cherished.

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All that changed when my daughter passed away.

I had been deployed for eight months when she got sick and the Army rushed me back to the states. After a hard fought battle for 30 days with pneumonia and a respiratory failure, I went from having two kids on Earth to just one. In a single instant, my life changed forever.

As I stood over my daughters bed, holding her hand in the last moments of her life, running was far from my mind. I never thought a sport I got paid to improve at would find a place in my heart. After we returned from the funeral I found myself sitting on my couch wondering what the hell I was going to do next. TV shows were piling up on my Netflix queue and the beers were stacking up on the end table.

One night I finished a six-pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager and made a decision. I couldn’t let myself go down that hole. I couldn’t let the bottom of a beer bottle be where I was going to look for answers. I couldn’t let my memories of my daughter fade away as I drank them into the past forever.

The next morning I went for a run. It was the first run I’d gone on since before my deployment. It hurt, it hurt really bad. Before I reached a mile I couldn’t breathe and I had a side stitch reminiscent of my high school baseball days. I wanted to quit after the first mile. I wanted to go buy a six-pack of beer, but I didn’t. I pushed on. There was something going on in my brain and my heart that said, “don’t quit running, you need it.”

Whatever that voice was, wherever it was coming from, I’m eternally grateful.

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In October of 2014 I ran my first half-marathon. I trained for four months in the hills of Clarksville, Tennessee.

Each run I discovered something different about myself.

I discovered that running created an hour or more per day of thinking time for me to process the thoughts and the memories going through my mind. I discovered what people call “the runner’s high.” I discovered what it means to have shin splints, and push through them. I discovered what it means to push your body and improve your mind while doing so.

I discovered that running is not a physical sport, as I thought for so many years. It’s a mind and spirit sport.

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In the popular series we’ve been doing, “Why We Run”, many people have talked about the joys of running helping them escape the difficulties of this world. I am no different. I run, not because I want to but because I have to. If I don’t run I feel like I’m not cleansing my mind and my spirit.

The Clarksville Half-Marathon was a first for me. It was the first endurance race of any kind I’d competed in, and it was the turning point for what running meant to me. I’m a better man because I made the choice to run.

I’m a healing father instead of a broken father because I made the choice to run.

I’m a man who knows what it’s like to overcome challenges because I made the choice to run.

You don’t have to pound your feet on the pavement in order to be a successful person.

You don’t have to pound your feet on the pavement in order to overcome the loss of a loved one.

You don’t have to pound your feet on the pavement in order to be a better man or better woman, but you have to figure out what your “running” is, and make the choice to do it.

And you have to do it right now.

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Photo: Flickr/philhearing