While suit shopping recently, I discovered that my size, 36 regular, is considered borderline freakish. This was the first time I had made the haberdashery rounds since 1990, when 36 regulars, although the smallest normally stocked suits, were nonetheless readily available. Fast forward to 1997, when stops in 10 men’s stores uncovered a total of eight 36 regulars, nearly all of which looked like leftovers from the "Three’s Company" wardrobe. Thanks to running, I’ve stayed the same in those seven years, but the rest of the world has apparently moved on to bigger, if not better things.

Certainly, my soma’s stasis isn’t something to lament, and I know I’m not alone among runners in this regard. I’m vain enough to admit a certain pride in still being able to wear a suit that I got in 11th grade, although, to be honest, it has become a bit big in the shoulders. But what about the non-physical aspects of our lives? Does running stunt our growth in other ways?

I’ve recently been in touch with some 15-years-since high school acquaintances. Their letters contained the usual thumbnail chronological sketches of jobs, families, hobbies, etc., then the concluding question, "How have you changed since we graduated?" In the format of these correspondences, I had to admit that I really hadn’t, except that the 70 miles a week I ran then is now more often 90. My main pursuits—running, obscure music and cerebral nonfiction—are the same. Even my one incontrovertible concession to adulthood, marriage, is with an endurance athlete who spends most of her sedentary free time with books and CDs.

Might it have been different if I hadn’t focused on running so much? Just as taking my first run around the block in 1979 has transmuted seriatim to my monthly presence on this page, following other trails would have led to doors that I don’t even know exist. I’m not talking about the little choices we make because of running, such as not playing basketball for fear of injury, although these do provide a near-daily reminder that we often opt out of normal activities, many of them social, that might expand our ranges of experience.

Rather, I mean the big-picture stuff we neglect because running eats so much of our clocks and energy. My list of perpetually put-aside projects—being in a band, getting another degree, becoming involved in community politics—grows every few years. Knowing that I couldn’t run and rear well has long been an integral part of deciding never to be a parent. (Well, that and the fact that my experiences are so limited that the extent of my fatherly wisdom would be this: When you’re buying two bagels, you can save money by ordering one with cream cheese, the other plain, because there will be enough spread on the one for both.) As for work, the only time I’ve really pursued my career, I had the worst three years of running in my life.

Conversely, a hardcore friend notes that his law school colleagues have left him far behind professionally, owing to his 100-mile-a-week habit. Like me, this compadre has been at it since his teens, so his world, too, is self-circumscribedly small. Even his familial ties are frayed by his running. His brother likes to meet weekdays for lunch, but this is prime training time, so my friend runs a mile to the encounter, sits long enough to eat a PowerBar, then carries on. It’s hard not to hear a little acknowledgment of regret when he speaks of this.

But should we punish ourselves for learning earlier in life than most what’s important to us? Others have written movingly of the wasted, drifting time in their adulthood before they discovered running; those who have been consumed by it but no longer are often speak of their previous state with a wistfulness that shows they remember how cherished a place it can be.

And it’s not as if we’ve stood still emotionally—running has contributed significantly to our knowledge that life is a series of trade-offs. To a one, my training partners accept the limitations that running places on their time, ambition and loved ones, and they do this without much martyrdom.

Still, I have a hard time accepting this resolution so stoically, and I view it with significant shades of gray in the mix. Obviously, nobody makes me run, and in the terminal test tube of deeds, my choices are obvious, and unlikely to change. But in the thoughts that add so much flavor to concrete reality, there are several Scotts who have died on the vine in the past two decades while I was tending to my running.

Oh well. At least when I bought a pair of Levi’s during the summer, they had a 30-inch inseam and a 29-inch waist, just like in 1981.

May 2003: The jeans still fit!

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