CHALMETTE, LA — When I began recording runs in a log book years ago, I did so at the suggestion of a number of close friends and members of my local running club, the Hattiesburg, Miss.-based Pine Belt Pacers.  Their instructions and advice included the familiar advantages of keeping tabs of my daily jaunts. Maintaining a record, they said, would help me prepare for racing, warn me of over or under-training, and allow me to compare my performances over months, and even years, of running.

Consequently, I suppose my entries are typically mundane.  At first glance, the one or two sentences each day tell the time of day I ran, the temperature, mileage – in other words, all of the usual suspects and little more.  Occasionally, an entry will offer an overly detailed explanation such as “legs tired from hard run yesterday.”

As I grow older, slower and (at least in my mind) wiser, I am also learning that those simple entries in many cases may as well be pages or chapters. They reveal not only time and distance, but mark important life events.  One particular entry, July 1, 2006, was such a record.

The entry reads simply, “8 miles on the Trace, pretty hard, with dad on bike.” The Reader’s Digest version is as follows – I started a fairly decent clip for myself, about 7:45 per mile in the 95 degree heat. As the run continued, I dropped the pace until I closed with a 6:38 final mile. In many ways I imagine I’m still a kid trying to impress dad.  Gasping for air at run’s end, but settling instead for a satisfying taste of pine straw, dirt and weeds as I knelt in submission, I had accomplished my mission—dad was proud.

A more detailed version of that run, however, requires me to thumb back some 11 months when for days and days the entries in my book read simply, “Katrina.” Perhaps more accurately the full story must include a recap of an additional 25 years of family and Pine Belt Pacer history as well.

More than two decades ago, I was an anxious youngster growing up in Chalmette, La., a suburb of New Orleans. I quickly discovered athletics, most enthusiastically road racing, at the encouragement of my father and mother.  I participated in my first fun run as a 6-year-old with dad alongside and loved it. Over the next few years, I scooted through numerous 5 and 10Ks and enjoying the time with dad in the process.
 
In the subsequent years, however, a lot changed. As the songwriter Paul Simon once said, “I’m older than I once was, but younger than I’ll be.” I graduated from high school and moved on to The University of Southern Mississippi.  Friends came and left, and the miles between my family and I not only established a geographic buffer zone, but a growing emotional distance between us as well.  I was married and I met my new Pacer friends, and the love affair with the roads, track and paths, some more beaten than others, was renewed.  Soon I was president of the Pacers and successfully completing marathons.

Then came Katrina.

It is hard to recall, even a year later, what those days were like just after Katrina. It is also hard to imagine that the conversations consisted of items such as the proper depth to dig a hole should you require use of a restroom. Instead of wondering if our legs were weary from a difficult run, we had more pressing concerns. Locating the next day’s worth of water and food among them.  Running, had it been a thought, was impossible. Broken and battered longleaf pine trees made it so that leaving and returning far from home meant submitting yourself to a giant game of pickup sticks. Usually a chainsaw, patience, and most importantly, a full tank of gas, was required, and it was worse for our Gulf Coast Running Club and New Orleans Track Club friends.

Assuredly, Katrina has left us with scars that will last a lifetime. Personally, I’ll never forget returning to St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana for the first time post-Katrina to recover what was left of my mother’s belongings and my childhood. Her home – destroyed. The ballpark where I caught my first fly ball and made my first tackle – devastated.  The park where I logged my first miles – still there, but now the two-third of a mile circle is a FEMA trailer village.

With that being said, those of us living in south Mississippi and Louisiana want everyone to know we’re going to be O.K. In fact, you should know that in many ways we are going to be better than ever.  Over the past year we’ve welcomed the assistance of a running community thousands of miles in diameter.  Help came from close to home in the form of brute physical, mental and emotional strength, including the broad shoulders and strong back of a former Southern Miss linebacker, Mike Villalonga, known to many in the club only as “Big Mike” who in the days following Katrina hauled tree after tree off of the popular running trail, the Longleaf Trace. Help also came from across the country in the form of a contribution from the Road Runners Club of America.

Our reaction, we are learning, can trump the tragedy. Not only can we get back to where we once were, we can exceed the accomplishments of the past.  Our club is growing – we’ve come from never exceeding more than 100 members to more than 150 this July.  In May, with the help of the 700-member Colorado-based Incline Club, we raised three times as much for a cross country scholarship at Southern Miss as we did in 2005, pre-Katrina.

It is a fact that in the face of life’s fires, or hurricanes, it becomes difficult to put the past behind and look beyond the present.  It is the norm, I suppose, to set standards equal to previous achievements. The goal foolishly becomes getting back to where you were, not realizing that where you were was not ideal. Growth requires the realization that not only must you accept tragedy as part of life, but welcome it as well.

All of which brings me back to July 1, 2006, “8 miles on the Trace, pretty hard, with dad on bike.”  Today dad lives in Hattiesburg, forced from south Louisiana by Katrina. He has found a job he enjoys which pays him more than the work he was doing in New Orleans a year ago. That day he accompanied me on a run for the first time in two decades. The distance between he and I, including emotional, is decreasing.

Yes, quite often there is much more to a log book entry than distance, time and weather. And like my log book, Katrina’s story will continue to be told, day-by-day for years to come.


Jim Coll is an Assistant Director for Communications of Southern Miss Alumni Association and a doctoral student in mass communication in the School of Mass Communication and Journalism. The After Katrina Newswire is a project of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism at USM (www.usm.edu/afterkatrina). This story can be reprinted with this credit included.