There are many times in our lives when change just happens. The "boiled frog syndrome" in action, where you wake up one morning and suddenly, things are no longer the same.

That was the case when, one day, I noticed my belt had gotten smaller. I thought of it only as a curiosity until I realized that someone had also been messing with my clothes. Like the old coat that mysteriously became a smaller version of the coat I'd "grown" to love.

It was 1983. After driving truck for a few years, I decided to take a job working in the distribution center for a local company. Hey I can do this, I thought. How hard can it be?

Mornings as I remembered them were gone forever. I walked away from a life of wide-open spaces into one with dark, endless nights bending and twisting in the belly of the beast. Churning out boxes so the rest of the world could watch clouds float past from a tenth-floor office suite in some distant city.

I have vivid memories of that first summer. I was working night shift, and every morning I would rise later and later as weeks went by. Soon, I was getting up just in time to catch the news at noon. Muscles I never knew I had were screaming in unison, suggesting in no uncertain terms I should reconsider this new direction in my life.

If you were to slam your finger in a car door, you'd get the picture. Unhappy with whom I had become, I knew instinctively what needed to be done. In short, I had the textbook epiphany.

The gradual transformation began soon after that. In an old sweatshirt and pants, I strapped on my new Kangaroo Joggers. Under cover of darkness, I dragged my plump sagging carcass out the door and ran (I use the term loosely) the quarter-mile loop around my neighborhood. Slowly at first, jog and walk, jog and walk. With wheezing and choking, the agonizing process of redefining my life began.

At the end of these short crawls that seemed to go on forever, I'd collapse on the couch and wait for the stabbing pain in my side to go away. "Some people actually ENJOY this?" I thought. There had to be a better way! But after some soul searching I dismissed any notion that quitting was an option.

Fast-forward 22 years ...

Well, I stuck to my plan, whatever it was. (I forgot). Only problem is that I seem to have traded one addiction, food and TV, for another, running. The only difference is that this demon took hold in ways I never imagined.

On vacations, for example, the first thing I packed was my running shoes. When planning where we would camp, consideration was given to location of scenic trails and 10K runs.

When I was sick with a temp of 102, I ran. Many times dinner waited because I had to run first. I can testify with a nearly-straight face that running two days after minor surgery is possible, although doing so is not without risk.

Slowly I have come to realize that I ran away from one beast into another's arms. As the beast of HoHos and Big Macs faded, I failed to recognize the beast of aerobic bliss that was taking control of my thoughts and actions.

For years I ran in the light of day. However, the daily demands of life have driven me at times to run in darkness, or to squeeze my run in whenever I could. On occasion, I chose to run instead of sleep when that was the only other choice.

Nineteen River Bank Runs have come and gone, along with countless other races of various distances. Still I cannot outrun the beast.

It has not been a total loss though ...

There are the oddities one discovers as one's mind wanders during long runs. I've found a "mystery spot" in my neighborhood, where an out-and-back run feels like running uphill the entire way. The proverbial uphill walk to school (both ways) we all heard about as children can be found while running. Can't explain it, don't want to try.

Another one of life's mysteries I've stumbled across is canine behavior. I've discovered that if you run past a dog every day, he will suspect foul play every time. Yet if you yell back louder than he can bark, he'll retreat nearly every time. Very odd, I wonder as I coast along.

Things that go bump in the night ...

The critters of the darkness also act differently than you'd expect. Skunks rarely raise their tails, but prefer to scamper into the nearest drain tile until the threat of being trampled to death has passed. Likewise an opossum, when encountered in the middle of the road, will not play dead. They will stop and face the neighborhood runner eye-to-eye as if to say: "OK, now you have me, what are you gonna do?"

Raccoons always seem to run down the road like tiny bandits fleeing crime scenes. Deer, on the other hand, run in random fashion yet are always curious enough to stop and look back. Once they see I'm no threat to their running prowess, they usually return to grazing.

I suspect all these critters conspiring against me, since they all wait until I'm about to trip over them before they do anything at all.

And yet some things never change ...

Death and taxes may not be life's only constants. After you've run for a couple hours, you become enlightened to other, less-obvious things. The smell of freshly-harvested corn as it wafts through October air. The crisp, biting cold you feel running into a headwind on a February morning. Or the squeaky-crunchy sound of running down a snowy, moonlit road when the temperature dips low.

As time slips away, I've learned to somewhat control this obsession, although it still can control me. I still find myself rising early when I can, seeking quiet when solitude can most easily be found. This escape is the closest I can come to soaring on wind.

And I'm convinced that watching the sun rise over the cornfields while running down the road is the greatest place on earth. In those moments, as dew lies heavily on the fields, the air takes on a quality that can't be found during daylight hours: sweet, cool and easy on the nostrils when drawn deep. It's a spiritual place that continues to call my name.

The most amazing thing I have realized over the years is that these wonders were always there. All that stood in my way was my lack of desire to step out and look. Strangely, that's been the hardest obstacle of all. I'm just a runner.

All this and yet I've never come close to winning a race. In fact, if I find myself in the middle of the pack, it's a good day. Oddly, the greatest reward I've gotten is being recognized in the store by strangers as "the runner guy."

Yeah, I'm the runner guy.

The guy who runs in blizzards and ice storms. The guy who thumbs his nose at fog and thunder. The guy who got yelled at by a passing motorist for running during a tornado warning. (Hey, I was hurrying, wasn't I?)

I've been pooped on by birds and chased by goats and cattle. I run in hot and cold, and I love it. I wear old smelly hats and gloves and my jacket is torn, but I don't care.

These are the tools of the thing I do. You can even call me a jogger and I don't care, because whatever you call me, it changes nothing.

But some things never stop changing ... As this running thing plays out, it appears I may finish it in the same way that I started. Years ago I practically crawled that first loop. Now, as time passes, my pace grows slower. Finally, somewhere along the line, I can see myself crawling that last mile, just as I started.

Despite it, I know there will always be more races to be run. Challenges in our lives that will destroy us if we allow them to.

Just as running seemed unpleasant in the early days, so does life at times. In hindsight, I see I was being prepared for the challenges ahead. I was in training, learning that as I got down the road, not only was it not as unpleasant as I'd imagined, but it was, in fact, rewarding. The hills were not as steep, nor the wind as cold.

And so I step out the door. I'm stiffer in the joints than I once was, and I am definitely slower. But out the door I go to greet the day.

The hills may look steep and it may be cold, but as I run the warm sets in, I look forward to what's ahead and it feels good.

And the prize I seek lies just around the next bend. MR

Ron Baker runs and writes in Hudsonville.