Born to Run: Alex Wood makes running an integral part of life

Alex Wood sits quietly, pondering her toughest question yet: When was the last time you went more than a day without running?

“I…,” she says, her voice trailing off mid-thought. After a second such lengthy pause, she begins again.

“I don’t know,” she says.

The stagger follows a series of questions to which she has endless anecdotes and stories; but this is the first question she has no answer for.

Her aim is to just run; 5ks, 10ks, half-marathons, marathons and even an ultra-marathon. You name it, and the third-year communications studies student has probably run it.

Monday, Wood will take part in the annual Boston Marathon, her eighth 26.2 mile race in the past three years and the start of her latest challenge: two marathons in six days.

“The shorter stuff I feel anybody can do,” she said. “I feel like a marathon is just such an emotional, huge feat … you have to rely on just a lot of mental toughness.”

In the running world, the combination of the Boston Marathon, usually around mid-April, and the Big Sur Marathon, which Wood will run a week later, are famously dubbed the “B2B” – the Boston-to-Big-Sur Challenge. Typically, the two fall a couple weeks apart, as they did last year. In that go-around – her first – Wood was the youngest participant in the 400-person competition.

This year, the stakes are even higher, as the two marathons on opposite coasts are within a week’s time. On the official B2B website, the description includes the line – “Only the fittest (or craziest!) ever attempt back-to-back marathons.”

For Wood, the predicament couldn’t be any sweeter; she has the luxury of just running.

***

Occasionally, like almost every mother and daughter pair, Lisa Wood and Alex Wood will bicker. Maybe even an argument ensues. However, that’s when Lisa Wood knows her daughter best.

“Do we talk about things and talk it out? No, we go for a run,” Lisa Wood, a runner herself, said. “We always go for a run. Of course, I can’t remotely keep up with Alex.”

In Alex Wood’s early days at UCLA, when the Sacramento-native felt homesick, she would, like usual, turn to the comforting feeling of a long run. Even now, whenever she has a bad day, Wood laces up her shoes and heads out the door, problems fading.

“My favorite thing about (running) is that I feel at home when I run. It’s something I’m used to,” she said. “It just brings you back to feeling like yourself.”

Wood sees running as more than just her passion; she said it’s an escape for her. (Yin Fu/Daily Bruin)

Wood runs nearly every day of the week, taking only one day off for rest. In the mornings, she can often be found winding down the streets of Westwood, and out to the beach – her favorite running destination. It’s an easy jog there and back. After all, her average run is about 10 miles.

Looking back to her pre-running days as a 14-year-old, Wood said she never would’ve seen her current 60-mile weeks, or runner’s lifestyle, coming. After her freshman year in high school, the self-proclaimed “chubby” kid wanted to lose weight. So her mom had to break the bad news.

“She was like, ‘Alex, if you want to lose weight, you gotta run.’ But I was like, ‘I hate it, it’s so hard and it sucks,’” Wood said.

As a club soccer player throughout middle school, Wood loved to sit on the bench. She didn’t want to move much at all, let alone run. Once, when she playing, she asked her mom, the team’s coach, if she could play goalie; it required the least running.

But in time, Wood gave in to her longing to be healthier. Her runs started off as a half-mile jog, followed by a half-mile walk. Soon, a half-mile became a mile, and then that turned into three miles, ultimately to the tune of three or four times per week.

“I was on the softball team and I remember one day we had a run around the field, and I just remember passing everybody and they were like, ‘Woah,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I started running,’” Wood said. “And so I hated softball then. All I could think about was, ‘Could this game be over so I can run?’”

One day near the end of her senior year in high school on an 11-mile run, she was overcome by an out-of-the-blue, captivating feeling. She immediately ran home, burst into her house and found her mom.

“I was like, ‘Mom, mom, mom!’ And she was like, ‘What?’ And I (said), ‘I’m going to run a marathon,’” Wood said.

***

Luckily enough for Wood, she’s never had to do without her self-described escape. She’s been fortunate enough to stay injury-free, never having to miss multiple days from running. She jokes, though, if it were to happen, she’d go into a “deep depression.”

“She’s not just someone who enjoys it, but when she doesn’t do it, she misses it and complains about it all the time,” said Mara Behar, a third-year communication studies and pre-business economics student, and Wood’s best friend.

And so, as you’d expect, somewhere in Monday’s Boston Marathon, Wood will be jogging along, her Nacho Libre costume on full display. In the theme of keeping her races fun and lighthearted, she wears costumes in many of them.

The costumes, though, seem like the cherry on top. As Wood knows, running takes the cake, so she isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

“I want to run forever and ever,” she said. “I want to run until I’m crippled and can’t, and even then, I want to run.”