I never liked running. Or athletics. Throughout my life, I have never considered myself to be an athletic person despite participating in sports and working out regularly. Part of the reason was my stubborn resistance to proving my parents right. Both are athletes who became gym teachers, my father a former marathoner and my mother a petite swimmer who sometimes practices her butterfly stroke on vacations, her aging arms slowly churning the water with the awkward motions of the movement. She, like my father, wears sneakers and lightweight sweat suits, mostly navy and black. Their occupations and general outlook on life are defined by this idea of being active, of competing in and following sports of all kinds, something that served as a major source of anxiety throughout my childhood and adolescence.
One event sticks out in my mind, a time that I'm still not sure if I actually remember it or if I have just heard the story so many times that I have internalized it as a tangible life experience. There I was, a nine-year old with a bad bowl cut, coming downstairs on a weekday and plopping myself down at our kitchen table. I let out an overdramatic sigh of surrender. My nine year old sigh was soaked in desperation, the kind of sigh that begs to be asked about.
“Sara,” my father had said. “What’s wrong?”
Again, the sigh was forced out. “It’s Wednesday.”
He was confused. “What’s wrong with Wednesdays?”
“It’s gym day.” I picked at my cereal. This is probably the last thing a P.E. teacher wants to hear their child to think, much less say out loud. Luckily, I’ve progressed from that day, learning slowly about the merits that fitness and athleticism had to offer.
It has taken me a long time to realize the importance of running. Going into college, I never thought I would be able to call myself an athlete, but a few years and couple hundred hours on the volleyball team forced me to become one. Still, I never got into running, pushing it away because I couldn't handle the type of endurance and mindset needed to be successful at it.
It wasn't until I reached a point in my life where I found myself hopelessly unhappy- unhappy with how I looked, with how I felt about myself, with how others saw me- that I found myself aching for something to pull me back up to a healthy state of mind. That something was running.
I started running while I was studying abroad in Italy, a semester away after a rough year involving my own personal struggles with body image and self-confidence. I didn't run that frequently- two to three times a week around a four mile loop on the Tiber River- but something about that semester changed me. Aside from gaining almost 20 pounds due to the excessive amounts of pesto, pizza, and red wine, I came back feeling completely different about myself. I was convinced the running had nothing to do with it, that the transformation came from the laid back Italian lifestyle and feeling of independence I cultivated while I was there.
But the running part stayed with me, increasing to five times a week. I ran my first race that summer. During all those miles I put in, I finally started to get it.
As long as I had thoughts to fuel my wanderings (and I have a lot of thoughts), I felt like I could run for hours. No wonder runners are so crazy. All they have to do on those outings was THINK. Just think. The only thing with you on those runs are your thoughts. And while running, I finally sorted my thoughts on the subject to figure out why it was so important. Here they are, as random as they came into my head:
-Sometimes there is merit in running away from things. Negativity, norms that hold you back, mindsets that keep you from loving yourself- there is no shame in running away from these things, so long as you are running towards things that are good for you.
-What a difference purpose makes. Run to a destination, and you always have to run back. Always. Run randomly, in circles, following back in steps you've already taken- you will never run as far, or as long, as when you run with a purpose and a destination in mind.
-You can always go faster. Or farther. Or longer. Very rarely do we push ourselves to our limits, and running reminds me of that. I just keep thinking, "A little faster. A little farther. A little longer." And usually, if I'm willing to put in the effort, I can do that.
-Running gives you balance. It's the one time in a day where it's just you, nobody else. You determine your pace (or lack of pace), you determine how hard you work. It's not that you can't make excuses, because frequently, you do. But every time that happens, you know it's an excuse. Every little "I just ate" or "I didn't get a lot of sleep" or "My leg's bothering me" lets you stop, but deep down you KNOW you're making excuses. I find myself doing that, justifying why I'm stopping or slowing down or going back home. But the bottom line is that I am in full control of whether I accept those excuses or overcome them, and that feeling of power allows me to gain confidence in myself when other parts of my life seem hopeless.
It would be dangerous if I could run and write at the same time. This entry would be much longer and more sporadic if that were possible. The bottom line is that I value running more now that I haven't been able (or willing) to do it. I miss that feeling of sweating out troubles, or just letting my mind go crazy while my feet hit the pavement. Even though I never ran all that fast, or fast at all, I have never given it enough credit in changing the way I thought about myself. That's where I found the importance of running.
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