I started running at one of the most challenging times in my life. I was a point where I felt like I didn’t have anything left. The constants in my life had faded and I was a year into piecing myself back together again after witnessing years of my own self destruction. I needed something. I needed to do something. To own something. But I sat in this place, terrified beyond measure of failure. I knew whatever I took on I was most definitely going to fail at...so of course I decided to jump into something that I knew was entirely unreachable. Running. I was going to run. I knew I couldn’t. I thought I’d probably die. I had been told all of my life that I couldn’t run because of my weight and my “uniquely trained” dancers muscles. I knew that I was going to fail and if I was going to fail, I might as well fail hard. It’s less embarrassing when you fail at something if there wasn’t even any hope of you being successful...right?
I guess the joke was on me...because I didn’t fail. Well at least not in the way that I had expected to. The thing I learned really quickly about running was that if I allowed myself to be, I was in control. I sought comfort in the control aspect of running. Not comfort in the sense that running by any means was physically or mentally comfortable...in fact to this day running puts me in some of the most discomfort I can experience...but when I’m running, I’m in control of what kind of discomfort and for how long I’m experiencing it. I am also able to see, over varying times, how the discomfort eventually leads to progress and change.
Later on in my running journey social media took storm and I was finally able to see and connect with this larger running community. For the first time in my journey, I saw others talk about running in a way that I could connect with. Prior the world that social media is today, my acknowledgement of running pretty much stopped at Nike models and a handful of “Runner’s Stories” from the copies from Runner’s World that were in the bathroom at one of the houses I babysat at. Dorothy Beal popped into my life via instagram and I eventually found her blog. I discovered that I wasn’t alone in thinking that running was hard as shit but I wanted to do it anyways. Dorothy is the founder and creator of the “I Run This Body” and #ihavearunnersbody movements. I will always always be grateful for the courage and vulnerability that she brings to the sport. In her spotlight video with Saucony her opening lines are beautiful, striking, and haunt my mind in the most encouraging and understanding way. After chanting through heaving breathing to the soundtrack of only her own footsteps, she says, “I run this body. I’m in control of myself. I choose my path. As big as you can dream, you can make it come true.” That was it. That was my relationship with running. That was what I needed to hear someone else acknowledge and put words to to help me shift my perspective on my relationship with running. No medal in the world would have ever allowed me to say that I love running only because it’s mine, but her words helped me understand myself.
Now let me remind you that I used to hate running and somedays I still do. I guess my running story is really just like so many others’. I was at a point in my life where the only way to run from my problems was to literally just run. I notice that I fall in love with running all over again every time I’m dealing with something really hard or at a tough place in life where I feel compelled to find a piece of myself again. And that’s exactly where I am right now.
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