April 26, 2013

Why do you run?

One of the defining opportunities of my adolescence and young adulthood was the eight summers I spent working at a Christian youth camp. Every Thursday, all of the groups would come together for Skit Night. We sang songs, laughed at ridiculous reenactments of things that had happened during the week, and listened to a brief lesson or story from the director. My favorite part came near the end, when one of the staff members would stand up and tell their testimony of falling in love with Jesus. The stories always amazed me, and the very first one I heard opened my heart to the idea that being a Christian didn’t have to mean ritual and religion and abiding by some ancient rule book… It just meant accepting a free hand up when you have fallen, and loving others unconditionally. It makes me literally sick to see how far the label of Christian has come in the public eye from the Commandment of Love. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten that this blog is supposed to be about running and how it applies to life. Where this is really going us that I think there is immeasurable value in sharing how you came to really believe in a value or lifestyle. Something that changes the way you view or respond to the rest of the world. Some people have a climbing testimony, others one for cycling, still others a particular nutritional belief… In fact, we all have many testimonies to tell, and you never know who needs to hear them. This is my running testimony…

Five years ago, running counted in the categories of “not quite torture” and “what you do when you want to tell someone you worked-out.” In high school, I participated in one track season because it seemed like the right thing to do when I was angry at my choir director. Those of you who know me now would laugh to hear that I was a sprinter. Even in practice, we rarely ran more than 200 meters at a time. The one and only 400m relay I participated in was enough to make me give up that form of transportation forever. Later in high school, I convinced myself that running was fun for the benefit of my best friend, who convinced me to play on the soccer team. In reality, running into people was fun, actually running was not. I was pretty proud to run one sub-10:00 mile during physical education testing as a high school senior…and was pretty sure it was the last time I would ever run a timed mile. In college, running was really only necessary to get from the barn, to class, and back to the barn as quickly as possible. I liked being active and playing games, but running for the sake of running was work. Horses were my sport, and I was stubbornly sticking to it. Displaying interest in anything else could be used as leverage for why I should give it up and move to a cheaper/cooler/more understandable activity.

During finals week of my last year, I dislocated my left shoulder coming off a horse that refused a fence. Five weeks later, it dislocated for a second time. I spent the next eight weeks in a shoulder immobilizer and couldn’t jump or show a horse for the rest of the semester. For me, that was a dream that shattered just before its completion. I knew I couldn’t ride in veterinary school, and might never have the opportunity to feel like a competitive horse person again. I just wanted that perfect ending and I could walk away content with memories. After watching the variable outward expressions of my inner storm of depression and bitterness, my instructor told me to write down some goals for myself for the rest of the semester. She wouldn’t let me ride for the rest of the semester, even when no longer encumbered by the immobilizer, but I could manage the show team for the spring and show after graduation if I “stayed in shape.” I was going to be in the best shape possible to earn a chance to complete my dream.

That same year, my best friend became my girlfriend and then became my partner.  That journey is another story entirely and is best left for another day. Her love and friendship was the one really bright point in my otherwise dark spring, although even acceptance of that was clouded by my personal demons. We had walked her young German Shepherd Dog nearly every day since August, and started adding trips to the track and short jogging sessions to our adventures once I accepted the personal mission of “staying in shape” to ride. At first, she mostly watched and supported my increased activity, but soon joined in after enlisting in the United States Army. Together, we prepared for a summer of change…for her, Basic Training; for me, riding a show jumper.  For eight weeks, I couldn’t put my hair up by myself, or saddle a horse, or even drive my car without someone around, but I could run.  I still didn’t love running, but I definitely loved having something I could do.

Summer came and I started to jump again. Not only was I “in shape” enough, but I rode better than I ever had, both mentally and physically. I showed successfully on a horse that I had never dreamed of riding. I should have been happy, and a part of my heart was…but the rest of my heart was far away in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. So I kept running. I ran the same two mile out-and-back course every day, rain or shine. In other parts of my life, I didn’t cope very well, and was pretty destructive to myself and my other relationships…but in those two miles, I felt really close to the person I wanted to be with more than anything in the world. I couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her that I was sure now that I wanted to spend the rest of my life building a new dream with her…that I could accept the love that she wanted to offer now instead of putting it off for “the right time” in my life plan…but I could run. The day I found out she was coming home, I ran those two miles faster than my high school self would have ever dreamed…about 14:46, if I remember right.

Veterinary school started and so did living my life as part of a team…a family. I kept running, and started exploring some races. A friend convinced me to join her for a 5k trail race that she informed me would be “the hardest 5k you’ll ever run.” I came in second place and covered in mud, was sore for the next week, and started to look up training plans for running a half marathon the next fall. I trained hard and got faster every week. Almost everything had the accomplishment of “first” or “best yet.” I started to treat my body like an athlete…food was fuel to allow me to accomplish more. After a few months of training for running, I asked my father to meet me with a bike for cross training. This probably seems like a silly thing to mention, but I had vehemently avoided cycling as an adult for two reasons: 1. My father didn’t respect my sport, so why should I respect his? 2. My father never seemed to enjoy competing, but did it anyway as some sort of self-destructive compulsion. I didn’t want to live life seeing the glass half empty all the time, and somehow bicycles were associated with that belief. Making that request broke down a barrier between my father and I that had never known life without. Suddenly, he could understand something I was passionate about and felt like he had something unique to offer. While we didn’t create a typical father-daughter relationship, we did start to become friends and “buddies” under the universal bond of “athlete.”

That was an exciting year of running; every goal I set was met with surprising ease, because nothing could hurt physically as much as I had hurt mentally the year before. I set a 10k PR during my fall half-marathon and came in almost ten minutes under my overall goal for the race (IMT Des Moines Half-Marathon 2010—1:40:06). The day before the half, my partner asked if I was interested in doing a 50k trail race in Chattanooga the next October. Buoyed by the idea that not only could I run, but I could run well, I was determined to keep setting bigger goals until I found something I couldn’t do…and then find a way to do it anyway.

With any new relationship or major life change, you go through a euphoric “honeymoon” phase before the day to day struggles and habits show themselves. You find out that that person you’re with really loves to sing off key to bad music, or can’t possibly close the cupboards, or doesn’t ever remember your class schedule (no matter how many times you tell them or write it down)…and you decide whether you can live with those things, whether you can or should change those things, or whether you really shouldn’t be in that relationship at all. So it goes with viewing life as an athlete. In 2011, I learned about injuries and that my body couldn’t handle going faster and farther at the same time anymore. I ran because it seemed to give me a purpose, so when I missed a training run (which is pretty common while working and going to vet school and trying to have a family life) or didn’t meet a time goal, I felt like a failure. Worse, I looked at the athletic success of others, particularly my partner, as a further indication of my short comings. I still ran well, but it didn’t feel special anymore. It was an echo of old problems that reverberated in every other relationship in my life.

By the time October rolled around, I didn’t feel prepared, but was pretty motivated for the Stump Jump 50k. I knew that trail running was “my thing,” and as I’ve mentioned previously, read through an article about the Hard Rock 100 on the morning of the race and decided that it was my next big goal. The 50k renewed my energy and put some fun back into running. After, I started looking for a community to help me remember that running was a positive force and relationship…not a constant reason to fail. I ended up with two new families, one an eclectic group of trail runners, and the other in the form of a women’s rugby team. They helped to keep me grounded and gave me a safe place to share my athletic and personal hopes, dreams, and disappointments. They called me out when I didn’t omitted pieces of the truth about my life, a habit that had become second nature, and didn’t make me feel like a worse human for doing so. When I asked “how’s it going?,” they responded with exactly how it was…even if that wasn’t great.

2012 became a year of running for the joy of community and about running to finish. Injuries sidelined my attempts at “success” in the form of speed, although I continued to place relatively well in women’s long distance fields. I learned that it’s an amazing feeling to talk to people on the trail and see the sun rise and set while on the same course. That I loved moving forward on my feet or on my bike for ten and a half hours and twelve hours straight, respectively (Lookout Mountain 50M and Dawn to Dusk Eastern Iowa 12H Challenge). It wasn’t about racing so much as experiencing each of those moments, something I couldn’t seem to do in the other relationships in my life. My partner and I weren’t a family anymore, and I wanted to hold that together all on my own…so I kept running because it was something I could control. I ran because I was afraid of losing something I had already lost.

At the end of the year, our partnership officially ended, and I experienced heartbreak like I’d never known before. Every part of my identity, of who I had become, seemed lost or invalid because I had shared all of the things I did with her and viewed all of my personal plans through the lens of our shared life. Even my career seemed to dead end before it even started. So I ran, because it was something I could do…and it didn’t make me feel better or stop me from crying…but it was something that didn’t make me afraid. For two months, all of my fears, new and old, filled every moment of my day. I had panic attacks and had to run outside in the middle of conversations because I couldn’t remember how to breathe.  

Some endurance athletes run or ride to escape the problems of their everyday life. For me, no matter how fast I run, I can’t outrun my own thoughts. The conversation in my mind never stops. Sometimes, that conversation is so far from what I’m doing that I lose entire runs and can’t remember where I’ve been beyond the tracking map on my Garmin watch. Other times, I convince myself to be present in the moment…to experience every foot fall and consider every breath. Right now, I run because it’s a time to practice and consider the changes I am making in my own life and thoughts. I’m learning to see myself without an action or accomplishment or person attached…and to love what I see, without condition.

So that’s my running testimony as I see it today. In the end, I run because I can…and when the time comes that I can’t anymore, that’s okay, because I’ll still be me.

What’s your story?