running slowly

A little over a month ago, I started running. I don’t even remember how it started, but for whatever reason I gave it a try, like I do every few years. But this time was very different. For the first time ever, I set out on a run without any agenda or goals at all. I ran slowly. I didn’t try to hit a distance, pace, calorie count, or heart rate. I just enjoyed my Spotify shuffle, turned around when I felt like it, and walked when my knees started to hurt.

A couple weeks ago, I realized running had become a real habit, and I posted this on my Instagram story:

I didn’t realize how many runs I’d been on until my sister pointed it out yesterday and I told her she was wrong, but she was not 😅

It’s been about 18 years since I last really loved running. And I am realizing that … well, I need to have compassion for my high school self, but the only reason this is working is that my relationship to running is NOT currently rooted in proving anything to myself. When I started running XC [cross-country] in 9th grade, it came from a place of anger and needing to prove to myself, though what I could accomplish, that I deserved … anything.

I think a very REASONABLE and usually healthy approach to exercise is to be energized by focusing on growth, “being better than last time,” etc., etc. It’s basically the only framing I hear from a coach in a group fitness class for example.

But it feels very 🤯🤯🤯 to realize that in the year 2024 of our lord, that is not the assignment for me. This has to be joyful, therapeutic, meditative, and a few other jumble of adjectives. I am running SLOW a lot of the time, and enjoying the drug that is Spotify shuffle and all my emotions on running endorphins. I am lip syncing to the songs and doing other things to look ever so slightly the fool at 8:30am on the Beltline. And enjoying the view 🥰

I hope it continues to be lovely.

And so far it has. It continues to change. I’ll have euphoric moments, like “Caribbean Blue” by Enya coming on and reminding me of some of the most joyful moments of Derry Girls; “I’m Alive” by Céline Dion cracking me up because it’s so silly, or “Pour que tu m’aimes encore” putting me in full diva mode.

I’ve also had a lot more miles to gently contemplate the anger and hurt that propelled me the last time I was a runner. I realize I didn’t actually love running 18 years ago. What I loved was knowing that I could push myself harder than two thirds of my classmates. That even though I wasn’t a “real” athlete, I could place higher (why did I need this? But I did.). I’ll listen to a song like “Who I Am” by Wyn Starks and be overwhelmed:

Looking back, back on that little boy,
Never game him a chance to ever be more.
I didn’t love him, but I’m gonna love him
Right now and forever, it’s time to push open the door.

Running has given me the space to feel, and slowly put into fragments of words and thoughts, some unified understanding of who I am and what shaped me. The years of hurt and isolation; my political identity and lineage; how I navigate the deep contradictions of this moment; my values, and what “honesty” means to me. And then, thank god, a disco hit comes on on shuffle to infuse some joy and remind me that I’m right on time with nowhere to be but here. Running is there for me as a balm and an activity in which I find joy and meaning, not as a tool to be used to an end.

My life had been feeling a bit on autopilot, but running has been one of the ways I’ve rediscovered this summer that I can surprise myself. I don’t feel like I’ve ever known myself as well as I do, this 18th of September 2024. And, I’m looking forward to waking up at 7am tomorrow and running to the edge of Piedmont Park, without any agenda, but with faith that I will keep on learning, thinking, and feeling.