I’m not a fast runner. I’ll never win a race. Not even my age group. Not even close. And when I was younger, if you told me that I would have been signing up for road races for FUN, I’d have laughed. in. your. face. I was the kid who finished last in the Great Pumpkin Race in kindergarten (but had all of the big fourth graders cheering for me), who hated, and I do mean HATED, Field Day. When I started running for fitness in high school, I recall a neighbor asking me if I was training for the Freihofer (a local women’s 5K), which I emphatically denied. No, you would not see me toeing the start line, even at a low-pressure local race. Not for me.
Then 9/11 happened. I was in college, and one of the campus sororities decided to organize a 5K race to benefit the Red Cross. The race would go through the Cornell Plantations, up a hideously steep hill three times, and would involve half the Greek system. I signed up along with about 50 of my sorority sisters – the organizers may have been from a rival sorority, and we may have belted out our house anthem “String of Pearls” (yes, really) while walking past their house late at night, but we knew how to come together where it counted. So we ran together in a big herd. It was a fun day and for a good cause, but not a game-changer. I still wouldn’t have raced under normal circumstances.
Nine years later, I made a New Year’s resolution to rediscover my love of running. I started doing the Couch to 5K program without any goal of actually doing a race. Why should I? It’s just about exercise, about getting fresh air and moving my body. But as I progressed with the program I started to want to test myself at a 5K race. I picked an easygoing community 5K and lined up with my bib number pinned to my shirt on July 4, 2010. Just for fun. And you know what? It was fun. It was hard – it was a hot summer’s day in Virginia and there was no shade whatsoever on the course. I ran my little heart out and nearly passed out at the finish line, and I was proud. I’d left it all out there on the road, and I was happy with my time. And with the tech tee I got as part of my race goody bag. (Wait, you’re telling me that they give you clothes? And all you have to do is run? How did I not know about this racket?)
That 5K led to another 5K – an autumn race with my dad, on the same exact course. And then I ran an 8K turkey trot with my sister-in-law G by my side. Then a 10K and a 10-miler, and then a half marathon. I was having the time of my life. Crossing the finish line after (slowly) running 13.1 miles and having a volunteer hang a medal around my neck… Well, suffice it to say that I’ve never considered sports to be my thing. Knowing that I could run 13.1 miles (with occasional walking breaks) – that was ground-breaking for me. That was me broadcasting that I didn’t need to accept the narrative that others handed to me about who I am or what I can do. I didn’t need to succumb to the “You’re bookish, not sporty,” message that I’d been handed all my life. I could be bookish and sporty – if that’s what I wanted.
But the half marathon wasn’t all good times. When I crossed the finish line, sure, I was proud of myself and I took it as confirmation that I could be whomever I wanted to be. But there was a seed of doubt that was planted deeper than the triumph. I let it take root there a few weeks before the big 13.1, and although I completed the race, I was hurting inside. I was having a hard time believing in my own ability – even at the very moment when I should have been proving it to myself. I was grinning on the outside, thanking volunteers, hi-fiving kids by the side of the race course and giving the thumbs-up to other runners… but inside, I was torn up by doubt and confusion. I didn’t really believe I could be a long-distance runner, even while I was running the longest distance of my life. I was letting other people’s opinions dictate who I was. And I hated it.
After I crossed that finish line, I took five months off running. Oh, I was recovered and ready to run – physically – after two weeks or so. But mentally, and emotionally, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t lace up the shoes and head out the door. I even cut off my D-tag from my running shoes – normally, I would leave the D-tag on as motivation until the next race. But I couldn’t stand to look at the D-tag from my half marathon, because I felt like a fake. I felt as though I had somehow cheated – even though every step of that race, I took with my own two feet.
Fast-forward to Thanksgiving, 2011. Several people asked me if I was planning to run in the local Turkey Trot. I had no idea what to say. Frankly, I wasn’t trained for it, and I knew it. I was convinced that even a low-key 5K was beyond my abilities. The audacious girl who dared herself to complete a half marathon, less than a year after her first real road race, was nowhere to be seen. I just wanted to hide under my blankets. I contemplated “forgetting” to sign up or making conflicting plans to hike with friends instead. But I went. I dressed in my warmest, most expensive tech gear, both because it was freeeeeezing and because I felt I needed it to convince myself that I wasn’t a joke. I lined up, did the best I could and was reasonably pleased to have finished only four minutes slower than my best 5K time. Still, my heart wasn’t in it and I just didn’t really care.
After Thanksgiving I promised myself that I was finally going to quiet that inner voice, the one that told me I wasn’t good enough, I was worthless, I was phony. And I would get back to running form. I missed running, and I should never have let the seeds of self-doubt take root the way I did. That was weakness. I’d always been proud of my mental strength – I even won awards for “mental toughness” at tennis camp – and I had willingly relinquished that strength. So I decided. I would not be weak anymore; I would not be afraid anymore. I would be the strong person that I knew I could be, and pull those doubt weeds up by the roots.
It started slowly. Workout DVDs, building my endurance again. One day, I laced up my sneakers and went out for two miles. I cried on that run as I tried to frame the narrative of how the last six months had gone so horribly wrong for me. I imagined myself telling the doubters that they were wrong, that I was a strong and good and deserving person and that my choices were valid choices. And I told the unhappy person in my head that she was good, she was worthwhile, and that everything would be okay in the end. I let go of the sadness I had felt all summer, imagined it as a ribbon trailing behind me as I ran, and I dropped it on the asphalt of my neighborhood. Then I imagined weeds of doubt growing up through cracks in the street, and I stamped violently on them. Gave myself permission to feel sad, but promised myself that everything was going to work out and that I’d silence the doubting voices, and this was the first step. The first run of the rest of my running life, and I wouldn’t be beat down anymore.
With a few more runs under my belt, I opened up my email one morning and saw a notice of a new 5K race for Valentine’s weekend. I get those emails all the time, from various local running stores and clubs, but this was the first race since my half marathon that I actually wanted to run. I’d been thinking about running a race anyway and wondering if I could get back into half marathon shape by the fall – and this could be the first step. Oh, I so wanted to be on that start line – I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted to run another race. So I registered. “Only” a 5K, sure, but just the act of registering felt like a triumph – audacious, like I was in 2010… not cowed, like I was in 2011.
I’ll be on that starting line on February 12th. I’ll be wearing a bright pink shirt and a giant smile. I can’t wait. I’m back!
covered in flour 