When the pandemic took away my ability to control almost everything in my life, I also stopped worrying about trying to control my body. For perhaps the first time in my adult life, I am learning to be proud of the things it can do, even despite its imperfections.
Like so many mother runners, in March I found myself working from home while simultaneously caring for my two young children. My days were filled with Zoom meetings while Daniel Tiger streamed in the background. Inside the pressure cooker of COVID-19, this erstwhile runner found a new sense of relief whenever I put in my headphones, laced up my shoes, and ran away from it all.
I ran slowly: sometimes 14-minute miles, sometimes 17- or 18-minute miles. But I ran. Day after day. Week after week. Those miles of solitude became my lifeline. And for once, weight loss was not even a part of the equation.
I can vividly remember the last time I stepped on a scale and felt happy with the number. I was a sophomore in high school. I am now 31 years old. When I started running after my daughter was born, and again when my son was born 3 years later, it was to try to lose the baby weight.
To be completely candid, I am someone who needs to lose weight. I am obese. I have health issues related to my weight. Weight loss is not necessarily something that I have been chasing for purely vain reasons all of these years.
While almost everyone struggles with self-image issues, it seems easier to be body positive when you are not obese. As a runner, it seems easier to own your pace when “slow” means a 10- or even 12-minute mile. In the years that I spent pursuing exercise for weight loss, I always envied people who enjoyed the process without worrying about the end results.
I have finally gotten a glimpse at what it means to pursue fitness for the joy of movement. It feels revolutionary.
I don’t know how this change happened. Maybe after fighting and hating for so long, I just became exhausted. Maybe with all of the other problems to deal with on a daily basis, my struggle with my body was the one thing I had to let go.
Somehow, I find myself now in a place that is foreign but also comforting. I look in the mirror and don’t immediately criticize. I look at my watch after a run and don’t immediately wish I were faster. Instead, I feel pride. I feel strong. I feel worthy. And just maybe this will be the ‘new normal’ that I’ve been waiting for.
Read more Seven Months into the Pandemic essays.
I love this. And I needed this. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing this.
It’s funny that you reference being obese and link that to running with the end goal of losing weight and so not finding joy in the run. I’m not obese but have always been so body conscious even at a low/average weight that my running has mostly felt like a form of balancing, which I have to do depending on what I ate. I love that you have found joy in the miles and been able to disconnect it from something critical and attached those miles to stress relief and peace. I’m striving for the same and appreciate and love your experience. Thank you for letting all of us glimpse a piece of your journey.
I love this! I have been having a similar journey through the pandemic, but could not put it into words. Thank you for so eloquently saying what I was feeling!
I’ve always been ashamed of my slow pace. Thank you for your words!