A stab at structure. One step at a time.
I’m a few months in to writing the new not-running-anymore-guide that is [tentatively titled] The Final Finish Line, and, well, it’s going.
If this book project were a 100 miler, I’m around mile 21 or so right now. The freshness of the experience has worn off and the finish line is far, far away. Still, I’m far enough into it to feel some momentum, to feel like my legs are strong and the path ahead is going to be both interesting and challenging.
With that in mind, I’m dropping a piece of a section here; like our previous books, this one will have small vignettes and sidebars that complement the greater narrative.
This little nugget is What I Miss About Running: An Incomplete List in Alphabetical Order, and I’ve included ten items below. I’d love your thoughts: Do these resonate with you, no matter where you are on your running journey? Are there items you’d definitely want to see on this list?
ACCESSIBILITY
All I needed was shoes and a sports bra, and any road was mine.
Dreary frontage roads lined with Red Bull cans and budget hotels. Wide gravel roads in the middle of Nebraska during breaks in club volleyball tournaments. Three-inch shoulders on Florida roads while white rental cars buzzed by me during spring break. I could travel anywhere and have a workout and way to see things few people do.
AGENCY
So much of life requires involvement of others: a boss setting deadlines, kids needing dinner again, a partner feeling frisky. Running is all me. I decide I’m going to run the Bible Park loop (4.6 miles) while listening to The Killers at an easy pace and nobody else gets to touch it.
Even when I’m not as fresh or fast as I want to be, I still arrive home with a job done I did all by myself.
AID STATIONS
Beautiful little oasis of sports drinks, gels, water, and volunteers that cheer for me like I could win the whole race. (I never did.)
ANTI-DEPRESSANT
I never felt elated when leaving a therapy session. I don’t feel elated when I swallow generic Effexor nightly.
I did, however, always feel elated after any run. Everything is lighter, including the intensity of my thoughts. Yes, our planet is still melting; yes there are more unhoused people than ever in my radius; yes, our dishwasher is on the fritz again; yes, I owe a late fee on my credit card. Reality hasn’t changed, but my perspective, now filled with buoyancy and possibility, has. Amazing that four miles makes such a difference.
ANTICIPATION
I dreaded long, hard workouts, but I also kind of loved them. They gave me a focus and a purpose that felt admirable, more important than driving carpool or filling a grocery cart. Come Wednesday, I’d start obsessing about Saturday’s scheduled 14-miler with 4 miles of tempo thrown in. What do I need to eat on Friday? Are my favorite mint green shorts washed? Do I have a good playlist? Where should I go? Moving through the mundane tasks of life, I knew Saturday would make me feel special and strong—two feelings I didn’t encounter on the regular.
BEST RUNNING FRIENDS (BRFs)
I’ve had many BRFs over the course of my 30 years of running: one Katherine, another Katherine, Katie, Laurel, Lisa, Bine, Becky, Emily, Tamara.
When our paces were synced and our eyes were on the road, no topic was off limits: tough patches in marriage, even harder spells of parenting, teary life regrets, scary thoughts I couldn’t believe I was saying out loud. The miles together created a ride-or-die connection that I thought would last forever. Some friendships are still alive, albeit not at the intensity they were when we were running together, while others had an expiration date shared by our final run.
Even though it’s been over a decade since I’ve sweated next to—or even contacted—some of them, I keep their contacts in my phone and my memory of our miles together as some of the most meaningful times in my life.
Bring on the bling!
GETTING A MEDAL
The finish line is in my review mirror, my sports bra and shirt are soaked with sweat, the smile on my face feels like it’s never going to disappear, and a volunteer hands me a medal—or better yet, places it around my neck. I’m a proud owner of the current it accessory: other runners, similarly bejeweled, smile at me; random strangers congratulate me; and every time somebody sees a picture of me wearing it, they’ll automatically know I finished something hard.
I never displayed my medals, but I never threw one away either. Right now, a clump of them lives on a big hook in our garage above the dog food. I rarely add a new one to the mix anymore, but I’m not ready to part with any of them yet.
GOOD ENOUGH
So I ran 4.5 miles instead of six? That’s good enough. My average pace was 10:15, not 9:25 as I’d hoped? Good enough. Did I show up and run? Yes. Is everything else pretty much ok in my life? Yes—and it’s all good enough.
IDENTITY
Daughter, sister, wife, mother, employee? Cool, but so are at least half the people I know. You’re a runner? Wow. You’re a badass.
INTERNAL CONVERSATIONS
My mind ran as my feet did the same below me.
I replayed interactions during which I wish I would’ve been wiser, more clever, or more protective of myself. I initiated tough conversations that I hoped I would have the courage to enact in real life. When I became weary of sorting through the current flotsam of my life, I talked to people no longer on this earth, including my Dad and my Uncle Ham, two people who I wish I could’ve had more real conversations as adults.
Losing these conversations with myself was, in hindsight, one of the biggest losses of running. I have not found an easy way to replicate them off the road.
Identity – this has been the hardest. Learning to be content with the other bits of myself.
Funny 12 years or so ago, Run Like a Mother helped me to embrace my runner identity. And it is now that you guys are helping me again to embrace the other bits of me that are not running related. Thank you!
All of these are resonating with me at this point – I’ve been diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis of three vertebrae L-3, 4 and 5 in the lower back along with involvement of S1. My doctor would like to do surgery. In the attempt at putting that off for some time I’ve cut down my running to next to nothing, taken up Pilates, and continuing my weight-lifting with modifications, but I just have not been able to let go of the run – what am I if not a runner? I’ve switched my runs to a couple of times a week of not more than 3-4 miles right now and the runs are done on the treadmill, I do miss the outside runs but am grateful right now for the couple times a week if possible. I’m in my sixties and thought I’d be able to do this for the rest of my life, and I guess I’m just not ready to let it go completely, but then I think I want to keep my mobility – so I know at some point I’ll probably have to let this go – as the impact to the spinal column is a real thing – okay if your spine is healthy, but obviously mine at this point is not. I relate to almost every point you’ve made in your blog as I look at losing this part of myself but when the body says no, you do have to respect it, as hard as that is. I look forward to your book and blog posts like this – as it really resonates with me as Another Mother Runner blogs have done for years – let’s keep healthy and we know there’s more to life than running, but that does not mean we can’t miss it like hell…… all the best to you!
apart from the mental part that is missing, I feel I am getting out of shape , cycling/hiking I cannot seem to get into the same regular routine that was possible with running so now every hike uphill and every bike ride I feel I cannot keep up or am huffing and puffing more that I should be, and then coincidentally the stop running went along with menopause, call it a double-whammie, along with the extra pounds that I assume are because not running but probably more because I have not changed my eating habits
I feel from now on I will miss out on so many thing, all the community runs, the group runs …
The anti-depressant, the identity, the GOOD ENOUGH – all thinks that I have struggled to ease with other forms of working out and movement that running seemed to fix, effortlessly. There is no other “high” like the runner’s high. There is no other badge of honor on a terrible day than the “good enough” of the best effort run. No other title that explains integrity, hard work, over achiever, like “runner” – except, maybe “mom.”
YES! So true. Identity is the hardest one. I don’t look like a runner (in my eyes). I don’t feel like a runner (in my body, in my soul). But people will say “well, you’re a runner….” and I have to bite my tongue to keep me from saying “not anymore.” It is so hard to let something drift away, but to have people push it back at you because that is what they see you as. Or saw you as and haven’t realigned their view.