Why I’m a runner: I don’t really think of myself as a runner. I have spent the vast majority of my life hating running. I’m sure there was a time as a child when I enjoyed running while playing tag or chasing butterflies, or for simply joy and freedom. Sometime thereafter I began to hate running. I’m not sure how or why it happened, but I have a pretty good guess that it’s linked to punishment. By the time I started playing softball competitively, running was hell! I would dread our warm-up laps before practice or the sprints we would have to do after. It’s no coincidence that my favorite position was a catcher, which pretty much required the least amount of movement. Running is every coach’s favorite form of punishment. Show up late to practice, you run laps. The team makes too many errors, you run sprints. The majority of my running life was forced upon me by angry authority figures tying to prove a point. To this day I have a memory that induces queasiness. I had a college teammate who failed to show-up to our mandatory study hall that was required of scholarship athletes. As a result, we all were punished for two straight hours of running sprints with burpees along the football field, stadiums and hills. We ran until a few of us, myself included, threw up. If I didn’t link punishment to running before that day, I sure did after.
After I graduated college, I had a level of freedom that I hadn’t had since the 5th grade. No more getting up at 5 in the morning for weight training and conditioning! It was a dream come true, but also a slow and steady decline of my physical health and mental well-being. I started graduate school and found myself over-worked, over-stressed and over-whelmed. My nutrition started to suffer and I rarely engaged in any physical activity. There were a few blips here and there, particularly in the months leading up to my wedding (the only event that will make any woman get up at 5 in the morning for boot camp classes!). But, eventually I got sucked back into the stress of graduate school and I never kept up with it. Now many years, more than I would like to admit, and two beautiful children later, I find myself overweight and looking back at my “glory days” with nostalgia. While I never considered myself a runner, I was an athlete.
I had always had this weird bucket list desire to run a half marathon, probably because it seemed an impossible task for me. Being a catcher for so many years took a significant toll on my hips and back, and those areas always seemed to flare-up after a few weeks of trying to run. What I didn’t know was I was going about it all wrong. I mean, you just put and shoes and run until you want to die, right? My memory fails on how exactly I got started on this new path, but I believe it was because I made the mistake/best decision of telling a certain, wonderful but persistent new friend of my bucket list item. With her encouragement and my desire to start getting back into shape, I decided to start exercising again. It has been a bumpy road, and a bit of a learning process. From making sure I’m not pushing too hard too fast, which is particularly difficult for me as a “balls to the wall” ex-athlete, to making sure I am doing proper warm-ups and cool-downs to avoid injuries.
So, why am I a runner? I am honestly figuring that out every day since I started this new course. Some days I’m a runner because I want to be healthy and have a better chance of living a longer life for my family. Other days I’m a runner because its my only me time, damnit. Some days I run when I need to clear my head because stress and anxiety are wearing me down. Other days I’m a runner to get out into nature and put myself in the path of beauty. Sometimes I’m a runner because I want to encourage others who, like me, don’t look like “runners” to get out there and move their body, to celebrate what their body can do and not focus on what it can’t do…yet. Most of all, I’m realizing running is my salvation now, a far cry from the years of associated punishment. I now run on my terms. I’ve returned anew to the joy of it, the freedom it provides. I’m young again, chasing butterflies.
I’m pretty awesome at: Man, this question is even harder then the first one! It hasn’t been very long since I started running, so I don’t feel like I am awesome at much yet, except for maybe towing the line of getting over-use injuries for trying to do too much too fast! I guess I would say I am pretty awesome at being determined and following through on my goals. I am not a fast runner, not by any stretch of the imagination. I probably never will be, and I am okay with that. My race, my pace! I am not quite ready to tackle that half-marathon yet, so I wouldn’t say I am awesome at longer distances. I am awesome at showing up, at putting in the work.
Future goals: One of my goals is to eventually complete a half-marathon, as previously mentioned. But my main goal is to just keep going. To keep learning to find the joy in what my body can do, without judgment for what it used to be able to do but maybe can’t right now. To continue to find the peace and freedom that running has provided.
Random fun fact: I am extremely clumsy. So much so, that my husband is nervous whenever we go on trails together. I have been known to trip over my own feet, or simply nothing at all! Since I started running, I have already bit the dust once on a relatively easy road, scrapping my knees, hand and elbow. But, as one of my favorite running tanks says, “bruises are like trophies you get to wear!”
Facebook: Heather Ryan
