How I ran 26.2 miles away from myself
In May of 2012, I ran my first (and last) full marathon. I had just been fired from my job and had come out of a soul crushing year where it felt like absolutely nothing wanted to work. I was exhausted, emotionally depleted, and totally and completely lost. I’d been working so hard at trying to make my life “work out”, that I didn’t really know how to live it anymore. Freshly unemployed, I spent a couple weeks bingeing episodes of Teen Mom, eating caramel popcorn for most meals and allowing the reality of my new listless identity to sink in.
I’d taken up running a few years before and had run a handful of races. I loved the satisfaction of planning for a race and all the diligent training that led up to it. It made me feel useful-like I was accomplishing something, something that was “healthy”, something that others understood and was socially acceptable. When someone asked, “What do you like to do in your free time?” or “What are you into?” (my least favourite questions by the way), now I had an actual thing I could respond with that made sense. So when everything fell apart, training for a marathon became the obvious answer for fixing my existential crisis: just run away.
“When everything fell apart, training for a marathon became the obvious answer for fixing my existential crisis: just run away.”
I only had four months to train and throughout the process I pushed my body beyond what it was ready for or wanted to do. But in sports, and Western culture in general, this is acceptable, if not, highly rewarded behaviour-to push ourselves further, harder, faster. I went straight from pushing myself over the edge at work, to pushing my body over the edge in training.
After a two to four hour long run every Sunday, my running partner and I would hobble into Starbucks for a caffeinated reward and I would head home in a sweaty stupor, high on life or, more likely, low on blood sugar. At home I would take a long shower, eat a huge lunch and fall asleep for the rest of the day. After completely exhausting myself this way I felt I could finally relax-that gnawing voice deep within me silenced for a day.
The accelerated pace of my training started to wear on my body and I developed knee and back issues. I started physio, yoga and massage and everyone told me to slow down, train more mindfully, and increase my core strength. I understood, but I “didn’t have time” to do any of these things-umm, I had a marathon to run in a few weeks…?!
On race day, I made it to the start line and the finish line. It was an exhilarating and excruciating experience like nothing I’ve encountered before. Funnily enough though, running was never quite the same after this. Pushing myself that hard in such a short amount of time actually changed my body. I ran a few races after this including a half marathon, but the damage became more and more apparent. Now I had to see a kinesiologist, chiropractor, physiotherapist, massage therapist and pilates instructor just to maintain my weekly runs. It was exhausting and expensive. I wasn’t committed to all this extra work when all I wanted was to get out the door and go for a run.
“Even when my body was screaming for me to stop it never felt safe to slow down-what would I find out if I did?”
It’s been a few years now since I’ve run at all-like without a scream-filled double stroller trying to make it through a crosswalk. While I miss my days of being able to run (effortlessly and painlessly), I can now see that I used running as a way to essentially escape myself. I was running away from my reality, my emotions, and everything that felt off in my life that I wasn’t ready to examine yet.
Our intuition and our body always know what’s going on, but we have an amazing capacity to push down our pains and carry on, to ignore the warning signals and move forward.
Through all the stress, pain and challenges I’d encountered that past year and before, my soul was crying out for me to finally stop. It wanted me to get quiet with myself and listen, to ask the big questions and see the truth of where I was at and why. But I wasn’t ready. Even when my body was screaming for me to stop it never felt safe to slow down-what would I find out if I did? What big truths would I have to face and what life-altering changes would I have to make? I don’t know about you, but I found this terrifying. And all the busyness and noise I’d created in my life kept me safe from this truth and apart from my inner knowing, my intuition and the voice of my soul.
“All the busyness and noise I’d created in my life kept me safe from [my] truth and apart from my inner knowing, my intuition and the voice of my soul.”
What I’ve come to learn so far is that the Universe is always communicating with us. It sends us signs, synchronicities, obstacles and discord that reflect something within us. However subtle and nuanced or loud and obvious, through every situation, life event and relationship we encounter, we’re always being called to pay attention to the bigger picture. We’re always being asked to learn something and to grow. Our soul wants to evolve and the sooner we can jump on board and start listening the better.
I can also say that when we choose not to pay attention to that inner knowing, the lessons we’re sent tend to get louder and more extreme-all in an attempt for us to finally deal with whatever it’s trying to illuminate in our lives.
I’d love to say I learnt this lesson through running that marathon. I didn’t. It took another five years before I was ready to get quiet with myself and, honestly, today this is still a challenge for me. Luckily though, after much practice and many rock-bottoms later (that I intend to share in future posts), now I’m in a space where I don’t actively run away from this inner voice anymore.
Nine years ago I didn’t have any of the spiritual or emotional tools I have now, so I’m grateful I had running as a way to cope. Today I can embrace that girl who ran 42.2 kilometres away from her truth-she did the best she knew how and, hey, she even got a fancy medal for it.
