How To Be In a Long Term Relationship with Running
I'm in a long term relationship with running, and like any long term relationship, there are seasons of ease and struggle. I've always been fairly certain the key to success in maintaining a long term relationship with running is simple discipline: the grit of a daily grind, where you show up to the work regardless of how interested you feel. I run on the days it feels awful, the days it's hot or I didn't sleep, the days my legs feel like lead, the less than ideal days (which is something like 75% of them), so that I experience the occasional days of bliss. And this is indeed the key; there is no bigger secret to "being a runner," I don't care what anyone says. But what I often don't acknowledge is that grit isn't intrinsically rewarding; for every athlete or artist or doer of hard things there is actually something deeper, something more like: I feel proud of myself when I run every day, and I feel validated as a human when I accomplish something miserably hard, and I need to see myself improving and progressing in order to feel like there is purpose to my life.
And right now, it's a season of struggle. I've been sick most of the summer, and I managed little more than walks around the neighborhood some days. Other times I pushed for slow 3 mile daily runs, roughly half of my baseline mileage, during the time of year when I usually train for racing. I've recently started taking beta blockers for medical reasons, so on top of being deconditioned I can't get my heart rate high enough to sustain a normal run for me without the danger of passing out. Throughout this summer I managed to maintain the discipline of getting out of the house every day and doing what I could, but the grit was not intrinsically rewarding and I felt a void in the deeper areas, a void of meaning, because if I'm not progressing, why run? If I'm not racing, why run?
If I can't run long enough to maintain my level of fitness, why run?
If I can't...(long list of things I cannot do)...why run?
As I ran [slowly] down a trail today, heart rate stuck at 140 so that my legs tingled with lack of oxygen even at the slowest speed I could manage, I began to ask myself what my actual goals are for running: goals that will stand the test of time, through heart medications, illness, graduate school, and some years without big races.
I decided I want three things:
To maintain a disciplined daily practice of running that gets me out of my head and into my body.
To commune daily with nature, the weather, the birds, the air [a sense of wonder and freedom].
To challenge myself to meet new goals, and to accomplish them, whether that includes pace, distance, new places, new terrain, or races.
None of these things require me to be attached to results.
Am I disappointed that I can't be on a constant upward trajectory? Honestly, yeah. But I want to see running more like I see my academic work, which is that outward results matter far less than whether or not the work itself was done with integrity, with my whole heart, for the right reasons, and in a way that made me into a better human being.
I want my running and my work to make me a person who is connected to the earth and those around me, a person who moves toward pain and suffering with compassion and presence, a person with hope that the arc of the universe bends toward justice and healing. Absolutely none of that requires me to be attached to my abilities, which is ego and a tyranny over the body. In fact, finding worth and purpose in the numbers, pace, and distance my body can perform is exactly the opposite of the faith I profess, which is that the power of Christ is made perfect in my weakness.
I work towards a day when I can run at my peak fitness level again, but in the meantime...
I'll train with compassion toward myself, and with integrity, which means an embrace of limitation and anticipation of the day when this body is made whole. Maybe that is what it takes to be in a long term relationship with running.
And right now, it's a season of struggle. I've been sick most of the summer, and I managed little more than walks around the neighborhood some days. Other times I pushed for slow 3 mile daily runs, roughly half of my baseline mileage, during the time of year when I usually train for racing. I've recently started taking beta blockers for medical reasons, so on top of being deconditioned I can't get my heart rate high enough to sustain a normal run for me without the danger of passing out. Throughout this summer I managed to maintain the discipline of getting out of the house every day and doing what I could, but the grit was not intrinsically rewarding and I felt a void in the deeper areas, a void of meaning, because if I'm not progressing, why run? If I'm not racing, why run?
If I can't run long enough to maintain my level of fitness, why run?
If I can't...(long list of things I cannot do)...why run?
As I ran [slowly] down a trail today, heart rate stuck at 140 so that my legs tingled with lack of oxygen even at the slowest speed I could manage, I began to ask myself what my actual goals are for running: goals that will stand the test of time, through heart medications, illness, graduate school, and some years without big races.
I decided I want three things:
To maintain a disciplined daily practice of running that gets me out of my head and into my body.
To commune daily with nature, the weather, the birds, the air [a sense of wonder and freedom].
To challenge myself to meet new goals, and to accomplish them, whether that includes pace, distance, new places, new terrain, or races.
None of these things require me to be attached to results.
Am I disappointed that I can't be on a constant upward trajectory? Honestly, yeah. But I want to see running more like I see my academic work, which is that outward results matter far less than whether or not the work itself was done with integrity, with my whole heart, for the right reasons, and in a way that made me into a better human being.
I want my running and my work to make me a person who is connected to the earth and those around me, a person who moves toward pain and suffering with compassion and presence, a person with hope that the arc of the universe bends toward justice and healing. Absolutely none of that requires me to be attached to my abilities, which is ego and a tyranny over the body. In fact, finding worth and purpose in the numbers, pace, and distance my body can perform is exactly the opposite of the faith I profess, which is that the power of Christ is made perfect in my weakness.
I work towards a day when I can run at my peak fitness level again, but in the meantime...
I'll train with compassion toward myself, and with integrity, which means an embrace of limitation and anticipation of the day when this body is made whole. Maybe that is what it takes to be in a long term relationship with running.
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