Man oh man I’ve had so many ups and downs with running you’d think we’ve been married, divorced, and separated twice over. It’s truly a love-hate relationship. I don’t know a more fitting example than this. If you’ve read my blog or know my story, you know how much running has impacted my life. It’s taken me through the ringer that’s for sure. Together, we’ve suffered our hardships, gone through couples therapy, and endured enough pain but still have managed come out to see the light on the other side. Running is one of those things that can either leave you crying alone behind a dumpster or jumping and crying (the good kind) for joy. There’s hardly an in between and yes those examples are based on true events.
Ultimately, I love running. I love how it makes me feel. I love the places it takes me. I love the people it allows me to meet. I love how it makes me feel alive. Running has been there for me when I felt that I had nothing else to depend on. It has been my rock and my beacon of hope and for that I am grateful. But it has also been the drug that caused me to fall so far down into rock bottom that I am still struggling to climb back up. It’s kind of like a paradox. Despite all of this, I have chosen to never give up on it (even when I say I do). I can only stay separated for a month tops and then something always draws me back, like a relentless magnet. I’m now able to recognize it’s not who I am, but it’s definitely a huge part of what makes me, me, and has been the soil for me to grow my values from. I can look back on memories and smile without regret or longing and I believe that is a positive. The point of this blog is to give a little update on where our relationship is at the moment. Last year was a tough one for me. Actually, the last few years have been. It hasn’t been easy trying to overcome my eating disorder and life hasn’t exactly given me a break in other departments either. If you’ve ever been snowboarding you know the feeling of getting hit with a bag of potatoes every time you fall. That’s kinda how the last year has been. I’ve either been falling on my face or falling on my butt at every turn. For the most part, I internalize everything and hold things in. I’m a huge advocator for therapy (obviously, it’s my future career path) but that doesn't mean I’m the best at talking about my problems. Instead, I'll talk about the obvious problems that help me skim across some of the deeper and underlying ones. I deny and avoid a lot; it helps me pretend the serious things aren’t real. For some time, my relationship with running has been slowly tumbling toward a downhill slope. For some reason, it hasn’t been making me feel good on the inside and actually been a catalyst for my insecurities. For months, I tried to push past this. I didn’t want to admit this to myself because it would mean that I’d actually have to acknowledge the dark hole that was growing inside of me and that demon was something that I didn’t think I had the strength to fight. Every time I feel that I overcome one obstacle, another darker and deeper one seems to arise. It’s exhausting and for awhile I was feeling too drained to even acknowledge it's dark and looming presence. However, it got to a point that I began to dread the thought of running. It became a chore and honestly that is where I drew the line. I’m not going to say that I have loved every step of every run in my entire life. There were days when I didn’t feel like it, there were runs that I struggled to finish, but none that I severely dreaded to begin. I didn’t want an atmosphere of bitterness to surround it. I wasn’t going to force myself to do something I didn’t want to do, especially when it made me even more anxious to begin with. It wasn’t an easy decision. I cried A LOT while making it, but I finally came to the conclusion that running wasn’t benefiting me mentally so I made the decision to not run competitively this year. This will be the first year in 12 years that I won’t be running on a team (holy crap I’m old). That thought was terrifying but the idea of facing my darkness was even more frightening. I didn’t know if I was making the right decision, part of me felt like a quitter, but the other parts of me told me I was being brave. It’s hard to be gentle with yourself when you have so many inner conflicts colliding in your head. However, I’m here to tell you that months after my decision, I’m okay and I’m alive to tell my tale. By taking away the anxiety factor that running created, I have felt much more at peace and have been trying to fill my new found free time by doing things that make me happy. I took up painting (although I’m no Van Gough), I went on a camping/hiking weekend, I got a job ((so I’m no longer a (pitifully) broke college student). I’m still facing some rough patches; I won’t pretend to sugar coat that for you. My time away from running hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows; I’m still learning the ropes of being an ex-competitive runner. It’s scary facing your demons. You’d think I’d be an expert at it by now at how many times I’ve had to go to the battlefront. It seems like each villain in my story has adapted itself for each time I have overcome it before; forcing me to adapt myself and my armor all the same. I know my fight is far from over and I know there will be many obstacles I have left to overcome in this journey. I am learning to accept that. It’s not a one and done kind of thing, but by removing toxic things and people and replacing them with things that bring me closer to the light, I am slowly but surely finding my truth. Before I leave you, I want you to know that I haven’t totally quit running. You can still catch me out here and there, but it’s definitely not something I’m forcing myself to do. I’ve been gradually shifting my mindset and learning to fall back in love with the sport that has brought me so much joy in the past. My relationship from running isn’t over, in fact I think a new chapter has just begun.
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