RUN from Undisciplined on Vimeo.
On June 2, 2011, I started running. In high school and college, I occasionally ran. In my mid 20s, I swam a little and biked some more. But when I became pregnant with my son Fletcher at age 28 I stopped. As I ran for the first time last summer, I was just about to turn 37 and hadn’t really worked out for 9 years.
For my 8, 15, or even 21 year old self not working out for 9 years would be really hard to believe. I was an active kid: ballet, gymnastics, basketball, soccer and swimming. I had almost too much energy most of the time. And I was strong; hailing from a long line of powerful Puotinen women, I was muscular and tough and saw myself as a physical force to be reckoned with.
My mom used to tell me lots of stories about my physical energy, exuberance and strength: How, because I never wanted to stop doing, I would fall asleep in a running position. Or how I would keep other kids, mostly boys, in line with my “power” hugs. Or, my dad’s favorite: how, during a soccer game, while I was defending the ball, I collided with another player and I kept going while they stayed on the ground. Okay, my mom’s version of this last story was a lot more dramatic; I recall the phrase “and the whole earth shook” being used at some point in her description of the collision.
What happened to that younger me? I could speculate on all of the reasons how and why I lost my powerful physical confidence, drawing upon personal experiences and academic feminist theories. But not now. Why spend time dwelling on that past, when I could reflect on my joyful present?
I love running. I never thought I would say that. For years, I’d hear people talking about how great running was and I’d think, “in theory, running sounds great; but it’s really not my kind of practice.” I liked swimming and biking much better. But now, I’ve become one of those people; the people that love running.
How can I describe my joy for running without settling into all of the clichés about it? I probably can’t. So, in expressing my love for it, I won’t try to offer up new insight on running or it’s deep significance. Instead, I want to document my process of loving and living (mostly joyfully, sometimes painfully, but always intensely) through running.
For me, running is a joyful experiment in pushing at and beyond my limits.
Running forces me to keep going beyond what I think I can do.
Pushing at my mental and physical limits through running faster or longer than I think possible, has immediate, and often joyful, usually tangible results.
A stronger body and spirit.
Faster times.
Longer distances.
The runner’s high.
Runners often talk about the runner’s high, that intense, euphoric feeling that you get when you push yourself to or past your limits. My swim coach in high school, Coach Meechum, used to describe this limit pushing as hitting and going past your pain threshold. I don’t really talk to many other runners–I value running as a solitary endeavor–so I don’t know how they experience it. For me, the runner’s high is a feeling of being beside:
Not quite outside of myself, still feeling the road beneath my feet and the effort of running hard, yet not feeling constrained by it
And beside myself, almost overwhelmed by intense emotions: the joy of working my body and the sadness of thinking about my dead mom who started running a couple years after I was born and kept running until a few years before she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Turning to running in your 30s is not unusual, in my family, or, I’m sure, in many others. My brother-in-law successfully did it about 8 years ago. And my mom did it a few years after I was born in the late 70s. They were both 37, just like me when I started.
I have very fuzzy memories of my mom taking me with her to the Paavo Nuermi gym at Suomi College in Hancock, MI. I’d sit in the bleachers with Kiefer (my first kiss), while she ran around the track. She kept running for years–how often? I have no idea. How seriously did she take her running? Why did she do it? I never really talked to her about it. Why didn’t I talk to her about it?
When I think about my mom and her running. I’m haunted by the advice she gave me when I reached my 30s. She said, “Sara, what you do in your 30s makes a difference in your 60s. Eat right now and exercise and you’ll be rewarded when you’re older.” What was my mom’s reward? In her 60s, she was still really strong and healthy, except for the fact that her body was being ravaged by chemo drugs used to prevent the cancer cells from spreading beyond the tumor found in her pancreas. She was so healthy that her body refused to quit, prolonging her suffering. Is this really what happened? I’m not sure, but that’s how I imagined it as she was dying. Her attempts at being strong and healthy didn’t help, they seemed to only hurt and bring pain…lots and lots of pain. I found myself asking, why bother if being healthy could only lead to prolonged suffering later?
Now 2.5 years after her death, I’m less pessimistic about the potential effects of being healthy. But, I also don’t have any illusions that the running I do now will necessarily protect me from suffering in the future. But I run anyway. And I love it.
I like running alone and almost always with music. I listen to songs from my past, songs with driving beats, songs with trite, perhaps cheesy, lyrics and swelling choruses.
Running has restored my confidence and has helped me to remember that I am powerful and strong and amazing. Running doesn’t make me feel like a badass; it reminds me that I am and have always been a badass.