Not a Runner

I was not a sporty child. When I had to run a mile for gym class in 6th grade, it took me 12 minutes to complete. I watched, huffing and puffing, as other kids flew by, hitting 6 or 7 minute mile times with apparent ease. It was clear to me in that moment that the athletic kids had something that I simply did not. I was not a runner. Similarly, I was not a math person because I bombed an AP Calculus test. I was not musical because I didn’t take to piano as easily as my sister. I would never be bilingual because I got a B in high school French. I was not a dog person, or a mushroom person, or an extrovert.

As a kid, each new life experience was evidence of a fundamental and immutable truth about myself. Surely the point of childhood was to uncover who I was as a person, like an archeologist carefully revealing a buried specimen: all of my traits were innate, and it was my job to discover them and then figure out how to live with them for the rest of my life. I remember being deeply jealous of stories about child prodigies who began gymnastics at four or violin at three- obviously, if I hadn’t shown a natural proclivity for gymnastics by four years old, it was not in the cards for me. Instead, I leaned hard on the things that I seemed to be pretty good at (art, writing, school), and searched desperately for other skills that might have untapped potential (design, building, entrepreneurship). The clock was ticking- once I crossed into adulthood, the discovery phase would end and I would be stuck forever with whatever collection of bones I had unearthed.

My early 20s were emotionally fraught as I monitored myself for signs of becoming locked in- I wasn’t happy with the version of myself I had excavated so far, and I did not want to be stuck that way. However, time continued to pass, and I continued to discover new things about myself. In fact, I discovered that some of my so-called immutable qualities were actually quite mutable after all. In college, I joined the cheerleading team, and after a lifetime of assuming my body could not do flexible things, I learned to do the splits in less than a semester. This began a slow paradigm shift- one experience was not enough to make me question the whole system, but it did make me reconsider parts of it. I started going to the gym and exploring other fitness hobbies, like rock climbing. I discovered that it gave me tremendous joy and satisfaction to challenge my body, and that skills and abilities that I had always thought were out of reach were closer than I imagined. I would never be a gymnast, but it was a lot of fun to try anyway.

I realize now that very few things about myself are unchangeable. Instead of an archeologist, I had actually been an elaborate storyteller, affixing myself with labels that limited what I thought I could achieve. I would often wish that I were more musically gifted or socially outgoing, but those seemed to be lost causes. The realization that nothing about me is a lost cause has been a gift that I am grateful for every day. Every label can be changed, challenged, or kept; they are not pre-determined, but intentionally chosen as I work to become a better version of myself.

This all sounds well and good, but as with most things, it is not so easy in practice. Which brings me back to running, my apparent Sisyphean boulder.

I tried over and over and over again to prove to myself that I could be a runner. Each time I tried, I never made it past 2 minutes on a treadmill or two blocks on the street. Even though I was getting stronger and more confident in the gym, nothing ever seemed to improve with running. It was embarrassing- I was a relatively fit person, but I struggled with this simple human movement. My legs and my lungs worked fine, so why couldn’t I use them to do an activity that my 70-year-old neighbor did every day? Each new failure reinforced the old label: maybe I could never be a runner. Maybe that was a fixed truth after all.

What finally changed this trajectory was the movie ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’. I am sure that this film has inspired thousands of people take up running, and it certainly inspired me to try again- but this time, with a new perspective. I stopped looking at running as something that should come naturally to me, and accepted that it was something I would have to work for. I started a couch-to-5k program, running a whole 1/4 mile on the first day before I was totally winded. But I kept showing up, and miraculously, progress began to appear- I remember the elation of running a mile in less than 12 minutes for the first time. Only then did I begin to believe that maybe I could be a runner.

Running has continued to be challenging. At the end of the couch-to-5K program, I was nowhere near actually running three miles. In fact, it took me almost a year to run a 5K, and my first race time was just under 40 minutes. I can’t explain why running is so difficult, but I have stopped worrying about that question because I have come to genuinely love it. This is the most surprising part to me- I love running. And that, ultimately, is what unstuck the label. I am a runner now, and I hope to continue running (mostly very slowly) for as long as I can. After three years of regular practice, I am preparing for my first half marathon- which I plan to tackle at a 12 minute mile pace.

Choosing labels that matter and taking actions to validate them to myself has been a rewarding way of shaping what kind of person I want to be. This year, I am challenging the label of ‘not a writer’ by committing to this blog. That has been another sticky one, but I know that if I keep showing up and putting in the work, I will be able to prove that old label wrong and put a new one in its place.

In the spirit of the new year, I hope this inspires you to take stock of your own beliefs about yourself- are they benefiting you, or holding you back? Are they even true? Could you change them? Would you want to?

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in February.