I have always been highly skeptical of people who claim to “love running.” For most of my life, I have associated running with feelings of frustration, inadequacy, and overwhelming self-consciousness. I would see someone running and think, “Huh, they look kinda strange when they run” and then my thoughts would instantly shift to, “Holy shit, when I run, I must look truly unhinged.”
Running represented everything I wished I could (but believed I never would) be: disciplined, athletic, skinny. There were kids who ran The Mile at Memorial Field during elementary school gym class without breaking a sweat, racing the clock and having fun and kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. When I’d eventually join them at the finish line, massaging a stomach cramp and holding in a cough, I’d bow my head in an effort to avert any and all attempts at eye contact.
Running was pain.
Despite my defeatist attitude, there was always a small piece of me that believed with the right shoes or soundtrack, I could become a runner. So I would spend hours making running playlists, sweating over sequencing to make sure the transitions were seamless and making notes about BPM to figure out the sweet spot of my hypothetical stride. But these playlists were aspirational, as tethered to reality as the playlists I’d make in case I were ever forced to take over the aux cord during a party at Prince’s Paisley Park or for the brewery I’d own one day (all the beers would be named after songs, duh). I continue to be horrified by people who run without headphones. The only way I’d ever be able to go the distance/go for speed (all alone in my time of need) would be with tunes blasting, each 808 or snare hit pushing me to sharpen my pace and forge ahead.
I found myself turning to these playlists a lot in the early days of quarantine, wanting to escape a world that seemed to be perpetually shrinking. In these daydreams of being a runner, it was as if I were able to literally out-run the contagion, gulping down fresh air in my big, strong lungs and getting high on endorphins. A long run was the opposite of self-enforced confinement, where you could maybe distract yourself for a few minutes before remembering that everyone you knew and loved were technically in harm’s way, and that this status quo could seemingly sustain itself in perpetuity. If running truly was pain, it couldn’t be any worse than what I was feeling as weeks turned into months and “the new normal” crystallized into a sad cliché. Sheepishly, I would try running, gritting my teeth all the way through it, and then take a few weeks off to remember why I would never be a runner.
When my co-worker tossed out that he was organizing a team to run a virtual race, I said I’d participate, signing up quickly so as not to give any time to talk myself out of it. I claimed one of the 5K legs and used the knowledge that my colleagues would be able to see an embarrassing finish time on a leaderboard as my fuel to train. I’d wake up early, fire up a playlist and…realize that none of them remotely worked. None of them. They were made by a person who daydreamed about running, not a person who actually ran. So in order to get myself motivated—and to provide some sense of structure—I relied on programmed outdoor workouts on the Peloton digital app. I finished the 5K in a respectable time and pushed myself to run another 5K race the next week.
Slowly but surely, I began to feel more confident running. I started to understand my pace and feel more in touch with my body, taking time to recognize the strike of my foot or the softening of my jaw or my breathing. When I’d really get in the zone, I figured out how to unlock running’s secret power: the ability to shut off my brain. While I may display a semblance of confidence, it’s mostly a facade. Beneath the surface, I am a mess of overthinking and negative self-talk, gaming out worst-case-scenarios and unable to enjoy success as I’m convinced it’s just a precursor for an impending sudden shift in karma.
But when I’m running, I’m lost and I’m found simultaneously, unable to think because I’m so consumed by the task at hand: putting one foot in front of the other. I run faster less in pursuit of some time trial goal and more to gain distance from all the parts of myself I don’t like, the corners of my mind I wish would quiet down. I started therapy last year and began to integrate meditation more into my routine, in part to achieve a sense of mental stillness. And while they’ve both helped, the closest I can get to that coveted stillness is when I’m in motion.
Running is peace.
It’s far too early for me to feel comfortable calling myself “a runner.” It feels like a person who’s lived in Manhattan for six months calling themselves “a New Yorker.” But I’m starting to understand the draw of something I once considered to be suffering.
I created this playlist to capture what running feels like to me, rather than something that would actually be good to listen to while running (although you’re welcome to give it a try and report back). It took a lot of self-control to not kick it off with “Love Is a Marathon” by Teddy Geiger, but I guess that’s a song for a future Late Greats dispatch.