My friend paid me a compliment the other day. We were talking about running because he’s thinking about shaking up his exercise routine, and he said to me (paraphrasing), “It makes sense that you’re a runner because you write for a living. You know how to push yourself.”
I’m pretty sure it was meant to be a compliment. I took it as one.
But it’s not 100% accurate.
Setting aside the notion that I write for a living, let’s consider my identity as a runner.1
Long-time readers will remember that my running journey began on this very blog, 8 years ago. I used the occasion to recommit myself to regular exercise and to publicize my struggles with mental health, chiefly depression and anxiety.
I’ve come a long way since then.
Those first couple of runs gave me hip pointers because I was running in an old pair of sneakers. Now, I have actual running shoes that I replace when they get worn out. I’ve even finally phased out my last pair of high school gym shorts. Having the right equipment is a sign of growth.
At that time, I had just started therapy. I went twice a month for about 2 and a half years before we reached a point where I felt like I had a handle on things. What does “having a handle on things” mean? Well, I understood that the biggest contributing factors to my depression were my job and the feeling that I was isolated from any kind of community. Now, I have a job that doesn’t feel like running my soul through the washer until the last pigments have faded away, and I travel more often to see friends.
I also wasn’t medicated at the time, and that’s changed, too. With my prescription, it feels like my mood bottoms out at the ground floor now instead of somewhere in the sub-sub-sub-basement. Generally you can find me somewhere around the 8th or 9th floor.2
And I have a pet, which is another change that mental health professionals like to recommend. Between anti-depressants and getting a cat, I’m not sure which one is more responsible for curing my depression, but I’m glad something is working out.
Alas, it’s not all forward progress. Back then I wrote that I had given up soft drinks. Too many places around here now have Cheerwine on tap for that to have remained the case. To be honest, I might be too powerful if I actually reduced my soda intake to zero.
Jests aside, I should not say I have cured my depression—that’s not how it works. But the strategies I picked up in therapy and the changes I’ve made do make it easier to identify and avoid depressive moods before I fall into them.
I can say the same for my anxiety. I feel better equipped to recognize automatic thoughts and dismiss them outright—the sorts of thoughts that stop me from speaking my mind in a meeting, introducing myself to someone new, or dancing. I don’t have a 100% success rate for shutting those thoughts down, but it’s higher than it used to be.
That’s just social anxiety, though. There are other kinds of anxiety, those born of nature and stress, of darknesses literal and otherwise. There is the weight of moonless nights, the instinctive reckoning of piercing eyes, gleaming fangs, and honed claws lurking in the overgrowth, their wielders waiting for any show of laxity, any sign that is time to strike.
And so I have kept up with running. What does that look like for me now?
Presently, my goal is to run 3 days a week—twice after work and once when I wake up on Sundays. I do a quick warmup to get my blood flowing, and then I head out onto the Greenway.
I prefer the paved trails along the creek to the neighborhood. They’re level, and they feel softer underfoot than streets or sidewalks, and the wooden footbridges make for neat split points on my route. Sometimes I look over and see how high the creek is (not high, usually). There’s one bridge from which I can see a tire half-buried in a ford. I wish someone would go fish that out.
And there are fishermen, for some reason. A parked bike on the side of the trail betrays the presence of a neighborino down on the bank, casting a net or rod at… something.3 I suppose there are fish in Crabtree Creek, but who would want to catch any of them? Passive insight tells me it’s just for fun. Y’know, catch and release.
If I’m lucky, I get a glimpse of some wildlife up on dry land. I’ve seen deer, who are almost indifferent to passersby, and geese, who are actually indifferent. A couple of times I’ve seen copperheads. Those were exciting runs, especially the day I saw a young one. I do not run to get excited.
Of course the most common sight on the Greenway is other people. Fellow runners, dog walkers, bikers of all ages and proficiencies.
Now, listen: I don’t really push myself when I’m running. What I strive for is consistency—I have an idea of the pace I want to keep, and I don’t want to fall below that. There are folks who run for a while and then slow to a walk and then maybe they start running again. Not me. I save walking for my cooldown laps back at the apartment. I have a picture in my head of what running looks like, and it’s different from jogging. I don’t wanna jog.
To be clear, I run a 2-mile loop. That’s it. I’m not doing 5Ks, I’m not training for a marathon. I try to run 2 measly miles in less than 20 minutes. There’s no push here.
Except when I hear footsteps behind me.
I know they’ll probably overtake me. And I know it might be more polite to ease up long enough to let them pass.
But is it really polite? Am I doing either of us a favor if I just let them go?
If anything, someone trying to pass lets me know I’m probably not hitting my imagined perfect pace.
Sometimes running is easy. I blink and I’m back home, having spent the whole run thinking about D&D (ideal), work (regrettable), or what I should fix for dinner next week (realistic).
Other times, I am conscious every step of the way. I take every breath on purpose. I focus on my form, the way my upper body oscillates counter to my lower body. I keep my toes pointed forward and try to extend my stride.
Often, it takes a mantra, and here’s something of a confession: at any given moment, I’m a short string of thoughts from Watership Down, but when I’m running the words come to me unprompted. Said Frith to El-ahrairah:
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
It makes sense that I’m a runner because, in my heart, I’m a rabbit.
- Is advertising the first field you think of when you hear someone writes for a living? I usually say I’m in advertising because lay people don’t even know what a copywriter is. I happen to live while writing sometimes. ↩︎
- Assuming Mood is a 12-story building. ↩︎
- “Neighborino” here is intended as a diminutive, not a Flanders-ism. ↩︎
subjunctivitis 