One Step at a Time

I remember playing tag. It was the thing to do at recess in the fourth grade, but I hated it. Each time we played I would silently pray that I wasn’t chosen to be it, because then no one would be caught unless someone volunteered to get tagged by me so they could go and chase other people around. And if I wasn’t it, my only viable strategy would be to hide, at least until someone who was it found me. There would be no escape then—I could only surrender.

I remember a timed 100-metre dash for gym class in fifth grade. Four kids ran at a time, but as I was slotted to go in the last group there was only me and Darren, the fastest kid in our class. I decided I’d try to put up a fight and move my legs to their absolute limit so that I wouldn’t fall too far behind. But when the whistle sounded it was clear that I’d grossly overestimated myself. Darren sprinted away, appearing smaller and smaller until he was all the way on the other side of the track. My classmates meant well when they cheered me on, but my face burned with embarrassment as I pathetically lumbered across the track on my own.

I remember walking across a park field with two of my friends in grade six when the mom chaperoning us suggested we race to the other side of the field. My two friends took off, practically bouncing off the grass and whizzing through the air at breakneck speed. I tried desperately to keep up, but I knew I was lagging farther and father behind as my legs burned and my breath ran short. My friend’s mom, who walked behind us, caught up to me.

She laughed lightheartedly, but it felt mocking. “Can’t run anymore?” She said.

“It’s not that,” I retorted, “I just don’t feel like running.”

But we both knew I was lying.

It seems like every single year of my life had some such incident involving running—or rather the lack thereof. Outwardly I proclaimed that I hated running and turned my nose up at it as a child does with Brussel sprouts, but inside what I wanted the most was to be able to run. I was overweight for a good portion of my younger years, and my resulting rejection of exercise left me with no athletic spark whatsoever as I got older. And yet I wanted desperately to be strong; to be fast; to be fit. Most importantly, I wanted to run.

Exactly once every year in high school I would muster up enough motivation to go out for a run in the neighbourhood. I usually went out in the afternoon or at night when there wouldn’t be many cars or people out and about; I didn’t want people seeing me run. The first thirty seconds would feel incredible, and I entertained a sliver of hope that my body had somehow naturally become more fit for sport. In the next thirty seconds that followed, however, the punch of pain and shortness of breath stopped me in my tracks—figuratively and literally. I’d walk the rest of the way, too disheartened to try again.

In the summer of 2018, my boyfriend and I thought it would be fun to sign up for trial gym memberships at all our local gyms, one after the other, so that we wouldn’t have to pay for a gym for all of August. It was at one of these trials when I was forced to use the treadmill due to a lack of free equipment, and I began to walk on it. I pushed myself to up the speed until I was doing a slow jog. Impressed, I zoned out to my music and sought to see how long I could keep it up for. At the end, I was proud to see that I had jogged about 1.6 miles—objectively unimpressive but a tremendous achievement for me. The treadmill became my go-to; I had a lot of fun trying to push myself to beat my previous time, and my goal was to be able to run for half an hour straight without taking a break. Within a matter of weeks, I achieved my goal.

The summer ended and my boyfriend returned to school, but I was on a gap year and maintained a membership at one of the gyms. I ran every time I went to the gym, eventually reaching my second goal of completing 3 miles in 30 minutes. I was so, so proud. I began to push not only my speed but my time as well, and within another two months I able to run 6.2 miles straight in about an hour. I still remember the feeling of absolute victory when I hit stop on the treadmill, drenched from head to toe in sweat, snapping a picture of the treadmill numbers before they disappeared.

But something had changed. It was a slight shift in attitude, or maybe it was just the fear to reverting back to the unfit, soft-fleshed mess I pictured myself to be just months earlier. I’m not sure when the guilt started to creep in or when food came into the picture, but eventually on those days that I didn’t run I felt disgusting, convinced that a 24-hour break that contained eating and no exercise would somehow backtrack months of progress. So I ran every day. I worked all day on weekends, but eventually I felt so guilty not running and eating a “cheat” dinner with my visiting boyfriend that I figured out a way to run on weekends too. I ate less and ran more, and the pounds slipped off me like running water.

If you think 4:00 AM is an ungodly hour to get up in the morning, I’d say now that you’re right. But two years ago it became my daily routine. Every morning I pleaded with myself to sleep longer, but the prospect of the rush of runner’s high dragged me to the gym when the sky was pitch black and the streets were deserted. The fast drive through the empty streets was an essential zip-line straight from my bed to the gym’s treadmill.

There was never a time in my life when I was simultaneously both so happy and unhappy with myself. I liked that I could run. I liked the way I looked. I liked that I was finally what I’d always pictured “fit” to be. I thought it was just a matter of having strong willpower. On the other hand, I had a sinking feeling that it was dangerously unsustainable. My parents and people around me started commenting on how thin I was getting, and I managed to hide from my mom the fact that my period had stopped coming altogether (which, to be fair, I hardly minded). Sometimes my knees would ache from how much running I was doing, and when I read online that menstrual cycles were critical to bone health I was scared. I was cold all the time, my body only showing some semblance of warmth after I ate a big meal—which I rarely did anymore. My boyfriend, to whom I revealed more of my thoughts and tendencies, worried about me constantly. Despite his constant pleading, I was so terrified of stopping my running routine that I simply tuned him out, and my self-worth slowly became tied to my running.

When Spring came I began running outside, which I felt was my next biggest accomplishment. It was beautiful watching the sun rise over the fields North of my neighbourhood, and there’s just no feeling like filling my lungs to the brim with that crisp, cool morning air. I thought I felt great, but in retrospect I’m not so sure I did. I was tired for most of the day, and on the day I got into a minor car accident in highway traffic as a result of a microsleep I was forced to wake up (literally) to the reality of what I was doing to myself.

I’m very happy to say that it all fell apart that summer (2019) when I took a month-long trip to China. Given nowhere appropriate to run I was forced to quit my extreme habits cold turkey, and the lack of a gym condemned me to recovery. During the rest of 2019 and 2020 I gained back a good portion of weight, and I was (for the most part) happy to do so. I’d always loved food, and being able to cook and eat again without weighing everything out—and eating whatever I wanted—was an incredibly feeling. My boyfriend, whom I lived with whilst at school, happily cooked me arrays of things I loved to eat. Though I felt bad at times, I’m glad I didn’t do much running last year.

I’ve had quite a run (pun intended). What began as a seething hatred for running had taken a wild swing all the way to the other end of the continuum. I’ve rejected running, hated it, embraced it, loved it, been obsessed with it, and let it take me to a very dangerous place. I’ve taken a break, but I’m by no means done with running. There is something about the powerful feeling of my feet pounding on the asphalt on a wide, open road that I just don’t want to give up, and something about the cavernous feeling of worn-out lungs I still itch to remember.

In 2021, I’m getting up and trying again. I’ve reclaimed my self-worth, my confidence, and my determination, and they’re tightly fastened to other facets of my being. I won’t let something as simple as a treadmill shake that hold this time. This elusive passion for running evaded me most of my life, and when I finally pounced on it and had it within my grip I was forced to let it go. But once you’ve held it, I don’t think you ever quite forget how wonderful it can be. I’m getting back into my running shoes, but I’m going to take it easy. Slow and steady, after all, wins the race.

Farewell for now, reader. I’m going out for a run.