It’s no less than 85 degrees out, and the trail I’m running on offers a wonderfully scenic view of a man-made lake, but, unfortunately, there is very little shade. I have a playlist titled “RUN TO TSWIFT” blaring through my AirPods, but I can still hear the phantom slap of my dirty Hokas against the scalding concrete. There is sweat dripping from every pore of my body, and I’m slightly worried that the slicked-back bun I so carefully put together this morning will come undone and my bangs will stick to my face.
These are the things I am thinking about when I run my first 5K in four years. I’m not wondering how fast I’m going or how many calories I’m burning; all I know is that I am going to finish the race. Afterward, I will probably get ice cream with my mom to celebrate.
I was 15 years old when I put on my first pair of real running shoes. Just weeks into the infamous 2020 lockdown and in a Chloe Ting– induced coma of athleisure, “bod goals” and needing to be anywhere but inside, I found myself with nothing to do other than to put my hair up and go for a run. I needed the fresh air, and I’d spent too much time looking at myself in the mirror. I had convinced myself that it was time to lose weight.
I hadn’t even finished puberty.
You see, this is the dangerous effect of giving an impressionable teenager unrestricted internet access. Instead of, I don’t know, picking up a book and sitting on my back porch for a hearty breath of fresh air, I found myself googling the quickest ways to lose weight, inundated with a plethora of women (fully-grown women, might I add) showing off their rock-hard six-packs and slim legs on my TikTok “For You” page.
In retrospect, there was absolutely no reason for me to need — or have the desire — to lose weight. I was healthy and in good shape. Yet, there was this little, absolutely-jacked goblin that resided in my mind telling me that if I didn’t look like these girls online, there was something wrong with me.
So, I ran. It started out with ill-paced two-mile bouts, but by the end of the summer I would regularly run five miles at a solid speed. I was no professional, but I was getting fast — and I was losing weight.
I started to slip into an obsession with the scale and the time reflected on my watch. I wanted to be faster, and I wanted to be smaller. Instead of indulging in just a good-natured jog, I needed to get a run in and shave seconds off my pace no matter what. My diet consisted of leafy greens and low-calorie dressings (forget the protein) and I was often irritable and sore. I was exhibiting wildly unhealthy behaviors — the exact opposite of what I was striving to become in the first place.
Yet, my obsession with running was not just fueled by my weight loss and decreased mile time. Buried within me, under the desire to run unhealthily fast, there was a little girl who did the Girls on the Run 5K with her dad in the fourth grade and never forgot how good it felt to get her first-ever runners high, finishing the race giddy and red-faced.
There was something beautifully freeing about being able to get away from the indoors, nagging parents and unfinished school work (learning geometry through a screen was all but pleasant) during quarantine. And when I caught that runner’s high — even if it was now fueled by more questionable motives — I didn’t have to worry about online school or the state of our nation, I could just go.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, LSA rising junior Kate Meinecke, similarly recalls her running career starting with her father.
“I started really running with my dad when I was eight years old, so we started really early,” Meinecke said.,” Meinecke said. “He had done the same with my brother and we would just go on like really chill, really nice two-mile runs together. And that was like a really, I think, good start to my running career.”
Meinecke, like me, spiraled into a rocky relationship with running as her career progressed.
“I joined my elementary school track team and I started doing 5Ks. I started getting into it more and still it’s totally OK and I was really enjoying it,” she said. “That’s how it went for a couple more years until I hit, I would say about fifth or sixth grade.”
Meinecke went on to explain something that resonated with me.
“And that’s when I think it started to get the best of me a little bit. And so I would train a bunch. I put a lot of pressure on myself and my body and like in the moment, it was really paying off,” she said.
I felt myself nodding along with her words; I understood exactly what she was saying. It was hard to recognize the unhealthy patterns I myself was falling into when I was seeing such great results. In terms of my long-term health, losing 10 pounds off of an already small frame in the span of three months was absolutely detrimental to my health, but I ignored it. I mean, I had abs!
“I was doing really well. I was scoring well, all that good stuff … until I hit eighth grade and I started throwing up before my races. For years. It got to the point where it was before every race became normal. And like, I had to throw up or I wouldn’t feel good,” Meinecke said.
Instead of enjoying the sport she once loved, Meinecke, too, had fallen into troubling behaviors when it came to running. Both of us, as naturally competitive people — Meinecke with her placement at races and mine with the number on the scale— couldn’t seem to find a healthy balance.
In our conversation, we talked about when we realized something needed to change. Meinecke found a renewed sense of hope and interest in her running career when she joined MRun, the official running club of the University of Michigan.
“I went when I wanted to go,” Meinecke said. “I put in what I wanted to put in. I felt like I was almost reclaiming it back. Like, this is what I wanted from (running) originally.”
In taking the pressure off of herself to perform, Meinecke was able to heal her own relationship with the track. Beautifully enough, it reminded me of my own story.
I had to retire my running shoes at the end of the summer of 2020. I had dropped to an alarmingly low weight, and I no longer had the energy, stamina or willpower to run anymore. I’d reached my “goal” but I most certainly wasn’t healthy. I gave up running completely.
Meinecke did, too. After she had peaked in her race-related stress, she hung up her shoes for good and headed to college.
“So what, what now? I’d gone into college, like I’m never running again,” she said. This led to her testing out the waters with MRun. Although I didn’t join the aforementioned club, I also started running again.
This May 15th, I laced up my beat-to-shit running shoes and headed out the door. I wasn’t sure what compelled me to go for a run that day; maybe it was the crystalline blue skies or that the temperature was a balmy 75 degrees, but I ran.
I ran the slowest mile of my life. I was so incredibly winded and my calves and lungs were on fire. I sat down on a worn bench in the Nichols Arboretum and burst into hysterical laughter. I felt amazing; I felt free. For once, I had put no pressure on myself to go as fast as I possibly could, as if I were escaping the number on the scale that awaited me upon my return home. I just went.
I am no Olympian, but in finding my new runner’s high — in running freely — I felt like I could do anything. So, naturally, I signed up for a 5K. I decided that I would train as healthily as I could. Like Meinecke, I ran when I wanted to, for how long I wanted to and for however fast my body told me was good for that day. I ate protein-filled meals (with some leafy greens on the side), and I drank so much water I thought I might pee my pants sometimes. I was healthy this go around; I was strong. Not once did I check the scale.
I did pace myself throughout my training and during my race, but only so that I wouldn’t push myself to the brink of burnout like I had before. I was running slowly, sure, but I was consistent if nothing else. I gave myself grace; it had been four years since I laced up my Hokas.
On the day of the race, roughly a month later, my family stood on the finish line, eagerly waiting to cheer me on. The race was incredibly difficult. It was blisteringly hot outside, and I definitely didn’t drink enough water. In the excitement of the shotgun, I pushed myself a little bit harder than I would have liked to for the first mile, but I didn’t care. I was so giddy I felt like I could cry.
I finished the race red-faced and on the verge of passing out. I practically fell over the finish line, just long enough for my mom to snap a killer picture of my triumphant expression. My younger niece and nephew pampered me with water and strawberries.
I placed second in my age group and walked off with the medal in my back pocket. I was so surprised I had placed, let alone finished, but that wasn’t what mattered. I was finally free. I was free of the expectation to be the fastest, to be the smallest. I just was, and that was enough for me.
Looking at my running shoes now, I can clearly see that they are dirty and that I should clean them, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. They tell the story of how I fell back in love with the sport that gave me freedom when I needed it most, and perhaps sometime in the near future I will buy new ones. When I do, I can only hope that they carry me to run confidently, grinning the whole way through, even if I’m running an 11:30 mile.
Statement Deputy Editor Anna McLean can be reached at agmclean@umich.edu.
The post I ran a 5K and it healed my inner 15-year-old self appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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