lifeasliia:

Once upon a time running wasn’t competitive and that’s why I liked it.

I liked that I didn’t ever worry about going fast or keeping up with people or anything. I just ran because I wanted to, as far as I could, and the distances got longer and longer as I trained more. It was always very personal for me. Long runs by myself, runs with my friends, exercise, when I was doing it regularly and the most healthily, was mostly when I lived alone. I documented it here, but I was alone in CA and it was really purely about me.

And then I got home and my friends started running with me and that was fun and nice and we did things together and made matchy t-shirts and it was nice. It really was. Some of my favorite memories of this summer are of running in the heat with my best friends down the busy road down the way from my mom’s tiny house and drinking iced water when we got back and stretching and sweating and watching TV afterwards. I really loved it.

But somehow it stopped being good for me. And it stopped being personal. It started to become purely about training for things with other people and for some reason, that didn’t do as well for me. All of a sudden, I feel pressure to be as fast as my friends. I feel pressure to run when my friends run (which is ironic becuase I sent out the training schedule to all of us, not anyone else, me. But as they follow it, I follow it less. INTERESTING, right?! I don’t understand it.) And right now, aside from everything, I’m in this place where I’m struggling to get myself running. I’m struggling to get myself moving at all. And trying to hop onto a training schedule with my friends who are months and months ahead of me, with defined abs and muscley legs that they are unable to see but I see, feels almost impossible. How can I start training with them when they are running 3, 4, 5 miles regularly and I can barely run one? There’s some kind of feeling of failure, for me, I think. Maybe because I used to be the one who ran. I ran the long distances. I did the first half marathon, I ran a marathon, I did so much alone in California because I wanted to. I did it with my dad. And now I don’t do it at all. I don’t run and I don’t feel like I CAN run and when I think about signing up for the Broad Street with my friends who HAVE run, who ARE running, who are in shape and toned and thin and fit and with the way my head is right now I just literally feel like I can’t run and sign up for things with them right now because I will hate myself. Or maybe because part of me hates myself already and I just can’t. I feel like a failure. The girl who ran the marathon and then did nothing. I used to be so proud of my activity. It’s unbelievably hard and overwhelmingly embarrassing to be where I am now. At least in my head it is.

It’s not that I need to be the best, I don’t think. I don’t need to run super fast and far and forever. But I don’t want to be the worst. The one everyone is waiting for. The one who has to stop every two minutes because she’s out of shape. I was that girl for so long and I don’t want to do it. Reminds me of gym class—being so out of shape you couldn’t even try to run the mile. The looks people gave me when I changed into my shorts. The eye rolling, the secret talking. It triggers stuff for me—being the worst. I know what it does to my head. Makes me feel worthless. 

I don’t know when running changed for me but it’s changed. And I want it back—the way it used to be before. Fun. Made me feel like I had power. A stress reliever. And I guess, as I’m writing this, I realize I don’t consider myself a runner anymore and I don’t know when that changed. I mean, I did a marathon. How could I possibly not feel like a runner anymore? But I don’t. I feel incompetent. I feel like I can’t or that the effort it would take to get to a place to run the Broad Street in what, two months? Is too hard. I feel like I just can’t. I mean, I’m sure I COULD. I could put all my efforts into it, but it might break me. I might binge more. I feel like I am so carefully balancing on a line that leans dangerously close to a full on loss of control,full on binging, terrible head place-ness that i don’t want to push myself in directions that feel scary. Is that being pathetic? Maybe. I don’t know. 

And there’s something about being so close to people who are incredibly active that is making me feel even more incompetent (and it’s harder when they feel like they AREN’T active or fit or whatever. Because then in my head I’m all, ‘well if they’re not active or fit, WHAT THE FUCK AM I!?) It’s not anyone’s fault—not their’s, at least. Definitely my issues. But I watch them run and go to classes and I feel like there is something absolutely WRONG with me because I can’t do what they are doing right now. Just like I watch my friends who aren’t eating a lot for whatever reason, diets and allergies and gluton free and vegetarian etc., anxiety, metabolism, whatever, they just don’t eat a lot, and I feel envious but more than envious I feel like I am a huge major FUCK UP because I can’t seem to put the food down and I’m not shrinking like them, I’m growing. Where did these comparisons come from? I mean, I guess they’ve always kind of been there, but they feel overwhelming now. Maybe because I can’t seem to get myself under control and watching everyone else makes me wonder even more what my issue is. And I swear, there’s no where you can get away from fat/exercise/food talk. Everywhere I am people are dieting or eating less or talking about exercising or blah blah blah blah and I participate and I am triggered.

So I try to focus on boot camp. And I try do my own things. It’s kind of working but I still ache to be able to run. But running right now doesn’t seem to be one of the things I can do because it makes me feel bad. Incompetent. Like I can’t. Not good enough. I wish it was like it was a year ago. But I’m not sure if it can be again.

This is an amazing, beautiful, heartfelt post.