"When You Become a Stranger Again"

At some point or another I think most of us experience moments when we feel like a stranger to ourselves. Some of us wake up and realize that we have gone down a path we never thought we would chose. Others feel as though the words they speak are not their own. But for me, the moment when I felt like I could no longer recognize myself was when I started running again. On that first run back I felt like this body was not mine, that it no longer submitted to my desires.

To contextualize this moment of existential (non)crisis, let me just say that running has been critical in my life for the better part of a decade now. I started running Cross Country in Middle School as an alternative to competitive swimming (and to get some social time with my friends at the time). Those early years of running were nothing spectacular, and I regularly lost to girls. But I stuck with it for some reason or another. By my freshman year of high school I had a break out year and I became a fairly competitive high school athlete. I was never a top competitor, but I was also pretty serious about what I was doing. I'd stand on the starting line and empty my body of everything but the shuddering of my heart and that cold burst of anticipation before the sound of the gun. My summers were 6 am runs and a feeling of accomplishment.

The summer before college was one of the best summers for running I had ever had. I finally started logging miles, my training runs were rejuvenated by a new sense of purpose. Now, I had never had high hopes for running beyond college, but I had always thought that I could be a competitive DIII runner. There was no career in it for me. Just the joy of competition. But college didn't pan out that way. After a promising start to my college career, I languished. And with each disappointing month, perhaps interrupted by an occasional PR, I found myself laden with a growing sense of anxiety. By my second year I found myself filled not with the shudder of a heart or the rush of cold anticipation, but a tied knot where my stomach should be. I would lose sleep wondering if the next race would finally bring me out of mediocrity and elevate me to the level I had always thought I should be. But it never happened. Running lost its innocence and it became, instead, a new stressor in my life. Though I'm glad I ran in college as it added tremendously to my life in many, many ways, I can't help but feel that by the last year competitive running had finally siphoned off the joy. The only problem with that thinking is that it was competing that made running fun for me. I didn't want to head out the door without a purpose. What good was a 9 mile run if not to improve and to test myself continuously?

After my last (and most disappointing) collegiate race I promised myself that I'd begin competing for myself. I purchased a new jersey top to serve as a new uniform for my next phase. And yet the motivation was gone. I just couldnt bring myself to get up and out the door. I watched all summer as my girlfriend rekindled her love for running and improved with each passing week. And inside I stayed. By the time grad school started up I just didn't care about running. It brought me no pleasure and I saw no reason to do it. The jersey and the shoes remained empty in the back of my closet and I just stayed still.

Then, in the last few months I began to miss that post-run feeling. That sensation of being completely awake and light. So I started to run. And that's when I felt like a stranger.

My rhythm was off. My arm swing felt awkward and my strides felt like plodding. Everything seemed completely out of sync. That unity of mind and body I had grown so accustomed to was gone. For the past month I have struggled to put together more than 2 days of running in a row. And while my motivation has gotten better, I think what's keeping me back most right now is the fear that I'll never come back to the way it used to feel. While I had never been a top athlete, I always knew I could run well when I needed to. If I lost a race, it was because the other guys were just better than me at that moment, and I had faith that I could improve through training. But after four years of languishing in the middle of the pack, and now a year of gradual decay, I have to find my way back to running again. I want nothing more than to be able to turn back out sub-5 minute miles on runs when I feel like it. I want that turn over to come back. I want to feel like I own my body again.

The title of this blog is taken from a Jet's to Brazil Song entitled "You're Having the Time of my Life." This post was originally published on another one of my blogs, but has been reused to open this blog.