I have a complicated relationship with running.
Twice in my life I thought I’d never be healthy enough to do it again. In 2011 I was diagnosed with a heart condition brought on by viral meningitis: pericardial effusion, which means a sac of fluid sits next to my heart—frustratingly tough to reach without potentially puncturing a lung and stubbornly refusing to shrink. But also blessedly failing to grow.
In 2020, COVID-19 landed me in the emergency room, where doctors discovered alarmingly high levels of troponin in my bloodstream—a marker showing the virus had damaged my already slightly beat up heart.
Thankfully, I was cleared by cardiologists to resume normal activity after both viruses. Just listen to your body, they said.
Still, you worry. I worry.
For a long time I resented running and the people who excelled at it. It represented to me things I didn’t feel like I had—freedom, time, a strong heart.
Some of that was true-ish. Some of it was a story I was telling myself.
I want to write a better story.
So I’m running the Chicago Marathon. I signed up at the suggestion of a good friend who ran his first marathon last year and loved the experience. “Loved” may be the wrong word. Was transformed by the experience, is maybe more accurate.
I’m a big fan of transformation, and I’m a big fan of Chicago neighborhoods—dozens of which you get to run through in this marathon. And I’m not getting any younger. So I signed up. I’m using the run to raise money for Nourishing Hope, which provides food, mental wellness counseling and other social services to Chicagoans who need them.
I’m only a few weeks into the training, which is a hilariously bold number of weeks from which to draw life lessons, let alone transformation.
Watch me try.
I showed up for my first group training run with a stomach full of nerves and a head full of impostor syndrome. Would I be able to keep up? Would I be able to talk and run at the same time? Would I regret all of my life choices by mile 5? Is any of this good for my heart?
Here’s a thing I quickly learned. You get to pick a speed group, and several of them build in walking breaks. Run for three minutes, walk for two. Or run for five minutes, walk for one. The point isn’t to exhaust yourself. The point is to pace yourself.
It’s called interval training, and it’s probably painfully obvious to some of you reading this.
But to me, it felt sneaky. Like, did I really run 6 miles if I walked for 1-minute intervals? Will I really have run a marathon if I do the 5-minute run, 1-minute walk approach? I’m someone who runs in place at stoplights for fear that it doesn’t count as running if I pause.
Count for what? I don’t know. Count for whom? I couldn’t tell you. That was all in my head, sitting next to the impostor syndrome.
And it’s not limited to running. There’s a part of me that is terrified to slow down, to pause, to rest, to be still. I know I’m not alone in this. I know someone reading this feels guilty about taking a week off when your boss really needs you, about taking a nap when your garden needs weeding, about meeting your friends when your inbox is in shambles, about slowing down, pausing, resting, being still.
Here’s the truth. Our bodies need and deserve to rest.
I was watching a YouTube video by a marathon runner called Shanebow, trying to figure out how to set up interval training on my running watch, and before he got to the set-up instructions he briefly extolled the virtues of interval training. By speeding up and slowing down, speeding up and slowing down, you decrease lactic acid build-up and help your body get oxygen into your blood more efficiently and a bunch of other important stuff.
But here’s the part that got me.
“What it basically means is in one run, your body is going to recover, recover, recover, recover,” he said. “Your body is going to get used to recovering. So when you’re on longer runs it just knows how to recover.”
That feels beautiful. And honestly, a little revolutionary. Rest doesn’t mean the race doesn’t count. Rest means you can go the distance.
And this isn’t really about running—at least not exclusively.
It’s about the stories we tell ourselves and the permission we grant ourselves and the grace and care and recovery we allow ourselves. It’s about slowing down to get stronger, whether the muscle you’re building is mental or physical or emotional or all three.
It’s about transformation. Which, I'm learning, is a finish line of its own.
