Julie Gillis is an avid runner and documentation specialist.  She lives in Lancaster, MA with her husband Chris of 18 years and her two sons Andrew, 14 and Brandon, 11.  When she is not enjoying time with family and friends, she’s out running the beautiful country roads of Central MA.   Running has always been a positive force in Julie’s life until the recent events that occurred on April 15 at 117th Boston Marathon.  She hopes that sharing her story will assist others in the healing process and inspire them to keep running. 

The Boston Marathon has always represented that race which nagged me to the core.  That race I would never be fast enough to qualify for until I was 90.  That race I would sit out year after year only to result in Marathon depression because I wasn’t participating in the Super Bowl of running events.  That race that people would assume I had run because I was a marathoner, a non-runner just couldn’t comprehend that there was any other race. 

Finally on Patriots Day of 2012, I decided I would run That Race!  To prove to others and myself that the Boston Marathon was that race I could tame.  To find out what this Boston Marathon frenzy was all about.  To be able to answer to a non-runner that, “yes I have run Boston.” To not have to be a wallflower on race day.  I would put in the months of training in the rain, sleet and snow, run the most grueling races with 18 miles of hills, after hills, after hills, which would result in not be able to walk normally for days.

A few weeks before the 2013 race, the Boston Marathon frenzy had begun.  Family, friends and colleagues came out of the woodwork to show support. To the point, that on several occasions, I was moved to tears by kind words and gestures of support.  Even the newspapers wanted to talk to me, I had never experienced the true sense of community before and it was overwhelming. It was hard to focus on anything else. Finally, the true meaning of the Boston Marathon had revealed itself and we were all in this race together.  Symbolizing that together we can inspire one another to reach our goals. 

On race day my family and I headed out to Hopkinton in the early morning hours. Surprisingly, I was feeling pretty calm. Then, in the distance, I spotted the sign, “ Welcome to Hopkinton” and tears started to flow.  The few hours before the race flew by. I hugged my teammate goodbye and wished her luck and then I entered my corral on my own.  The start of the race was signaling to begin with the gun going off.   Just 50 yards beyond the starting line, in the front row of spectators, were the smiling faces of my family who came to cheer me on. I knew my life would never be the same but not for the reasons I had anticipated.

Once reaching Wellesley Center, I finally started to settle in knowing my family was only three miles away at mile 16.  That they had come all the way out to see me, motivated me to make it up Heartbreak Hill. The momentum was building; I knew I had this race beat! Miles 22-24 were the most strenuous part of the race, I had to stop and keep stretching because my legs felt like glass, as if one more step would shatter them into a million pieces.  This feeling was familiar from previous races, but visualizing the ultimate celebration at the finish line kept me going. At mile 25 the pain disappeared and with the view of the Citgo sign in my sights, I started to play with the crowd, telling them to yell louder, high-fiving as many people as I could along the way.

At mile 25.59 everything just stopped… I began to think I was seeing things… maybe I was dehydrated. Was this the dreaded wall that everyone talked about?  It couldn’t be, I was feeling great. No that wasn’t it…

Then my phone rang, it was my 14-year-old son, “Mom stop running, there has been an explosion. And then immediately I heard my husband’s voice, calmly on the other end. “There was an explosion right in front of us, but we are all OK!”  We decided to hang up the phone to save our batteries until we could make a plan. 

Side by side runners stood together in the street stunned and numb as the news traveled between us. Cold, with no water or foil blankets to keep warm; without warning we were ushered to the side of the road to allow for law enforcement to race past us in unmarked cars with tinted windows. It was like a scene from a movie.

I then went into survival mode and texted my husband my location “ I am at 395 Comm. Ave, come meet me.” At this point the phones were working sporadically, so I just kept texting. Then a reply finally came through: ”We can’t get you, won’t let us, we are in lock down in Prudential Center.”  These were not the words I wanted to see scroll across my phone. Now we were separated and we couldn’t get to one another.

The cold started to settle into my body and I couldn’t stop shaking. A total stranger, who gave me the jacket off her back, encouraged me to seek shelter in a nearby hotel. At this point my fingers that were once pink and had now turned white.  My poor circulation was now starting to catch up with me and my blood was starting to sludge—a term coined by my specialist who I had seen years ago for my poor circulation.   

After the hotel employees saw how cold I was, they finally let me in. Initially the hotel management didn’t want to let us in for security reasons.   They had some of the elite runners occupying the hotel and at that point everyone was still on high alert.

Finally a second call came in from my husband. He said that he was told by the police to leave the city immediately to just GET OUT!  We couldn’t take our car as it was locked down at the Prudential, and there was no public transportation or cab service available.  The city was going into lock down so we decided to meet up at Fenway Park in the corporate office, where my husband had a business associate who would be able to drive us home.

So with a bath towel wrapped around my body for warmth, I walked to Fenway to meet my family. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty; I just wanted to see them. I didn’t want to stop for a meal or water like my husband kept urging me to do. I wasn’t thinking about that fact that I had just run a marathon and needed to refuel, I just wanted to see their faces and know they were OK. 

Two hours later, I was finally reunited with my family. We all embraced in a group hug and broke down into tears.  Looking at each one of their faces making sure they were all physically healthy.

During the days and weeks that followed the race, I experienced a range of emotions. I felt terribly guilty for bringing my family to Boston.  Running had become my selfish indulgence just for me, now it almost killed my family and shook them to the core.  If it weren’t for my selfishness, they wouldn’t have been at the finish line and witnessed the cruel acts of terrorism.  I was extremely angry that I had to listen to my youngest son relive his Marathon experience of the bombing with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes.  Saddened by the fact that my husband had to search our finish line pictures for potential terrorists to submit to the FBI.  Haunted by the screams of onlookers at the finish line and knowing that my family was caught up in the craziness and imagining their screams and cries when they realized what had taken place.  

Visualizing the finish line during a tough training run had always gotten me through, but now was plagued with flash backs of bombs and bloody bodies.  Once again, That Race, the all mighty Boston Marathon, had broken my heart. 

The Boston Marathon may have broken my heart, but I won’t let it break my spirit nor will it stop me from running in 2014.  Now I am even more determined to run, That Race and cross that finish line to fade the flashbacks.  I want to honor my older son’s wish, who made me promise only days after the race, “Mom please tell me we won’t let this change how we live our lives”.  So I will run this next race for my family, friends, community and charity, to let everyone know we won’t let this change us.  We will remember the good things that this journey has given us, the new friends we have met along the way; the obstacles overcome to get to this race and the overwhelming support we received from our community. I will run this race most importantly, to honor those who were killed and wounded by the bombs.

In 2014 I will cross that finish line. The Boston Marathon will not break my heart and it will no longer be That Race.

Cindy Clem is NOT one of the three people in the image above. Cindy is instead a much less ambitious runner who lives in State College, PA, and who is usually content with her lack of ambition. When not running (i.e., most of the time), she teaches writing at Penn State University, where she received her MFA, and writes, reads, walks, practices yoga, attempts to learn Tarot, and watches Doctor Who, among other less interesting things. 

Ultra marathoners piss me off. 

Maybe some of them are reasonable people, but as a species, I want to believe they’re motivated by mental illness.  I mean, look at them. Those cavernous, stringy forms, those huge dark glasses, those visors.

I want to believe they run because they are spiritually crippled. Unable to cope with reality, they instead carve their bodies into sharpened points aimed at one target and when they hit that bull’s eye, they claim superior mental strength. Assholes.

This rant is brought to you by NPR coverage of a race across the Saharan desert: 150+ miles through 122 degree heat, blistering sun, sandstorms, likely dehydration, etc.  You pay over $3000 to do it. What privilege, I thought (derisively). What monstrosity of ambition for individual physical achievement, this placement of our thin structures of bone and muscle and blood and skin into an environment as vast as it is ruthless.

We scorn what most indicts us. The truth? I’m a bit stringy myself, and running has been, for me, an expression of mental illness. Second truth? When I heard about this race, my immediate, pre-scorn reaction was thrill. I’m a sucker for stories of adventurers, of the elite who achieve ultra-human feats. I’m a romantic, and I salivate for stories of yogis who can practically levitate because of core strength, of men who trek the northernmost Yukon Territory, of raw foodists whose diets are so pure they approach holiness, of young spellers who spend hours each day memorizing arrangements of letters—whatever. If it takes grueling dedication, I admire it.

The problem, as always, is that I can’t seem to move beyond being a regular human. And if I can’t be ultra, why try at all? This is a ridiculous attitude, I know, and mostly I’ve matured beyond it. Stories like the Saharan race, though, trigger that panic and sense of abysmal inadequacy I struggled with for many years. I quit running at one point and took up yoga, hoping to relieve the pain of not living up to my own expectations. But why do yoga if you won’t eventually walk to Tibet and sit in a cave for years in full lotus position? Why write if you won’t get the Pulitzer? Etc.

Like I said, in 90% of my daily living, I don’t think this way anymore. A combination of therapy, books on Buddhism and mindfulness, good friendships and family, and aging continue to gently replace fantasy with reality—and to help reality seem preferable.

Still, I wonder sometimes if all my talk of groundedness is way to trick myself out of regret for not trying harder. Maybe abusing the body so that the mind is isolated, distilled, sharpened, is the whole grit-filled point. Maybe the more harshly we discipline the body, the greater our vision. A third truth? I could be a much better runner, writer, and yogi if I made more sacrifices, pursued each talent with a more unflagging dedication.

Obligatory admission: My choice to live less stridently does not mean that others (read: ultra-marathoners) must make the same choice.  I can even, when I’m calm, applaud these ultras. Someone needs to show us, now and then, what’s possible.  

In moments of self-doubt, I try to remember what my Reiki practitioner told me. He encouraged me to move slowly, deliberately, as if practicing Tai Chi. “People rush. You see it all the time. You can almost see the streaks of energy they’re leaving behind. You have to move slowly, keep that energy with you. It wants to be with you.”  Energy fluctuates, naturally. Some days it flourishes, and I can run (or write, or hold a pose) longer. Some days it laps the shore gently, and I move more slowly, walking with it. And some days I sense only small whisper. On those days, I try to sit and breathe and let it be.

 *image courtesy of http://library.creativecow.net/articles/moll_james/running_the_sahara/running-Tenere.jpg

Tamara Adelman is a massage therapist, triathlete, and freelance writer living in Santa Monica, California. Devoted to training and traveling, she has competed in Ironman races in Brazil, South Africa, the Canary Islands, and Europe. Equally devoted to developing her writing, she has attended the Taos Writers Conference and is enrolled in the Creative Nonfiction Certificate Program at UCLA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Amarillo Bay, Clackamas Literary Review, Ducts, Folly, Forge, Hospital Drive Magazine, International Walk Review, North Dakota Quarterly, RiverSedge, This I Believe, Toasted Cheese Literary Magazine, Verdad, and Waterski.

I remember my coach said just try to enjoy the last two miles of the race. It was mile 24 of the marathon and the bottoms of my feet were bleeding. That six months of training did nothing to propel me forward. It was the marathon portion of Ironman South Africa, the final part of the race, and I swore I would never do this to myself again. It had been an endless day that began with nerves and a 2.6 mile swim in the Indian Ocean followed by reapplication of sunblock and a windy 112 mile bike ride−I was past the fourteen hour mark on the last loop of the run course and ready to be airlifted home.

It was dark, and there were stars but they did nothing to give me direction. They gave the women runners escorts for safety in the latter part of the run and though mine was right next to me, I felt lonely. My clothes were crusted in salt from sweating all day. I’d peed in my bike shorts which I was still wearing. Nothing had passed through my mouth that wasn’t in the form of a bar, gel or liquid all day. But there was one thing that was pulling me forward: the finish line.

I couldn’t see it but I knew it was there like the horizon in a storm at sea. I didn’t care that I was filthy, I didn’t care that I was lonesome, I didn’t care that this was the hardest day of my life. I didn’t care about anything except getting to that finish line.

I heard the cheering before I saw the lights and then finally the banner about 200 yards away. I ran faster without trying to and all the pain left my body. I started to laugh and cry at the same time as elation and exhaustion drove me forward.  The cheering, smiling and applause embraced me into the best feeling I’ve ever known.

The finish line is the reason why I’ve spent the past thirteen years racing in triathlons and running races. I have crossed 100 finish lines.  

I’ve never run in Boston, but my first thought was, did they finish the race? The runners they showed over and over again in the smoke and flags footage at the 4:08 mark, did they finish? Running a 4 hour marathon is not that easy. What about that one guy that went down, I watched it again and again. He refused a wheelchair and he did finish the race. He was 78 years old and ran 9 minute miles most of the time. Some runners finished the race and then ran 2 more miles to a hospital to give blood. I will never look at a finish line the same way again.

I will think of others as I run down the chute. I will not be mad that I didn’t beat my time. I will be grateful that I have legs. I will thank a volunteer and I will remember the spectators who showed up that day to cheer.   

Suzanne Lyons has a BA in Communications from Marist College and has spent more than 20 years in public relations and media relations. She currently works in NYC for a large PR agency where she runs the Media Relations practice.  She is an avid amateur photographer. When she’s not working, running, training or spending time with her large extended family, you can find her walking the neighborhoods of River Edge, NJ with her adorable dog Finn, whom she credits for her journey to a healthier and happy life.

From the time I was old enough to be aware of my weight, I always thought I was fat (really I wasn’t).  My sweet, old school pediatrician used to refer to me as “sturdy”, which I know he meant as a compliment and was a reference to my larger bone structure and the fact that I was never sick as a child.  My sister, just 11 months younger than I, was tiny. She had this delicate frame, and I was acutely aware of it when we reached grade school and started to participate in sports/activities.  She was fast, a great sprinter, and I was not.  Everyone in my Catholic grammar school ran in the track program and I remember vividly being in the upper weight categories from an early age.  I have a few 3^rd place medals from relay races back then, but they represent last place finishes.  When I reached 6^th grade I was in the “Open” category and was often subjected to running with older, faster kids. 

I stopped running and focused on things like dance and cheerleading, at which I excelled.

High school and college represent very physically inactive times in my life. I was more interested in social things…boys, late night dance clubs and diner runs.  I was the chubby girl with “such a pretty face”.   When I entered the workforce my weight began to creep up.  A few crash diets never seemed to help maintain a significant weight loss.

In my 30s my weight sky rocketed and I settled on the fact that I was not athletic and I would be full figured for the rest of my life.

Turning 40, at over 200 lbs, should have been a wakeup call.  My life was full and my career was on the fast track, so I ignored it.  I made jokes about it with my team at work.  I had the “5 block rule”.  This meant that any activity taking place after work had to be within a 5 block walk of where my parking garage was.  I never told the team that the 5 block rule existed because I was embarrassed to be huffing, puffing and sweating if we went somewhere farther.  God forbid we had to take a subway – what large staircase would I face and have trouble making my way up?

On New Year’s Eve of 2010, something, some wonderful furry someone, came into my life. My boy Finn.  I adopted Finn that day and in the coming months my life changed dramatically.  A 6 month old puppy needs to be walked, A LOT.  I struggled to get him the exercise he needed and very quickly realized that I had to take control of my own health to be the best dog mommy for him.

In April 2011 I began a journey that I am still on today. I joined a commercial weight loss program and began the slow process of taking off many years of weight gain.  10 lbs down.  20 lbs down. 30 lbs down.  40 lbs down.  I set my first two physically challenging goals in 2012:  a tree top zip line course in July and a 5K mud run in October.

I trained hard, but I still wouldn’t “run”.  My mind wouldn’t let go of the old wounds of grammar school and years of weight gain.  I was in a smaller, healthier body, but I still couldn’t push myself to become a runner.  “It’s my knee,” I told myself.  “I’m too old [at 44],” I lamented.  “I just don’t have the cardio capacity,” I lied to myself.

I completed both the zip line course (AMAZING) and the 5K mud run.

And then I spent this past winter gaining back 12 lbs.

After my 45^th birthday in February I decided it was over.  I was going to force myself to let go, to prove that I could do anything I set my mind to.  New running shoes and a GPS watch were purchased.  I started to train again for 3 races.

It sucked.

But I’m still doing it.

I’ve run one 5K and one 4 mile race in the last 6 weeks and the 3^rd is on April 20^th.  It’s my town’s annual 5K.  I will not run fast.  I will probably have to walk the hilly middle part of the course.  My friends and my 15 year old niece will finish in ½ the time that I will.

I don’t care.

I will run across the finish line.  And I will know that my achy, 45 year old body is in better shape than my 25 year old body ever was.

I will find 10 more races to complete this year.  And I will run.

Moriah Erickson is a writer, respiratory therapist, wife, mother to 7 children, and a runner.  She has published essays and poems in numerous journals and publications on both the local and national level.  She is currently finishing her MFA from Fairfield University, and  lives a good life in Duluth, MN.

This is her second contribution to And I Ran. Read her first essay here.

Turning 36 was hard, harder than any other number I had experienced.  It was the only one I had expectations for:  I thought that was when I would have my life “together” by then.  I’d have finished school by then, I’d have the job I wanted for so many years, and I’d find that “balance” between all the facets of my life which had, for so many years, all been in turmoil.  When my birthday rolled around, I was still doing the same job I had been for 12 years, I wasn’t quite done with school, and the only place I had “balance” was in my checkbook, with exactly $12.73.  Turning 36 was a disappointment, for sure, and like all other disappointments in my life, I turned to running to soothe the discontent.

            In response, I pulled on my Coldgear tights, after all this was January in Minnesota.  I layered my tops, and pulled my fleece hat down over my ears.  With tears rising in my eyes, I kissed my husband and told him I would be back in a while, and stepped out the front door into the winter darkness.

Snow crunched under my feet.  Stars sparkled against the cold sky.  My breath came in puffs of steam, first short, then growing longer.  Tears froze on my cheeks.  36.  I was 36.  I was 36 and my life was not what I expected.

            As I ran on, down the long stretch of Woodland Avenue between home and the turn-off for 4^th Street, I thought about the expectations I had.  I thought about what they meant, and then I left them along the side of the road with the discarded bottles and greying snowbanks.  Endorphins told me I had a good life.  I had a job, a wonderful spouse, a herd of kids (step- and otherwise), good friends, a happy home, and beer waiting for me in the fridge.  Endorphins told me that 36 was just another number, meant to make me feel inadequate:  my weight, my pants size, my credit card balance. 

            I ran on, my feet slipping here and there on patches of ice along the sidewalk.  Streetlights marked blocks as I turned onto 4^th Street, down the hill towards the hospital.  The neighborhood grew bleaker and bleaker as I passed the thrift shop and the Whole Foods Co-op, the hospital rising like a brick phoenix in front of me.  The sidewalks were littered with old newspapers and discarded cigarette packages, and I stepped over a box of pornography with a surprising agility.

             I used my employee badge to get in the door of the hospital, shaking the cold out of my limbs, and pulling the sweaty hat from my head.  I took the stairs to the 7^th floor, where the Respiratory Care office resides, along with the ICUs.  I punched the door code for the office, and parked my behind in one of the chairs around the big conference table.  The tv was on, abandoned dinners cold on the table.  I was alone.  I was 36 and alone. 

            I was 36.  I was alone, but I had people that needed me.  I got up, wrote a quick note on the whiteboard for my co-workers, and left.  I pulled my hat back on and headed home.  When I arrived, sweaty and exhausted, my husband was asleep on the couch with the tv casting a blue light on his face.  At his feet was a sleeping black puppy, a strange new addition to our already hectic lives.  I touched his shoulder, waking him.

            “Happy 36,” he told me, opening his eyes, his voice thick with sleep.  “He’s half husky.  He will be a good running companion for you.”  I smiled and gathered the wriggling black animal into my arms, breathing in his musty puppy smells. 

            Yes, he would be a runner.  And I would be 36 for a whole year, but I wouldn’t be alone.

Tanya Miranda is a dreamer, writer, inter-galactic super hero, and stay-at-home mom of two little aliens posing as human children. After a successful career in the I.T. industry, Tanya quit her job to spend more time with her family and to focus on her writing. She has self-published her first science fiction novel, Dramani, and is currently working on other publishing projects whenever she’s not attending a piano, baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, or jiu-jitsu event. You can find her fiction work at http://www.tanyamiranda.com. 

I never shoveled snow until I bought my own house. It wasn’t the pride of home ownership that prompted me to take on this chore, it was my neighbors, Eneida and Theodoro, both in their mid sixties, who inspired me.

Eneida and Theodoro have always been the first on the block to get down to work. My husband would delay until it was convenient for him, and I would always stay inside, claiming I had to take care of the kids or do something other than shovel. It was back-breaking, manual labor and I avoided it like the plague.

Then, over two years ago, I had a major change in my life that altered my take on physical activity - I became a stay-at-home mom.

A decade earlier, before my daughter arrived, I was on the verge of a steady running habit. But something made me push my physical well-being to the back burner. Life happened. Years later I found myself overweight, working late nights and weekends, spending little time with my two kids, and generally unhappy. Something was missing, things had to change. I needed more time for me and my family, so I quit my job and took some time off to plan my next move. This was more than two years ago, and it was the best decision I ever  made. Who knew I was going to love being a stay-at-home mom?

I finally had time to run, but in those first few months I was hesitant to take to the road because I was so out of shape. And after two arthroscopic surgeries on my right knee, a meniscus repair and a cyst removal just behind the patella, I was scared I was going to do more damage than good.  

After a few months of cross training, I felt strong and agile again. I was breezing through Pilates and yoga moves with ease, playing basketball and softball with my kids in the park, and climbing playground apparatus with my three-year-old son to make sure he didn’t fall. I felt fresh, reborn, able to run again. So what was stopping me?

Fear was holding me back. I was scared that running may actually be too much for me, that my body may have reached it maximum physical ability years ago, that it was too late to start and that I would inevitable fail. It was better not knowing, than knowing what I didn’t want to know.

I was also afraid of getting hurt. Both of my surgeons said I had weak knees, so I stopped running as they recommended. I mean, these people know what they’re talking about, right?

Fear, fear, and more fear occupied my mind. I resigned myself to working out at home and at the gym, jogging on the treadmill occasionally, and only for a few minutes. This went on for months until I picked up a shovel for the very first time.

During my first winter as a stay-at-home mom I decided to join my husband and my neighbors in shoveling the front of our house. I considered it a workout…killing two birds with one stone. During a break, I spoke with Eneida and asked her why she didn’t ask her grown-up son to shovel the snow for her.

“Why?” she said in her Cuban-accented Spanish. “I want to do this while I still can.”

It made me smile. She’s in her mid sixties, and her and her husband still shovel their own snow because they still can. They are in good enough shape, at their age, that it makes them feel good to be able to do it. Then she went on to say, “My doctors tell me to take it easy. But I walk in the park with the weights every day, when the weather is nice. Just imagine…one day I won’t be able to move anymore, and then I’ll wish I did it more often. Even now, when I watch people who run in the park I feel so stupid for not having done it when I was younger. I wish I ran when I was your age.”

Then I told her about my knees surgeries and the recommendations my surgeons gave me. She guffawed so loud that Theodoro joined our conversation. “You are still young and healthy,” he said, ” and only you know what you can and can’t do. Doctors can only advise. Look at us. Our doctor has been telling us for years to take it easy. I tell him I’ll take it easy when I’m dead.” With that, he took the shovel in hand, picked up a full scoop of snow and tossed it over the bushes. I hope to have that kind of strength when I’m their age.

They got me thinking about my “weak” knees. I researched online for post-operation rehab exercises and articles for people who want to go back to running after knee surgeries. I’m not a professional athlete with money to throw around at personal trainers or advanced physical therapies, so I needed to find real life stories of average folks, of moms with busy schedules, of normal people who have successfully bounced back.

Needless to say, I found loads of information online. Then, I came across Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. This book changed everything for me.

I started to look at running in a whole new light. I realized everything I did wrong when I was younger and all the bad choices that lead to my knee operations, back when I was supposedly at my strongest. I searched and search until I found a sports doctor that supported my need to be athletic. I now run with  better form. I rest when I’ve had enough instead of pushing through sharp pains, as I used to do years ago. I was so naive back then.

My goals have also changed. I’m not trying to beat a time, win a race, or reach a certain pace. I want to show my kids that exercising is not a luxury, its a requirement for a long and healthy life. It’s no less important than good hygiene and a well-balanced diet.

I want my kids to know that girls can be just as athletic as boys, that girls can do almost anything boys can do in sports and in life. It’s one thing to preach this lesson to my kids, but it’s a world of difference to be able to show them, whether it’s shoveling the snow, throwing a ball, cleaning up dishes, or running a race. I run to be strong like Daddy, because women are strong too.

I also want my children to know that fear and ignorance shouldn’t ever stop them from doing what they love, and that regret is a bitter food whose nasty taste never quite goes away.

Soon after I read McDougall’s book, I went on my first run outside. It was the end of March, the weather was perfect, and I ran for just over forty minutes. What was my distance? What was my pace? I didn’t care. I went home, took a shower, and told my daughter how Mommy didn’t pass out after two laps around the park, which I later found out was just about three miles. I was on a high, and just from my first run.

I went again a few days later, alternating between walking and jogging and following my new “technique”. After a few weeks, I was running laps around our park and controlling my breath comfortably. A few months passed and my form became second nature, my feet felt lighter, and my overweight issues were non-existent (though I’m still far from skinny by social norms, I’m just the right size by my own standards).

And guess what? My knee pain never returned.

I now enjoy the scenery, the air, the dogs chasing after me, and the look on my daughter’s face as she watches me come home sweaty, exhausted, and satisfied. It’s the same look she has when I throw a softball around with her team during practice, or when I get a three point shot in our park’s basketball court. She has that look of hope, of knowing that one day she’ll throw the softball harder than Mommy does, and that a three point shot isn’t impossible for her, and that one day she’ll grow up to be a stronger woman than Mommy ever was, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.

At least that’s what I hope for.

Now, whenever snow falls, it’s common knowledge that both Mommy and Daddy will be shoveling. It just so happens that today a snow storm ended soon after I picked the kids up from school, and there’s just enough snow on the ground to have to clean it up. I spot my neighbors outside shoveling, and I’m instantly inspired. If my example has this kind of affect on my daughter, then I’m going to continue to run for as long as I can.

Nancy Mahmoud is a global nomad, wife and stay at home mother of two.  She recieved her B.A. in Journalism from Penn State University and her J.D. from St. John’s.  She has previously been published on patheos.com/altmuslim and keeps a blog atlivingwithee.blogspot.com.  In between shuttling her two little monkeys around town, she advocates on behalf of chronically ill children dependent on medical food, writes and runs.  She resides in Connecticut and can be reached at nancy dot mahmoud at gmail dot com.

I’m standing at the starting line with my little girl.  The three year olds are about to run the one hundred meter dash and I’ve briefed her on what to do.

“Ok, Selma, you need to run really fast when the man blows his whistle, ok?”  She nodded in agreement.

 “Ok, Mommy,” she responded.

“Ready!” yelled the man at the starting line.  “Set! … .  Go!”  He blew his whistle and they all took off.  All of them, that is, except my daughter.  Selma just stood at the starting line.  She still stands a chance though.  There are only four little girls running and one of them in a pink tutu went the wrong direction.

“Come on, Selma,” I said.  “Run!”

“No,” she answered.  “I no want to.”

I know the feeling.  Staying in one place can be so easy.  Seven months ago we moved back to the States from Dubai.  I didn’t really want to leave.  I did it because I knew it was best in the long run.  But, it’s always difficult to step out of our comfort zone and I was extremely comfortable living in Dubai.  I hadn’t lived here in more than five years.  Repatriation is hard.  I felt out of my element.  I was lonely.  I was stressed.  And I was overweight.  So, I ran.  I would have run all the way back to Dubai if I could.  I ran because it was my way of keeping busy.  I ran because, in some ways, it’s easier to do than making new friends.  I ran to buy time until our next city called for us to move again.  I ran away from isolation.  I ran away from starting all over again.  I ran because I couldn’t be with friends I missed.  I just ran.

Sometimes, when you run, you just want the road to be flat.  Sometimes, you don’t want to push yourself.  But, the easy roads don’t allow you to bask aglow in the after run high.  That’s the reason why I run.  Getting a three year old to understand that is tough.

The little girl in her pink tutu is now headed back toward us.  Her mother brought her back.  They ran side by side past Selma who was still refusing to run.

“Come on, Selma.” I said.  “You can do it.”

“I no want to,” she replied as she walked off the track toward the finish line where all the other girls were.  They were standing by the guy with the clipboard eagerly awaiting their finishing ribbons.  He begins to hand one out for each girl that crossed the finish line.  First place won a blue and silver ribbon.  The red and gold ribbon was for second place and last place got a yellow and gold ribbon.  Although, pink and purple are Selma’s favorite colors she somehow instinctively knew the blue ribbon was the one everyone wanted.

“I want the blue ribbon, Mommy,” she pleaded.

“If you want the ribbon, Selma, you have to run.” I responded.

I’ve been running / jogging on and off for years.  But, I had a tendency to choose the flat roads and rarely pushed myself.  I ran like I washed dishes or did laundry.  It was a chore.  However, I found inspiration in my kids.  I initially did it because I wanted to be healthy for them and be willing and able to play with them.   But, as I began the slow process of training I realized that my run shouldn’t be daunting and intimidating but rather something I aspired for.  At the same time, I pushed myself to volunteer at my kids’ schools, worked with another woman to turn her support group into a non-profit organization and set out to change laws in my state.  Because, the fact is I am only as good as my run or a sum of my runs.    

I walk my daughter back to the start line for the next race.  The girls are all lined up for the two hundred meter dash.  The mother of the girl in the pink tutu is instructing her on which way to run. 

“Ready!  Set!  GO!” the man yelled and blew his whistle.

This time, Selma is off and running.  She’s laughing and running at the same time.  I run along side the track with her while cheering her on.

“Good job, Selma!  Go!  Go!  Go!”  I yelled.  “Keep going.  You can do it.”

Her brown curls bounce along with her down the track.  She’s running and giggling all the way to the finish line.  She comes in third.  She’s handed a yellow ribbon by the guy at the finish line.  She’s wasn’t happy.

“You have to run really, really fast for the blue ribbon,” I told her.

“Ok, Mommy,” she said.  “Next time I run reawy super fast,” she said with more determination.

She walked toward the starting line to get ready for the four hundred meter run.  All ages participate but ribbons are given according to who finishes within their age group.  She’s excited and dances around at the starting line.  She stomps her feet to intimidate fellow competitors.  Those Disney princesses “light up when I run reawwy fast.”

Finally, this time, after our move from Dubai, there has been a shift.  The more I ran, the more I wanted to run.  Running, my evasive lover, finally clicked with me.    I hit the treadmill and pavement religiously.  I wanted to live my life as if Nike ads were my bible.  I ran to fuel myself.  My body responded quickly.  Although, starting over is hard, I needed to be scared again.  I needed to be unsure.  That challenge was the only way I was going to grow and strengthen.  What started out as a slow jog evolved into a brisk run.  My face glowed with redness.  I bathed in sweat.  When my headphones were on, my heavy breathing was like meditation.  When I ran, I didn’t think about where home was.  I ran because endorphins and adrenaline became my drug of choice.  But, I also ran for her.  I don’t run because I want her to be like me.  I run because I want her to be better than me.  I hope she notices I don’t always choose the easy road.  I hope my run is her inspiration. 

I stood at the starting line coaching my daughter on her next big fete. 

“Selma, don’t run too fast,” I told her.  “This time you have to run for a long time, ok?”

“Ok, Mommy,” she said.  “Now, go, Mommy.  I can do this all by myself,” she said.

“Ready!  Set!  Go!”

Selma began running and I cheered her on.  Most of the pack quickly went way ahead of her.  She got tired and stopped running and began walking after only one hundred meters into it.  Some others in her age group gave up and walked off the track.  The girl in the pink tutu was nowhere to be seen.  I follow her around the entire track.

“You ok?” I asked her.

“Tell the man to give me the blue ribbon, Mommy, ok?  Go tell him.”

“I can’t do that, Selma.  You have to run to get the blue ribbon.”

So, she ran.  She ran and she giggled.  She stopped momentarily and started to run again.  She giggled some more.  After about two hundred and fifty meters, she was the only one on the track.   The rest of the competitors completed their race.  When she reached the three hundred meter mark, a crowd gathered at and near the finish line.  All of them cheered for her.  “Come on, sweetie!”  “You can do it!”  “Keep going!”  “Great job!”  There’s clapping, cheering, laughing.  She laughed right along with them.  But, she ran all by herself.  She crossed the finish line with fanfare and a blue and silver ribbon.  For the first time in a while, I felt at home.

Andra Hibbert is a queer writer who grew up in northern Vermont. She has an MFA in fiction from UMass Boston and teaches composition at Penn State. Her stories have appeared in Five Points and Weave Magazine.

I was training for my third half-marathon this past fall before I thought of myself as an athlete. I had been an athlete as a teenager, but then in college a season of bronchitis and a possessive girlfriend pulled me away from the crew team. When I started running my last year of college, each step was fueled by anxiety that I was both too much and not enough. For years I ran this way, carving away at myself.  I ran and ran.  When I was training for my first half marathon, I drank lattes for breakfast and sometimes had whiskey for dinner. I weighed myself every twenty-four hours. I didn’t feel hungry. I didn’t feel anything, and that was exactly the point. The only emotion I had was a desire to live inside my own ribcage.

Now the most radical thing about me is that I’m not still that person. Or I am that person, but also another person. Now, I am a person who doesn’t own a scale. I am a person who eats snack. After a few weeks of eating enough, I felt the most pleasant sense of gravity. I felt like I existed all the way out to my edges. The most radical thing about me is my ability to stubbornly exist. Sometimes, when I hate my body, I marvel at it, instead. Kidneys. The nervous system. Eyesight. Respiration. These miracles are happening in me all the time, and they help me hold back the flood of self-loathing.

 A month before running my most recent race I went for a twelve mile run in the nearby state forest. Coasting down the other side of the mountain I’d climbed in the first six miles, I was thinking about how this run wasn’t as fast as it should be, and how I shouldn’t be running a race because I wasn’t going to PR and what was the point? Maybe if I lost ten pounds and did more strength work, I would be a real athlete.  Then I had a moment of clarity, and instead of fretting over my pace, I told myself that there was no point in taking a twelve mile run, over a mountain, and framing it as a failure. That did no one any good.  These moments of clarity were deeply unsettling when they started a year ago. My smart, patient therapist told me to wait them out and learn from them.  There is a part of my brain that is bent always on acceleration, doing more faster, and this kind of clarity knocks that girl on her ass. They are also one of the only signs I have that my brain is healing, actually healing.

The first time it happened I was running my favorite route back in Boston, thinking about how I used to be faster, used to be skinnier. I waited for the light to change and thought about how many calories to cut out, and calculated how many calories formed my body, as though I could combust it all if I tried hard enough, or shrink myself down to a ribcage, an exoskeleton. Maybe I could carve fat from muscle. This was all familiar territory. These were all the things I used to say to myself. This was how I used to fall asleep, lulled by my butchery. 

Paused at an intersection, I thought, “I was able to run like that not because of how I treated by body, but despite how I was treating it.”  For a fleeting moment I thought about what I’d be capable of if I treated myself well, if I treated myself with respect, like an athlete. Holding on to that is complicated, and has required more endurance and practice than running ever has. I did a year of PT to heal a stubborn hamstring, I saw a nutritionist, I learned to eat snack. I gained some weight. I hated my body more. I loved my body more. I threw out my scale. I hated my body. I moved to the Pennsylvania hills, I trained for my third half marathon, and have now set my sights on my first full. Being an athlete means trusting my body, and it means that my body has to trust me. I am still trying to figure out what I’m capable of, and I’m so grateful to my body for being here, broken and miraculous, willing to carry me for miles.

It is still true that I want a scale, preferably one that measures body fat percentage. It is still true that when there is no money in the bank account, when I’m angry with my partner, when I don’t know what to do next, I plan out my runs for months in advance.  I still hate my body. I still push my partner’s hands away. But my legs are columns of muscle, thick with the accumulated effort of my repetitive jumping, falling, yearning stride.

At night when I can’t sleep, I no longer dissect myself, I go running in my mind. I take myself down River Street and across the bridge, under the railroad tracks, across Mass Ave, and back to my old neighborhood. I fall asleep before I’m home again. I fall asleep while I can see the wide expanse of sky over the river in whatever season I choose. My feet are still moving, my braid thumps my back and my breath fills my ribcage. 

Kate Thompson has run since childhood, and was a Boston qualifier in the 2011 Pittsburgh Marathon.  She is an undergraduate student at Penn State studying anthropology and community, environment and development. She frequents East Africa and Madagascar for field work, and would one take like to take up residence in Tanzania. She enjoys writing short essays, long distance running, water color painting and playing the ukulele, however some of these pass-times are more conducive to transatlantic-travel than others. 

I collect running routes the way I have seen small children collect sea shells, colored feathers, old-shaped rocks. I pull them from my pockets and unfold my hand to anyone willing to listen. It is how I make friendship and maintain them, especially with other women. I share the running routes one and one, using the loops and twists of the gravel trails to tangle up a new friend in time and miles. Alone, striding together and pacing the distance conversation becomes the only alternative to hearing the belabored sound of your own breathing and words begin to tumble out like rocks kicked across pavement. What is your story? I ask. What is your proudest moment? What flavor of ice cream would your personality be manifested in? The trite conversations turn into post run coffee and bagels. These then turn into five am commitments, five or so miles of weekly updates on boyfriends, sex, heart break, hope and recipes (the rotational core of women’s conversation). These runs are the late evening phone calls, the legal pad letters, and the lengthy emails I would not otherwise extend. They beget friendship. They are friendship.

Yet as much as I use running to circumvent the silence that abounds in the early stages of acquaintanceship, I use these runs to trap myself alone as well. I have running routes that I have never shared with anyone. I run there to think, to escape from thoughts. To force myself to be alone with myself, and in the process seek distraction. For the mornings I wake up anxious, heart pounding. When something, or more likely someone, has sent currents of electricity through the layers of my skin, when my mind fidgets and lengths of muscle within me coil and twinge— the only way I can escape my own static energy is to move. For the mornings when I wouldn’t otherwise want to leave my bed. When I want to curl up and fold myself away. When sleeping is the most attractive way to live the next few hours, the next day. I stretch out my legs, fumble in the dark for my sneakers, and slip out the front door as I tuck my key card into my bra and hair out of my slowly opening eyes.

I take the miles. Mostly in the mornings after and before coffee. Sometimes as long and silent a number as twenty. Sometimes a warm and heavy four miles at six thirty pace. After, I am breathless and spent but clear.

One run in particular I use to keep myself from running away from myself when I would rather not inhabit my own thoughts. I force myself into the same trap of communication that I use to break through to in new friendships. Away from people. Across campus, the first ten minutes always begin the stiffest and most reluctant. I turn up the hill and take my self over the golf course and dodge through the highway.  Then in between two bushes that mark the trail, parallel to the cornfields, over a stretch of orange plastic fence and through the rock-trailed forest. I kick over stones and thoughts, asking myself questions that expect answers because the distraction is better than the sound of my own belabored breathing. Just as I trap in others I trap in myself. I talk silently. I talk to God. More than once I’ve gotten so deeply entangled in my own mind that my foot has caught against a divot in the trail and my ankle collapses under me.  Palms pressed suddenly to stones, I am present again. In running as in life, it is a delicate balance in between living in your head and remaining sufficiently in reality. Back onto my feet aching but more alert, I run more lightly, carefully now over the river rocks, twisted with roots and snags. Into the grass fields, through the cemetery, turning my face back to the start and the end.

I spend much of time running waiting for my run to be over. For the relaxation, the rest, the assumption that the future will be inevitably more satisfying than the present. In realizing this is the way I run, I realized also that this is the way I live. Always swinging open strides to what I think will be more secure because I can’t sit still. But in running, in forcing myself to inhabit long stretches of endurance I grow slowly more comfortable with the wide valleys and rolling hills of my mind and the distance ahead of me.