A lot has changed from middle school to now. My innate lack of talent at running has not.
There’s a lot that I’ve managed to selectively forget about middle school, but one track meet will always stay with me. I joined track in eighth grade because I was tall, and because the basketball and volleyball teams were filled with white girls who went to church camp. It didn’t take me long to realize that “tall” did not equal “fast”. I had tiny lungs and bowlegs. There went my sprinting dreams.
I decided to shoot for the other end of the spectrum – the 2400 meter race, or a 1.5 miles. Middle school logic dictated that if I’m not good at one thing, I had to be good at its opposite. Essentially, this meant that instead of suffering for short bursts of thirty seconds, I was going to be huffing and puffing along the blazing track for six entire laps. I had never run that far in my life, but somehow I felt that I could do it.
Even through track practices where I could barely finish a mile, I still held onto this newfound belief that I would be able to not only pull through, but smash a few records while I was at it. I’m not a sprinter, I told myself. I enjoy the burn. I wait for the payoff. I’m a distance runner.
On my first track meet of the season, I tapped out after a few laps.
“I’m done,” I gasped to my coach, slicing my finger across my neck. What a stupid event. Anyone who ran for over eight minutes in the Texas sun wasn’t right in the head.
She looked at me seriously and said, “You just ran a five-minute mile.”
Actually, she probably never said that. That’s the problem with digging through your thirteen-year old memory bank. At that age, you make a lot of stuff up to boost your own ego, and you’re good about forcing yourself to believe it. Or, your perception is clouded by a haze of hormones, and you truly remember things wrong. Or maybe, and most likely, Coach Gaddis got mixed up and thought I ran four laps, when I had really only run three.
In any case, she signed me up for the mile at our next track event, which I ran in a perfectly average eight minutes. I never ran a five-minute mile again. I never even broke seven minutes. Once high school registration rolled around, I chose debate over cross country (I’m cool), and didn’t run again for about five more years. But that memory has always stayed with me in the back of my mind, feeding that niggling voice that won’t give up its mantra: “You’re a runner.”
Freshman year of college wasn’t so kind to me, health-wise. Enough was enough, I decided. I had gained fifteen pounds and seven cavities my freshman year, and I wanted to change my major. I was sick of feeling sorry for myself, and I decided that I should start running again.
Memories of my year in track came flooding back as I began stretching out my arms with gusto. It would be easy. I was a twerp then, barely skin and bones. Now, I was a Grown Woman. I had muscles and shit. I could feel my legs dying to hammer away at some pavement.
I bounded out the door and ran for about three minutes before I was dripping with sweat and gasping for air. It felt like the track meet all over again, except this time, I was doubled over in the street and drivers were rolling down their windows to ask if I was okay.
I wheezed on the ground for an excruciating ten minutes and dragged myself home. I couldn’t believe that I was so out of shape. Sure, I’d never worked out in high school, but I was underweight and looked relatively healthy. I loved taking walks through the neighborhood. I was always cartwheeling around and flailing my arms – that kept you fit, right?
I was embarrassed. I did some quick Googling and found a running app that seemed to be the perfect way to get me back in shape. C25K had hundreds of testimonials from people who could barely jog for 90 seconds, and then found themselves sprinting 5Ks a few months later. I came to accept that this was also, apparently, my baseline, and decided to commit myself to this program. I was eighteen and self-loathing and bored, and I thought running a 5K would solve all of this.
It’s a ten week program. I probably made it five weeks before I quit. It was just so hot outside, and I didn’t have the right shoes, and our neighborhood had death-trap hills that I wouldn’t attempt on my life, so I had to drive over to the high school each time I wanted to run. Running was hard and boring, but more than that – it was humiliating. I was too aware of the sweat that soaked my face after only two minutes. I could tell that my gait was off – I hit the ground too hard with my left foot and twisted my right ankle when I pushed off, which led to some interesting sores and aches.
The worst part was seeing actual runners, the kinds of people who ate six-minute miles for breakfast. They would pound past me, their heels flashing up like they were weightless. In those moments, my body always gained twenty pounds. I became acutely aware of every extra pound of fat, every gasp of breath, and every drip of sweat clinging to my skin.
I broke my streak of weekly running and spent the next two years ignoring all the “Dust off your running shoes!” notifications that I got in my inbox.
I always distantly understood that I had to be fit in order to do Texas 4000. You can’t just suddenly decide to ride 4500 miles in 70 days without putting in tons of work behind the scenes. But I figured I had a year and half before the ride. Why stress about it? I put off going to workouts, rationalizing that there was always other work to be done. I knew that I was at a much lower fitness level compared to my teammates. Many of them were high school athletes, and a good amount continued to play IM sports throughout college. I hadn’t even set foot in the college gym. But whatever. It’s the mental stuff that’s the hardest. That’s what everyone always says. I wasn’t too worried.
Then summer hit, and there was only a year left before the ride. Summer leadership hit us with a sledgehammer: by the start of school, we had to run a 5K in 30 minutes. That’s roughly three miles, at a pace of 9:39/mile.
In order to track our progress, we had to download Strava and post our workouts to our club page. I hesitantly scrolled through the few workouts that had already been posted. A five-mile run. A two-hour long bike ride. These were all fitness milestones that were alien to me.
So be it. If people wanted to laugh at my slow times and short distances, they could. But if I wanted to give myself enough time to improve at a sustainable rate, I had to start running now. Scrolling through the activities of my teammates got me determined to prove myself in a new, exciting way. I decided to go for a run around my neighborhood – the loop had a steep hill that I always avoided, but I figured I could try to run it out.
I ended up running 1.5 miles in fifteen minutes. If that seems like a semi-decent time, that’s because I paused Strava at least three times during my run, during which I would flop onto someone’s curb and focus really hard on not throwing up. After the run, I sprawled out in my driveway, eyes closed. A concerned woman walking her dog passed by.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I flopped my hand. “Fine. Just finished a run.” I tried to project the air of a distance runner – for all she knew, I had just completed fifteen miles.
That first run really sucked ass. I don’t know how else to describe it. It wasn’t enjoyable, and it didn’t make me suddenly realize that I wanted to be better at this. I think the only reason that I kept going was because there was an organization holding me accountable, and I have a crippling fear of social humiliation. I didn’t want to be the person who failed the 5K before we even started training on bikes. So I went out again the next day. Still stopped three times, but managed to avoid any passerby who would give me strange looks.
I decided to pick up some literature about running. I figured I might as well try to pick up some corny inspiration from those athletic books I always scoffed at. I downloaded a few PDFs before a family vacation, and I was hooked. I’ve always been easily sucked into subcultures, and somehow I fell into the world of ultrarunning. I devoured Born to Run, then What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I spent hours reading the race reports of people who ran the Barkley Marathons – then I watched the documentary. I learned about Badwater, Leadville, and the Western States, and then I began reading interviews and listening to podcasts featuring the legends who ran those races.
It was insane. I couldn’t fathom other humans were out there crushing 100 miles while I clocked out after a twenty minute run. As I searched for answers, some of the cheesy “endurance” quotes that I would have normally scoffed at began resonating with me. I particularly related with Ken Chlouber, creator of the Leadville race series. Ken is a rugged, tough-as-nails man who probably never thought a twenty-year old unfit Chinese girl would find much in common with him. But one thing he said became my mantra: “Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.”
I had always been scared of pushing myself too hard for fear of injury. When my sides starting to hurt, or my knee ached, I would stop and take a break. Instead, I began wondering what would happen if I continued to push on. When I could barely breathe, I slowed down, but I kept running. When my sides hurt, I kept running. When my left shin began to throb so badly that each step was a world of pain, I told myself: You are not going to die. You are breathing. You are moving. You’re going to be okay. I kept running. After another half mile, the throbbing let up.
I continued running through our vacation in Australia, where it was winter and I had only brought tank tops. I ran through 96-degree heats at 8pm (courtesy of Texas). I ran through new trails, and saw other runners as well. For once, I didn’t care that I was out of breath and wheezing. I didn’t care that my strides lacked form. I just felt happy to be there, running, with them.
I felt like I was making progress. Somehow, I was able to run two miles without breaks – that had never happened before. I would power through a miserable uphill, and still be able to keep going. More often than not I felt miserable, but I was stopping less and less, until I wouldn’t stop at all.
Three weeks after I started running this summer, I ran my first 5K in 33 minutes. It was a much better time than I thought I would accomplish. A few days later, I ran it in 31 minutes.
I’m not quite sure where this story ends. Running has taken over my thoughts and my time in a way that I never imagined. I spend much of my time on various subreddits, from r/C25K to r/ultrarunning. I devour race reports when I’m at work. At night, I often can’t sleep because I keep imagining myself running. I’ve told my friend I want to do the Austin half marathon in February. Privately, I’ve been hoping for a full marathon. It’s always been a pipe dream for me, and even typing out the words makes the imposter syndrome set in. Although it feels like I’ve been doing this for so long, it’s only been a month – a laughably short period of time. I wouldn’t say I love running yet. But I want to love it. And I want to stick with it.
I don’t know if I can get there. I don’t even know if I can run a 10K. But this morning I woke up at 7 am (a battle within itself), and pulled on my shoes after a night of rain. It was humid outside, but it was 73 degrees, and I was able to recognize the small blessing for what it was. I hauled myself up the giant hills flanking our house, ran to the entrance of our neighborhood, ran another loop, and then a bit further. My legs were aching, and sweat was stinging my eyes, but I was determined to meet a new distance goal. Altogether, I was able to sweat my way through four miles for the first time.
As I ran back down the street to my house, I surprised myself with how easily I picked up the pace in the final minute. Relief washed over me as I saw my mileage finally tick up to four. I did it! I told myself I would, and then I did it! Victory was sweet, and scrubbing myself down with my Bath & Body Works Eucalyptus Spearmint Sugar Scrub™ was even sweeter. But as I was soaking in the high of a good run, I still thought to myself, I think I could have run a bit further.