Running is the sport to pursue… yourself

On becoming your own best friend

A lot can change in a week. I’m six mornings into waking up in my new apartment, and as I write this, I’m sitting on a wall at my new local coffee place, awaiting my coconut matcha. (It’s my new go-to as I’ve sworn off coffee). A guy has just LimeBiked past, singing aloud. I can safely, literally, say it’s been months since I’ve felt this content. Environment is everything. As a Taurus, I do believe our personal geography impacts us more than we think. That’s the rationale behind my boutique gym and Pilates habits, in any case…

By the time you read this newsletter, I’ll have boarded another flight and will be back in New York. In subsequent posts, I’ll get back to Salty’s observational rhythm. For now, I’m continuing the inwards lens and embracing the white space I find myself in. I received so many kind messages about my last newsletter, which means a lot. It’s one I’d have been too fearful to write a while ago for fear of blowback. Growth. I’ve realised there’s a power in sharing.

Self care

I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships. Especially my relationship to running and how internal and external that is. For better or worse, it’s influenced by both myself and other people. Quite often, we can see a glimmer of ourselves in another person’s story in one way or another. The human experience is individual but it’s also collective. We are built to connect. That’s why running clubs became so popular in the first place.

Way back when

For many people, the relationships they have with a sport like running can be among the most enduring, sustaining and reliable in life. I’m a relative newbie so that doesn’t strike a chord for me — yet.

But over the last couple of years, I’ve met quite a few women in their 50s and 60s who are still running and racing. At the Chicago marathon, I met a group of five women at the sweatpants shelf in Primark after the forecast got unexpectedly cold. They were racing as a ‘girls trip’, and I was there by myself. It was only my second marathon block and they made so much effort to encourage and reassure me. I’ll never forget it.

Sometimes I wonder how those women’s races went

I’ve had other, similar encounters. Each woman had a different story, and so much experience. Their lives will have changed drastically across those decades but running has been their constant. I’ve always left these chance encounters feeling inspired and hopeful that in decades to come, I’ll still be finding joy in tying up my running shoes. It’s often made me wonder, who will I be at that point in life? What will have changed me? What will running be to me when I’ve been doing it for decades?

Finding joy

Our chosen exercise sees us through good times and bad. The relationship is emotional. But it can also be seasonal. Hobby runners forever talk about their why — Nike even rebranded Just Do It to Why Do It? last week. But one of the healthiest realisations I’ve had recently is that our why is changeable, too. That’s growth. The reason I run (or don’t run) or go to the gym now are different from six months ago. It’s definitely different to when I started, when I was running through grief. After joining joined a run club, I realised running could be joyful and ran for friendship. Then I ran marathons because I discovered I could go further and faster than I ever thought possible. And now? I’m not sure. I keep telling myself we have to give ourselves the space for changing feelings; we have to give ourselves grace.

It’s like peeling an onion to discover new layers, depths and flavours. Strava tells me my fitness has been trending down over the past few months. This week, since moving apartments, Oura informs me that my stress levels are (already!) on a downward trajectory. What does taking care of ourselves today look like? Ramping up, or dialling back? The reality, like most things, is that it’s nuanced.

Last week. Not running

Something I keep returning to is this: our relationship with running enables us to cultivate a deeper relationship with ourselves.

In fact, I learned how to be my own best friend through running. In my first marathon, I qualified for Boston, and it was the first time I realised (and allowed myself to acknowledge) that I was good at it. The metrics defied my habit of downplaying; it became more embarrassing to deflect affirmations than it was to just say thanks. I stopped telling people it was a fluke and I learned how to back myself. It started filtering into other areas of my life. Being confident is something a lot of women are not comfortable with. Why is that? Running gives us all an outlet to experiment with self congratulation. It’s character building of the supportive kind.

New streets.

Running also made me realise that it was okay to have boundaries. To prioritise what was becoming important to me and to not feel apologetic about it. I learned that self care was not selfish.

After I started running, I started practicing saying no. Mostly, it was to plans that weren’t my preference but onceover might have felt obliged — marathon training is the best get out of jail free card ever. Running has shown me that ‘no’ can be a kindness because every yes is made with intention; no creates space for the right yes. It’s relevant to most things in life.

I’ve been saying no to running a lot recently. It’s given me breathing room to prioritise other forms of working out. I now love the gym. I still do Pilates, lately with infrared because I find the sweat so cleansing. I’ve also been going to a twice-weekly functional fitness class. I’ve dabbled in boxing and a Metcon class at KXU. I enjoy Hyrox classes. I’m stronger. For me, that’s meaningful. Winter’s coming, and I hate being out in the dark.

Found the good light in the (final!) taxi from my old apartment to my new apartment

Does it matter that I’m running less, and that it doesn’t seem to be bothering me? I don’t think so. I’m in a different season. My body feels off but my mind feels calm. It’s been a necessary, short term shift and it’s offering me a lot of reflection. I had become inconsistent with mileage and routine, which is atypical for me. But the real decline came suddenly, when the time came to enter a new marathon block. I shut down. Cause and effect.

I see now that “training” had become tied up with being stalked. The reality is that literally anyone can track your GPS during a marathon, and this was something I was hyper aware of during my last race (it affected me badly). I know that you can manually opt out, but that's not the point. A person shouldn’t have to.

Would I have this visibility about the hidden impact of my experiences last year without having my relationship with running to use as a lens? I doubt it. Being attuned with myself through movement allows me to connect my own dots.

Found the good light, continued

This week, in my new apartment (in a gated community!) I’ve found the space to catch up with myself. For years, my natural rhythm has been to wake up and get straight out of the house to run, but I’ve been unable to do that for quite some time. External factors have affected my internal pathways. I’ve gotten out of sync, like a clock with an irregular tick.

Just six days in, I realise moving house has been the ultimate act of self care. How do I know that? This week, I rolled out of the house around 6am to run without too much internal resistance. Behaviours as a proof of concept. Environment is everything. Welcome home. ❤️