After six long weeks with very little movement I’m back running again, and what an amazing feeling that is. So far I’ve had two very short runs, one round the local park and the other just a little way down the road and back, neither of which has topped two miles. I’m slower than I’ve been for years, I can’t even contemplate a 5K for the foreseeable, but none of that matters. I’m running again, that’s all I need right now.
There’s a ritual to going for a run that I’m learning to appreciate fully for the first time. The run doesn’t start when I step out the front door. It starts when I make the decision to go. From that point on, everything I do and think about is leading up to that first footstep – if I’m hungry, what should I eat that works with the run? When should I eat? Am I drinking enough, but not so much that I’ll need to stop when I’m out? And what about kit? Choosing it, laying it all out, changing. Wriggling my toes into my toe socks. Taming my hair. Lacing my shoes. Warming up and setting my watch to find the GPS.
None of this is technically running, but it all happens before the door opens and I step outside. And it is through all of this that I become a runner again, that I find that frame of mind that gets me outside and moving and loving it. The hardest part of being injured was losing this part of myself, so to find her again is an absolute joy. This is why speed and distance simply don’t matter at the moment. When I run I become my truest self, in a way that carries over into everything else I do. It makes the hard things easier to bear and the good stuff even better. I’ve really missed this. It is so, so good to be back.
I Run Free 