Running for my life: Curating my love of running in my darkest moments.
Summer 2018.
I can only describe that period in my life as traumatic. When I look back on that time, I think that a casual observer would note that I was having the time of my life. I just returned from a European cruise. I was in the thick of training for my first full marathon. My birthday was three weeks away.
Yet, I was so unhappy.
It was the beginning of the end of my marriage. I had to find an apartment for me and my son. I remember moments where I would lock myself in my car and just scream. I am thankful for those moments where I called my best friend Ro and she would listen as I screamed in my vehicle.
3:30 am on a Saturday morning, I woke up and went out for my long run training. It was dark and nobody else was on the park. I told myself that I would run in circles till about 5:00 am when more people started to emerge and then I would run alongside the road. I don’t remember how many miles I had on my schedule for the day. I remember I put my earphones in and tuned into Another Mother Runner’s podcast for that week. I ran in circles around the park, just oblivious to my Garmin beeping with every mile. The more I ran, the heavier the tears fell from my eyes. I stopped and I looked at the ocean to my right and I thought “I’ll just submerge myself and nobody will notice.”
The one thing that stopped me was that I couldn’t let my son go through life thinking that it was something he did, something he didn’t do, something he was or something he wasn’t that would make his mother want to leave him.
And so tearfully, I kept running until I became exhausted.
I also knew in that moment, I needed to reach out and talk to someone else about how I was feeling. So I arranged my first personal therapy session and began to lay the foundation for talking through all of the emotions I had swallowed back for the past few years.
When I look at the photo of me crossing the finish line at Twin Cities Marathon that October, overcome with tears, I realized that it was more to that moment that crossing an item off of my list. It was a culmination of so many emotions that I was still working through. You see, I wasn’t supposed to be there. Yet, I was supposed to be there.
Nearly three years later, I am still here. Every day quietly working on myself. Every day shouting from the rooftops the love I have for running and the new lease on life it has given me in so many ways. That woman whose eyes were filled with tears of pain running alone on a park, now has tears of joy at a finish line watching her first client complete her very first race.
As my love for running blossomed and I made the decision to be intentional with my running blog, I made a commitment to myself that if I could be consistent with my blogging for one year, I would seek to convert my blog into a book. One year passed and I reached out to a publisher to flesh out my idea and determine its viability. I came to the meeting thinking of how I would share with the world how I turned my passion for running into profitability.
It was then she delivered the piece of advice that kicked me in the stomach because it was so true. She said to me “Run Naturally is not your story. Run Naturally was birthed from your story. Your story resides in that moment on the park. Your story is in your vulnerability – sharing something personal that will resonate with thousands.”
It wasn’t until this very day that I decided to take action on her words. I feel like there is no better time to share it as we observe Mental Health Awareness Month. It is important to let other women who may be going through there own dark moments that they are not what happens to them. Their worth is not measured by the person who walked away. It is okay to be broken. It is okay to reach out. It is okay to build on that positive action or thing that you love and to find peace in those moments.
I love to share how running is such a safe space for me. It is a time where I talk with myself. It is a time where I come to terms with so many of my thoughts. It is even a time when I put my thoughts at rest. It is a time where I feel good about myself -even after a bad run. It is a time where I remind myself not to give up. It is a time I remember just how awesome I am. It is a time where I remember how far I have come – and how much farther I have to go.
(If you are battling dark moments of depression, do not be afraid to seek help and resources)
Linda