Published in Like the Wind Magazine issue 31
Some runners say that pain is just an emotion. It’s information that you can use. Is it pain that feels like an injury? Or is it pain that you can push through?
It’s been a wild few months for me with moving flat twice and the end of a very special, long term relationship. I’m dealing with the emotional pain on a conscious level, but I have more grey hairs. I have patellar tendinitis that has been lingering since this all kicked off. I’ve never had acne, but my skin is definitely threatening it. I need to lie down and close my eyes all the time.
Moving to live on my own has been for the best, but like in a race, it really doesn’t feel like it right now. The pain is just information I’d rather ignore.
I underestimate how fragile I am at the moment and throw myself into situations that hurt me more than they otherwise would. I feel lonelier than ever, but I can’t keep lying down. I know it’s not a solution. I want to run because my day to day routine is spiralling and it brings back some order to my life. Eat, dress, run, shower, recover. The rest of the day can be a mess, but I cling to these things. And it makes me feel better.
I live in North London, so I think that I would like to run along Parkland Walk and around Finsbury Park. A dose of nature, and a route that doesn’t take too much thinking. If I have to think, I’ll panic. But I don’t want to be alone. I really, really don’t want to be alone today.
It’s a Saturday, and I know that Parkrun is happening at Finsbury Park. I think some of my friends will be there, but even if they’re not, at this point, I just want to be around anyone. Give me any other human. Make me feel less alien.
I time my arrival perfectly. A really kind volunteer marshal offers to take my bag for me. I find my friends, we say hello. I feel like myself. I feel like the version of myself I am with them, which is a happy and accepted one. I tell them I’m going to run faster, and will see them at the finish.
I try to find people who are running at my pace. I’m gleefully overtaken by a woman with a pushchair. I see a lithe man who must be in his 60s, and I know his type - I know we’ll be close for the whole course. A younger man seems to really hate every time I overtake him, and he puts on a big sprint whenever I do, in order to stay in front of me. I did say I wanted to be around any other human, didn’t I…?
After a nice sprint finish to the end, I wait for my friends and we go for coffee. I have a small rant about the stuff on my mind, and they make me laugh.
I miss. I miss. I’m so full of missing I think my eyes will melt.
While I was running, I tried to convert the emotional pain into physical prowess. It didn’t work. “I am not enough. How can I. What am I doing?” Each thought made my legs feel so leaden I thought that the gasping, overtaking man really would beat me.
But he didn’t. It turns out, this is pain that I can push through. It has not injured me indefinitely. I got a stitch after the third kilometre and I thought, “Well that’s it, I guess I’m just running with a stitch now.” As in running, so in life.
The good news is, the stitch was gone by the end.
