chasing peace
breaking up + getting back together with my longest love
Running will forever be one of my greatest loves She has never given up on me And one of my longest relationships Whatever I was thinking of before I think of differently after Some days it is I can’t wait to get out there Others are I do not know what to do so much I need to Put one foot in front of the other I have run through grief, breakups, anxiety, pain, loss, the pandemic The elections Political social unrest some dumpster fire memes And also, to catch the day, it was so nice out had to take advantage, checking out my fav beach or new beach somewhere, up a hill partially until i finally run the whole thing Some days all I could do was run.
What lives in the lace up to the rhythm of your feet
Keeping a beat
the beat
the one that only lives inside of you
In that very moment
Only the moment
Sometimes tears in all forms
flow in the sweat.
It slows me down so much I move differently not just during the run
I let those endorphins overpour from that soda refill.
super light enough if you know how to do it
(stop pounding your limbs on the ground you all giving running a bad name)
It isn’t just that I was good at it.
I was.
It isn’t just I have done more years of my life than I have not.
I have.
It is my solace.
It is when the world feels upside down internally externally.
When I cannot make peace
Or sense
Or feel so angry
Or confused
Or unsure
Or curious
I lace up those shoes and just go.
The Benefits of Running for Your Mental Health Benefit of human moderate running boosting mood and executive function coinciding with bilateral prefrontal activation (brain changes just in 10 mins of moving!)
It started when I was teenager This should shock no one for teens years are meant for runs out of frustration I would get to a point that I couldn’t be in my house anymore That whatever argument small or big I had to get out of the house And run Mostly the evening and night The boiling pots of a full stove of families Even the fun ones Don't ever believe that love does not live in the frames of those home of complications either So much of being a teenager is not having power Being able to articulate what you want and need And it being less important To others Reliving some of these arguments for all the years to follow Within your family The universal ones The ones of passing down like the family names firsts and last and middles. I would lace up my shoes and run And for a few moments around those track houses In the alphabet streets all with the same letter in the sections And those very flat streets I was free. And dreamt of a city. And hills. I always loved track in elementary and middle and high school I was a sprinter And my favorite will always be the choreography of the 4x100 What it takes to Wait for a baton - metal one that is kind of not easy to hold onto To land in your hand While communicating And in very tight area With others all around in the lanes Without looking And not being able to drop it Oh and running the fastest you can A bit of magic and timing and practice Then to run your ass off to do the same For someone else It is choreography- the sequences- lines of the play in practice the Beauty of it It is dancing and running and art all in one
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Today,I can still feel those moments inside of me
Of those relays and batons
The geography of me
The world would get so quiet
Sometimes I couldn’t even hear the cheering
The silence of the sprinting
Running for the peace
The flow
"Being so absorbed in an activity that we shut out distractions and worries to devote all our energy to the task at hand. It can occur in work or play"
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
I did something insanely wild I switched from sprinting to long distance I wouldn’t recommend this to many or myself again But I did it because there was no track team I needed money for school and I had to find some more of it Because I needed to go away for college I had to leave that suburb someone should study (tag not it) I vowed to never live in any suburb again And I never did I researched the team they had and called the coach And got a quarter scholarship I walked on to a D1 cross country team With not one private coaching session Or personal training By advocating for it By myself I didn’t even talk to anyone I just did it All my coaches were from my public schools and jr. olympics (also from public schools) And my own dad who was a runner And taught me that trick to run fast at the end of all runs Which did come in handy in some of the cross-country races I hope some parents somewhere living in their children to make this happen Pouring all that money into their kids Stop Honestly the chances are very slim And sports can teach us so much more than being “the best” Running has given me so much more than could ever live in those ribbons, medals, accolades and that I ever ran D1 And my love for running The freedom it gave me Started to change It became a job I loved running But waking up at 5 or 6 am something while being in undergrad And the double days I ran so much it hurt a lot I was always in pain Plus going to school with this schedule Or just being a new college student was not the business There was being part of a team And being able to move into dorms early Being a first year and having built in friends or community And go to Tahoe for running camps And traveling to meets And running a lot in beautiful places in San Francisco All the personal training I could get (for the first time) Ice baths, massages, and ultrasounds on the muscles The gear we got Helped out with my making out roster access to the other cute athletes (but that is for another story) I had to give up a lot of myself And what college could be I started to hate it So eventually we broke up The doctor the school paid for told me my chronic shin splits Would never go away They tested me for stress fractures He looked me in the face at 20 something and said I wouldn’t run Again To find another sport We broke up I wanted out anyway So, I gave up on her And walked away from her Decided I wanted to be like the other undergrads Took up drinking and smoking (we smoked old school cigarettes then) and having more fun We all are reactions to things And I didn’t go back to her for a decade Back to her embrace until My 30s I missed her a lot I was training to be a school counselor at a high school Many of my students were straddling street life and school life And trying to decide which one to take So much of my work was getting students to actually believe someone believed in them within the walls of a school And they could do school And school (any type) after And they too could dream This isn’t a dangerous mind nod- fuck that movie misguided white saviors' tropes let’s let them die, please I have learned more from my students than I could ever even attempt to quantify And some days were tremendously heavy So heavy I couldn’t process it with words So heavy I couldn’t talk to anyone about it The only thing calling me was her To lace up my shoes And run again. She was still there. And she gave me what no one could Not my therapist Not my close counselor friends or professors Not a lover or partner Peace. And I haven’t stopped since That doctor was wrong And not just a little bit I never ever had shin splits again Not once And ran another decade and into another. I got back into races for a bit A couple years 10Ks Bay to Breakers Did a couple halfs 10 miler Something about running being on my own terms No coaches No yelling No pressure felt freeing. During the pandemic I started running more And paying attention to how the running changed me I captured before and after (with run count) to see how I felt And the views during (I got enough footage for a short) and shared them What I noticed every single time Was my mood was better
That the unknown was still unknown But I knew I would be okay.
That the moment to moment of the pitter patter of the feet.
Helped me with the moment to moment everywhere else too.
I would run to the beach and see a view and take off my shoes and put my feet in the Pacific So much of the news felt like being hit by an impromptu water gun fight without your super soaker while walking backwards on hot lava But running was always, always there. she never let me down. And somehow in sharing the journey That others could lace up even for a short one Running was ours.
We had power to feel something—Something different than despair.
No mileage No races No times No paces Only a run count (almost at 300) Just doing the hardest part of lacing up and actually going That somehow in the moving and being And just the focus on the views and the next step Something changes Not just for me Rituals are ours forevers.
Mom embraces 'slow running,’ goes from under a mile to marathon training in 1 year - Good Morning America “Hi. I started running a little over a year ago. It takes me around 13-14 min to run a mile. I’m going from my first 5k to my first marathon in under a year. You’ll never catch me winning first place at a race. But @goodmorningamerica interviewed me to share my story, so it feels like first place to me 🥹🥹🥹 slowrunner”
And couple weeks ago when facing news I wanted to put on shelf I ran to the beach And I took off my shoes Alongside all those trying for the crabs And walked back into the Pacific It felt like before The icy water The peace that lived before The letting the waves run into me Lived again. The peace. Even if it was inside of me, And for a moment.
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