Do you hate running? Do you feel like it’s just not the exercise for you? Yep, me too. Yet against my every instinct, I decided that during the month of April I was going try it. I was going to run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6pm, no excuses.
Spoiler alert: I did it. Mostly.
My longtime aversion to running goes deep, and it isn’t just because this particular form of exercise is difficult; for years I’ve honestly thought myself incapable, viewing my body and its capabilities in a terrible light. For almost ten years I’ve seen myself as the fat kid, a perception that has held me back from many things.
But this isn’t a sob story; it’s a documentary of how I decided to stop making excuses and start making a change. It’s a story that I hope other strong women can relate to and take inspiration from.
Here’s the history: In fourth grade I hit a growth spurt early. By my tenth birthday I had hit the five-foot mark, I wore size eight shoes, and I felt like a sasquatch. In fifth grade my boobs came in fast and I was in a B cup before most of my classmates were out of training bras. Then in sixth grade I got my first period, and I started gaining weight. This weight gain was nothing irregular, in fact it’s exactly what the female body is supposed to do at that stage, but it was happening to me before anyone else so I started to see myself as fat.
This way of seeing myself was aggravated by the fact that I’m not very athletic. I once broke my wrist from falling off a Barbie Razor Scooter. In a family of athletes, it was easy to compare myself to others; I felt like a slob, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to change that.
But in the past year, I’ve changed lots of things, starting with my attitude.
Deciding that “I can’t” was not a good enough reason not to, I joined the swim team my senior year of high school. This was an incredible feat for me since I didn’t know even one of the strokes and occasionally despised the sight of myself in a swimsuit. At Tech I bought a Group X pass from McComas Gym and kept up a regular schedule. And in February, my roommate and I decided to try the thing I most detested: running.
So, I tried sticking to a running schedule for a month and this is what happened:
I learned how to motivate myself.
Physically checking things off after completion is one way I motivated myself. I wrote on my calendar “Run at 6” every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the month of April. Every time I completed one, I would mark off that day’s run with neon pink marker. As I completed more and more, I could actually see my progress. Some days that was all the motivation I needed to lace up my shoes and do it again.
Whatever you need to do to motivate yourself, however trivial something might seem, if it works it works. Keep it up.
I found out that shoes do matter.
I’m flatfooted, so the lack of arch in my worn-out ASICS was causing me actual pain while running, especially in my shins and calfs. My roommate and running partner found that her shoes had worn out where she puts the most pressure and weren’t giving enough support. However, with the fear that I would run three times and then never again, I didn’t want to invest in a new pair. Now that I’ve stuck with it for (more than) a month, I think I’ll do just that.
Having a routine is helpful, but changing things up sometimes is fun.
The path we’ve been running is exactly 3.2 miles, the perfect length to train for the Hokie 5k, which we plan to run next fall, but there isn’t much light along it and one of the blue lights was broken. Once I had to push back the run to 8 pm due to my schedule, and I knew running the usual path wasn’t possible.
Having already pushed back the run two hours and losing the comfort of the normal trail, I was worried that I wouldn’t do it at all. I actually sat on the floor of my room for thirty minutes making all kinds of excuses not to go, mostly revolving around darkness and homework. Eventually the idea of giving up when I had already completed most of a month was what made me do it. I did four laps around the Drillfield which, including the two roundabouts near the Pylons, is 3.2 miles. Getting a change in scenery and terrain was actually refreshing!
Full disclosure: I didn’t manage to run every single time in April. On the very last Friday, my roommate and I decided to hike the Cascades instead, an opportunity that I didn’t regret skipping for.
Accommodating injuries is not the same things as backing out.
One time my roommate rolled her ankle towards the end of the run and we had to walk the last half-mile; another time my terrible shoes got the best of me and we ended up walking more than running. I learned that sometimes these things happen, but it doesn’t mean I failed. In fact, continuing with my schedule despite injuries reassured me that I am in fact capable of running.
I got what I wanted.
It’s time to address the big “W”: weight loss. This didn’t happen for me. I weigh almost exactly what I did before I started running. Luckily, this month of running wasn’t about losing weight for me. It was about trying something new, staying fit and feeling better, and that’s exactly what I got out of the experience.
While I didn’t lose weight, I gained muscle. My legs, in my opinion, look amazing. I’ve got defined muscles there now that I haven’t ever seen on myself before, which I discovered when shaving and there were suddenly more ridges to work around. Also, the extra time outside every day helped me work on my tan, which I consider to be a positive even if I did develop a minor sock tan.
I proved to myself that I can.
I’m 5 feet and 3.75 inches tall and chubby. I broke my pinky the first time I tried dribbling a basketball. In addition to the scooter incident, I have broken my wrist two other times, once while roller blading and the other by falling off the edge of a two-foot-tall blow up trampoline. For these reasons and many more, I don’t consider myself to be athletic. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be physically fit.
I completed the 3.2 for 32 on April 16 and I ran most of it, something I didn’t think I could do before. It was amazing to be a part of an event that is so meaningful.
(That’s me on the left, my wonderful R.A. on the right, and the world’s greatest mascot in the center, at about mile 3.)
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All things considered, this was a successful experiment. Now I know that not only can I run, but I actually don’t hate it… at least not all the time.
So I leave you with this challenge: try running. Even if you hate it, even if you think you can’t, give it just one try. If I was able to do it, anyone can.