Run For Your Life

A reflection on running as recovery

I’ve spent a lot of time running this past year, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how many of the little lessons I’ve gleaned from running apply to recovery with a little adjustment. I’m in the final hours of preparing for another race, and this one feels so different from any race I’ve done before. It’s the same distance as ones I’ve run in the past, even shorter than a couple; but it’s significant for me because of the people who have been involved and the year that has led to it. I have a lot of thoughts about running as it pertains to recovery, but I’ll just share a few of them here for the sake of time and space. 

The logo I designed for my site is a triangle for a few reasons. The triangle is a known symbol of the program; I personally use the triangle structure when considering the trajectory of recovery and visualizing the role of the steps this program for me and the women with whom I work. The triangle is also a delta, the Greek letter. In mathematics, the delta serves as the symbol for change, the difference between sums in an equation. Delta is also the first letter in the original Greek of a Bible quote from Hebrews: Δι’ὑπομονῆς τρέχωμεν - let us run with endurance. I didn’t really expect to find something pertaining to running in the Bible, but of course there is. God knows things. 

The word endurance is key here. We are not encouraged to run with speed or ease, but to persevere with endurance. To run with endurance means to run even with the hardship and to set ourselves on the long path before us. Here’s an extended piece of the passage: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with endurance the race marked out for us” (HEB 12:1). Part of the running incited in this passage is to leave behind the encumbrances we accumulate. I love the vision of the surrounding cloud of witnesses too; it sounds like a race day scene with the huge crowd who has come to the course for just that reason: to witness. They’re there to witness, because witnessing in this way supports the efforts of those running on the course. Everything that hinders or entangles us refers to the habits, perceptions and values that hold us down. We have to let go of thinking we’re not enough, of shying from discomfort,  of isolating, and of lying to ourselves and others. We have to leave behind selfishness, frustration and anger in order to run a straight race.

You don’t sign up for a marathon just for the distance. You could do that any day of the week without the hassle of raising thousands of dollars or navigating the traffic and crowds on race day. You could also pick a day with perfect weather and your choice of scenery. Signing up for a race forces you to accept the conditions and circumstances of the day; it requires acceptance as well as endurance. And once you can accept the factors beyond your control, you can fully appreciate that cloud of witnesses who have shown up for you. 

A few years ago I signed up for a trail race up in Vermont where I was in grad school. I knew nobody there and wasn’t sure what to expect. A man standing near me on the starting line struck up a conversation with me and found out it was my first of this particular kind of race. I’d never run that far and was terrified of the mountain peaks looming large within sight of the start that we were supposed to climb more than once on the course. He gave me advice I think of every day since then: “enjoy the day.” Those simple words let me drop any expectations I had of proving something to myself or someone. Enjoying the day meant accepting everything about the race - the people, the course, the weather, the inclines and the time it took. I let myself talk to the other runners who passed me or ran with me or whom I passed, and I enjoyed this crazy sense of connection with people I hadn’t known til that day. I stopped at every fuel station and thanked the volunteers, and I let myself slow down and even walk when I needed to. I don’t remember the pain or discomfort, but I know it was there. I do remember the people and the incredibly beautiful course. Enjoying the day let me accept my circumstances and engage in the race in the way my training had prepared me to. In recovery, enjoying the day involves that same practice of being present and accepting the people and circumstances beyond our control. Recovery is a lot of work, and it’s not always easy, but dwelling in the discomfort or holding ourselves to certain expectations regardless of our present needs doesn’t let us run our best race. 

When we let ourselves enjoy the day, we stay present in each mile, each experience. I was thinking on a recent run that I will never be exactly a week away from race day again. You only get to live that day once. On the course, I’ll only go through each mile once. It sounds so simple and obvious, but when I focus on that truth, I’m able to be present in what I can do with and appreciate about the place I am now rather than thinking days or miles ahead of where I am. Any race, no matter the distance, progresses one step, one mile at a time. It’s a little cliche to say, but it’s important to remember especially in those times when you start to think there’s no way you’ll be able to make it through the remaining miles ahead. 

Being in recovery for the rest of our lives is terrifying because we don’t know how long or how hard that will be. We can’t anticipate every challenge that will enter our lives in the ensuing days and years, and we don’t know we can maintain the vigilance and endurance we’re practicing in this day for such a prolonged amount of time. Giving up seems the obvious choice when facing an indeterminate period of potential hardship that we’ll have to get through without our easy solution. We may have miles or days when everything feels great. There’s minimal discomfort, no pain, and no wind or hills to slow us. There will also be miles when we’re trudging uphill and everyone else seems to be running faster than us. These are the miles I want to remember I can only do once. I didn’t train to just run the first and last mile; I trained to run each mile, and I don’t want to waste a single one forgetting to be grateful for where I am and how far I’ve come. It’s easy to say this now when I’m not in it, but I think practicing that mindfulness now will prepare me for the times when I need it. 

Every race and every recovery can be a lot less daunting if we focus on this mindfulness in the now. 26.2 miles is a lot, but 26 one-mile runs and change somehow feels a little more manageable in my mind. I just have to focus on the mile I’m in, and in that mile I just have to take one step after another. Sometimes on long runs, it feels as if the miles melt into each other and I’m just floating or aching through an eternal experience. But when I bring my mind to the small things that change with each mile, I run better. I focus on my breath, do a scan that usually tells me my mind is hurting more than my body, and I acknowledge the space around me.

The marathon doesn’t let you have delusions. No matter what you tell yourself in the first half of the race, the later miles force complete, honest communication between mind and body. If you haven’t done the work, the race will tell you. If you need to slow down, take a break or refuel, the race will tell you that too. And the work of preparation consists of more than miles. A little while ago, I was struggling to find motivation to keep training, and I had the idea to grade my training as I would a teacher. I felt that I wasn’t getting an A, and my experience in education has shown me that rubrics are one effective way to break down the factors that go into a grade. I’ll say that I don’t think grading is a perfect process, but the rubrics are helpful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of any given assessment. So I made a rubric for my training, and I found that while I was doing well in categories such as mileage and cross-training, I was suffering in my performances in the areas of recovery/rest, fueling, and motivation. Making the rubric and analyzing the components of each category let me see that even though I felt I was giving a hundred percent to my training, I was putting all that energy into only a couple of the many crucial factors that go into properly preparing for a race. 

In recovery, I felt I had a similar result. I was being consistent with adding consecutive days to my journey and was doing a good amount of “cross-training” - I defined that as any activities that were not directly program-based but contributed effectively to my overall well-being. But I wasn’t taking time to slow down, to pray and meditate as mindfully as I used to, and to take care of myself in the ways I needed to. When we don’t look at all the aspects of recovery, we suffer. It simply isn’t enough to get X amount of time sober or attend 90 meetings in 90 days. Those achievements are great, but we need to be doing more and sometimes less to really feel the gifts a life in recovery can offer. 

Something we’re just silly not to do is surround ourselves with and engage in community. It’s vital to us in running and in recovery. The long distance runner seems like a solitary person, and we can be. We spend a lot of time on our own with only our mind and body to keep us company. I think we can make it through a marathon alone just fine, but the mind and body can only get us so far on their own. A woman on my team gave us the advice to run the first ten miles of a marathon with our heads, the next ten with our legs, and the final 10K with our hearts. We can run smart and aware of our physical abilities for the first twenty miles, but we need the connection we have with our fellow runners, with the communities who support us, and with our higher power to complete a strong race when our mind and body are begging us to quit. Even if we’re running the race alone, we can tap into that connection to find the courage we need to keep going in those miles. 

Running in a race like the Boston Marathon is all about this courage in community. About 30,000 runners will start in Hopkinton with the goal of crossing the finish line on Boylston Street this year. Runners who have either qualified or raised money for one of the non-profits, all of whom have earned their way and trained throughout the winter for this day. These runners come from all over the world and all different backgrounds; they have trained in different climates and with different levels of intensity; but they will run the same 26.2 miles on April 15. That’s one of the beautiful things about the marathon. We’re all running the same race, but we’re each having a unique experience of that race. 

In recovery, we’re all working for the same goal: to recover that sense of conscious connection. The feelings of isolation and solitude were such a central part of our pain in addiction. We may have felt that we were the only ones who felt the way we did, that we occupied a plane apart from everyone else. But in recovery we find that even if our stories are unique in their details, we share the same feelings as men and women with whom we might not have felt any connection before. The experience, strength and hope we share are meant to connect us with one another, to let us identify with one another and realize that we are in fact running the same race. And it’s not easy for any one of us. We wouldn’t need each other otherwise. To run a marathon alone may seem like a brave thing, but if we choose to run alone we’re denying ourselves the strength that comes from knowing we have a purpose greater than just covering miles with our bodies. 

I used to sign up for marathons without really caring if anyone ran them with me, and I usually didn’t make a big deal about people coming to see me run. I wanted them there, but I was so afraid of rejection that I usually wouldn’t ask unless there was some other incentive aside from showing up for me in the package deal. I firmly believed that I had to do it all on my own, that people only showed up if it was a transactional sort of favor, and that in the end it really was up to me to cross the finish line regardless of the people standing on the sidelines. I have incredible people in my life, and they’ve shown me the absolute necessity of a community in both running and recovery. I’ve only run one marathon that nobody came to watch, and that’s due to me refusing a couple requests and choosing a race in the middle of the Green Mountains in Vermont. For every other race, at least one of my people has been there to support. For those races when it’s been only one person who’s come out of his or her way to be there, it means the world to know someone is waiting and watching. Running isn’t an objectively exciting thing to watch - there’s not much action other than mostly forward motion - especially when you’re watching someone like me struggle at a pace way below the posted speed limit. It’s the heart that draws our people to watch and to support, and it’s the heart that finds strength in that selflessness to keep going. 

This race will be the one with the most people I know on the course, and I’ve found that thought a little terrifying. My fear told me that more people on the course meant more people to see me run slow or have to stop and potentially fail. But that’s not why they’ll be there. First of all, they’re not just there for me. I’ll be one of over thirty thousand people running the course. People who show up to run or support are doing so because we’re human. We do better in company. There’s something about being surrounded by other humans who have shown up to watch or run that lets us belong to something greater than ourselves. And for the people who have shown up to look for me in that crowd, I know that they don’t expect me to win or set a personal record. They’re showing up because they know the struggle, and they know how much of a gift a friendly face at one point in that long race will be. And I love them for that. 

So how do we show up for people in recovery if there’s not a clearly marked 26.2 mile course to stand along to cheer each other on? We show up to meetings, we listen, we ask the simple questions that show someone we care about whatever kind of answer is true for them. And for all those people we don’t know - the runners who go by as we’re waiting to see who we’ve come to see - we cheer them on too. Everyone needs it, and not everyone has a horde of family members willing to drive to multiple locations on the course. Not everyone has someone who knows his or her name standing on the side of the road. It’s the same in life. We show up for our people, but we need to remember all the people who come into or pass through our lives. And if we’re standing at mile 20 of a marathon course and expecting huge smiles and waves of gratitude from every stranger we cheer on, we have to remember that our witnessing means something even if we don’t receive acknowledgement from runners who are too tired to wave in our direction. It’s easy for me to remember that of runners, but I sometimes forget how that translates to life. Everyone deserves a supportive witness to their endurance, but we don’t know how that mile of their race feels even as we bear witness to it. 

My grandfather, one of my people, keeps a lot of books on his shelves and even more wisdom in his heart. I aspire to endure through every chapter of my life with the quiet, unassuming grace and selflessness that he has. He has the coolest resume of anyone I know, but he thinks little of his worldly achievements. While I was with him, he told me about George Sheehan, an accomplished physician and runner. He suggested I read Sheehan’s book, Running and Being, and this reading experience became the catalyst to my deeper understanding of running as something more than a physical exercise. Sheehan understood the place of running as a reflection of one’s way of living. We run how we live, and to do so mindfully takes both these modes of being to a higher level. Sheehan says of the marathon: “It asks us to forsake pleasures, to discipline the body, to find courage, to renew faith, and to become one’s own person, utterly and completely.” He very well could be speaking of recovery here. By choosing to forsake the easy solution of alcohol, drugs or whatever pleasure held us in that addictive cycle, we’re embarking on marathons of life. We’ve chosen a long road that requires discipline, courage and faith if we are to progress, and we set out on it not knowing how long we’ll have to run on it. We need endurance to do that. And to become one’s own person doesn’t mean we do it alone, but rather that we recover ourselves in finally realizing the deep connection that has been our birthright and our identity even when we couldn’t see it. 

The greatness in running a marathon or really choosing to run at all isn’t in the time we post or how great we look in our race day outfit. It isn’t even all about finishing if circumstances outside our control prevent it. It’s in showing up to the start and doing what we can within the set of circumstances on that day. It’s about being part of the crowd either running or witnessing, and channeling the strength that this connection gives us to keep going. And in all that, it’s about being with ourselves every step of the way. There’s one part of the Boston course that has changed in recent history to accommodate traffic demands. A small incline in the last half mile of the race now dips under Mass Ave to an elevation around sea level, according to an article on the choice to change the race. This makes it the lowest point in the entire course. Not only is it a physical low point; due to its position, runners climb this mountain of a small hill without the cheering crowds beside them. A runner interviewed by Boston.com said of this feature: “It’s the only moment in the course where you can’t see or hear fans because you’re surrounded by the cold cement of the underpass.” The other runners quoted had similar thoughts on the matter, and I couldn’t help thinking of the symbolic significance of this little hill. In forcing runners to dip to the lowest point of the course and climb one more hill without spectators, the course gives us a moment to be physically alone on the course - aside from the other runners. In this space we’re asked to dig deep for the strength to climb again, and if we can see past the exhaustion and pain we can remember that we’re supported even if we can’t see or hear the people waiting for us. We can take this moment to recognize that we’re accomplishing what Sheehan said to be true of marathoners and becoming completely and utterly ourselves as we move from this low point to the final steps of this race. I don’t know where my head or legs will be at this low point, but if I can reach it, I’ll trust that my heart will have the strength I need to run through it with the knowledge that my people are still out there even if I can’t see or hear them.