On Running, On Recovery

Belonging, Identity and Acceptance in Sheehan’s On Running

Running has been a significant part of my life since I can remember, thanks to the coaching instincts of my dad and its dominance in the athletic spirit of my extended family. As a kid, it seemed to me that everyone in my family ran - my parents, aunts, uncles, etc. My personal relationship with running has changed greatly since I first started chasing after my faster, stronger relations. Running saved my life before I learned how to love it, and this past year I’ve really fallen in love with it. I’ve come to view running as something that not only gives me grounds to learn about myself and grow, but that also challenges me to work at being a better version of that self everyday. My godfather recently gifted me a running classic: Dr. George Sheehan’s On Running. The cover of the paperback that arrived in the mail advertises itself as “the one book every runner must have.” If you’re anything like me - someone who’s found something in running that complements what I’m trying to do in recovery - this book is for you. 

Sheehan has a wealth of knowledge on human disease from his practice as a doctor, but he credits his understanding of health and wellbeing from his experience as a runner. From running, he learned how to be and how to grapple with that Delphic maxim “know thyself”, the words that have echoed in varying forms and languages in the writings of philosophers and authors throughout history. This self knowledge that Sheehan found in his time as a runner extends beyond what we know of ourselves based on the basic factors that include genetics, physical dimensions and features, birthplace, career and other defining qualities that can take priority in how we introduce ourselves to the world. I think we often let ourselves lead with these identifiers, not realizing that they block our knowledge of self when we rely on them to let the world know us. Our identity runs deeper than physical makeup and worldly achievements, even if those things do carry some weight in our process of self discovery. 

Similarly, our genetics and the ways we were raised can influence our relationship with athletics before we have the wherewithal to choose for ourselves how we want to exercise or if we even want to. My family has a running gene, and running would have probably ended up being part of my life even if circumstances had played out very differently than they did, but I likely wouldn’t have been a good runner. By good, I don’t mean fast. Not everyone is destined to be an Olympian or to run sub three hour marathons; I’m definitely not there and doubt I ever will be. A good runner is someone who integrates running into life in a fulfilling way rather than as an obstacle or punishment. Everyone is different, so every runner is different. We choose running in the same way we choose recovery; we go about the work because we realize that we have to in order to live a good life. And the further we get into it, the more we can come to enjoy it and choose it as part of our lives. A large part of my life today involves engagement in a program of recovery, and that includes the meetings, sponsorship, fellowship and twelve step work. When I identify as an alcoholic at these meetings, I do so because it links me to the others who have shown up for the same reasons that have led me to show up. We show up because we want to or because we have to, mainly because we need to. There is some need for connection, structure, guidance, hope or just something that brings us to meetings, and in that we’re the same. The work of running is no different. We need certain things to carry on: the connection with self and others; the structure of training, proper fueling and rest, preparation and recovery; the guidance of coaches, peers or our own growing knowledge of self; and the hope that even small gains in our physical fitness and overall endurance incite in us and that motivates us to continue with the effort of it all. Sheehan writes of the distance runner: “He runs because he has to.” Those of us who feel the urge to run and have begun to experience the mental and physical rewards of it do so not because it’s guaranteed fun or because we’re just bored. Sometimes it is fun, and sometimes we run because we’re bored. But why? The core at that why is that we’ve found it to be a solution of sorts. We have to run because we’ve found something in it that we don’t find elsewhere. 

Side note: I’m writing about running because it’s the solution I’ve found that complements my recovery and adds immense value to my life. I get that this might not be relatable to everyone, but it might mirror the relationship others have with cycling, walking, playing basketball or pickleball, etc. It might even be a lot like drawing or writing, though maybe the quality of pain and progress looks a little different in those practices. It’s a passion that takes work and that we throw ourselves into because we’ve found that something in it. There are other pursuits out there like it, but we’re running because I’m really into Sheehan’s book right now. 

This need to run reflects the need to be in a program of recovery, and this need unites those who share that need. Sheehan reflects a bit on that, noting that he identifies more strongly with his chosen practice of running than he does with his Irish ethnicity: “I belong to the distance running family.” That sense of belonging comes from the shared need and the shared reward of engaging in the kind of work that lets us shed the weaker parts of ourselves and come into greater contact with the freedom of running. It’s a belonging that comes from choosing a certain kind of life for ourselves and needing to shed something that’s been holding us back from freedom. This concept of freedom is something that might feel a bit different than what we’d expect in recovery and in running. I initially viewed sobriety as a limitation. I was acutely aware of all the couldn’ts now present in my life: I couldn’t drink and couldn’t partake in any of the many social circumstances that centered on drinking. I couldn’t figure out how to be a real, present person because I hadn’t been one in so long, and I couldn’t imagine a day I’d wake up feeling myself and happy with that self. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, and in that way the limitation of sobriety felt like the limitations I’d felt as a runner before I chose it. I felt that my body had strict limitations on how far or how long I could run, and I felt that I just wasn’t enough in every way. When I first started running marathons, I did so in an attempt to prove something to myself. I used it as a means to escape the steadily increasing self loathing and sense of failure that had crept into my life for a number of reasons and had only intensified because of my drinking. I tried to use running in the same way I used alcohol: as a way to not feel. While alcohol numbed whatever feelings I didn’t want to address, running seemed like a sure way to run away from them and prove something to the voices that convinced me I was going nowhere. Running away is very different from the kind of running Sheehan talks about. Running away stops working the minute you stop running just as alcohol only serves as a temporary solution. Neither one truly frees us from what we need to free ourselves. 

When Sheehan began running for himself, just to run and to improve his health and overall way of life, he realized that running opened something in him. He writes that running gave him a voice; it freed him to speak of himself and his feelings when before he was short and unforthcoming in his communication. It gave him space apart from his profession and the expectations of his career, and in that freedom gave him the opportunity to reflect. Running led him to the insight: “compared to what I ought to be, I am only half awake.” The experience he writes about here echoes the experience of self discovery we can have in the work of recovery. Free of the numbing and needy constraints of our delusional solution, we’re finally free to feel, to think and to look at those thoughts and feelings as messages for us to do with as we will. 

I don’t alway have that meditative experience when I run, but I’ve found it to be the case more and more often in recent days. Even when I blast music to create a barrier between myself and the scenic streets of Dorchester, I do my best thinking when I’m running. There’s something about being in a moving body that elevates mental capacities. I definitely read something about the science behind that somewhere and don’t have any facts or sources to back it up, but I know it’s true. My best thinking involves new ideas for art or writing - not always great ones but new ones, and it involves reflection on what’s been going on in my life - both the good and the painful. It’s a space outside the demands of life that lets my mind run as free as my feet. 

For many of us, our running becomes a reflection of our living. We have days when our body and mind war with each other over the decision to lace up and get out there, and we have those beautiful days when we’re happy to devote hours to a nice long run. Some days, everything works great, and others are not so peachy. We don’t always run because we want to; we run because we have to. And when we have a rough day getting those miles in, if we’re able to look at it as a learning experience and get back out there again the next day or after a bit more rest, we eventually get to a point when the good days outweigh the not so good in the grand scheme of things. In this way, running is a lot like recovery. When we start out, it’s not easy at all. Everything hurts, and we know that the easiest way out of that pain is to stop this new path and go back to what we thought was working before. If we’re able to push through that initial pain, we get more pain. A slightly different brand of it. We might have days when the pain ebbs slightly or disappears entirely, but it generally returns in some form. 

Pain, whether in the form of feelings or physical symptoms, isn’t comfortable, so we view it as a negative. It’s something our mind insists we need to eliminate as quickly as possible, and if we’ve been in the habit of using alcohol to do so, it remains in our mind as the most trustworthy solution to what we’re going through. Pain doesn’t need to be the enemy though. If we can shift our perspective to view pain as a sign that our body is working in proper conjunction with our mind, then we can accept pain as a good, a natural way in which the body communicates the need for change with the mind. Say you accidentally stab yourself and get the knife stuck in your hand - I’ve done this, don’t recommend. The pain that shoots through your nervous system to your brain tells you the obvious: something terrible has happened, and there’s something lodged in your body that isn’t supposed to be there. The pain is intense, because the urgency for change is intense. You can’t go on with a knife in your hand. Some drastic action needs to take place for you to recover your properly functioning hand, and it might take some time. It’s the same with feelings. The sad feeling we experience when we’re overlooked or alone tells us we need to speak up or find someone to talk to. We need to read the feeling and do something about it. When we feel pain while running, our body wants us to make a change. We might need to pause in our running to make that adjustment, but it’s usually not our body telling us to quit running entirely. It’s our body’s way of advising on how to run better. So in recovery when we feel the pain of all those feelings rising from the dead of being numbed and silenced for so long, we can read them in the same way. We don’t need to quit recovery because it’s hard. We do need to adjust how we’re going about life so that we can live better, more connected lives. It’s seldom a quick fix, but the change happens over time if we work on that practice of reading our feelings and addressing the message they’re sending. 

In this way, the pain is a crucial part of our self discovery in both running and recovery. We find that we need to progress with patience, that we need to cultivate connection with a supportive community and with our higher power, and that we need to listen to what we’re feeling rather than run from it. We need to run, to live with those feelings. The founder of my running club - Coach - told me the simplest way to start a practice of meditation is to ask myself what my body is feeling right now and sit with those feelings. To become acquainted with feelings is to become better acquainted with self. Self knowledge isn’t about finding out who we are after all the pain, but about interpreting the pain and the peace together. Answering the questions of what we’re feeling and why tells us infinitely more about ourselves than the question of how we can best get rid of this feeling and cheat our way out of the pain. It requires patience - a word rooted in the Latin verb patior, pati:“to suffer” - so it seems pain and patience were meant for us as a package deal. 

The distance runner who persists through this pain and continues running, better informed and stronger because of it, can practice this kind of meditation on the long run. On these runs, we experience a whole range of physical and emotional waves, and our minds can try to sabotage the run by telling us to stop or discouraging us with how many miles we still have to get through until we’re done. When not properly trained, our minds fixate on fear and self-imposed limitations. I have this really awful habit of imagining horrible scenarios that could force me to stop running. I do it when I’m not having a particularly great race, and I’ve never really thought about it until the aftermath of a race I did this past September. I had anticipated an easy race, and it wasn’t what I expected. I felt like garbage, and about halfway through my mind was imagining rolling an ankle, passing out from exhaustion or heat, or having a heart attack. I know this is messed up and very much not normal. Looking back at that thinking in the days that followed, I was able to see that my mind was torn between the need to stop the pain I was feeling and the need to have a legitimate enough reason to drop out that wouldn’t make me look and feel like a failure. If I just slowed down, I feared looking weak or not being good enough. But if I was carried off by emergency responders, people definitely wouldn’t judge. I totally ignored the message the pain was trying to send me, and instead I focused on preserving the image I’d expected to be able to present in this race. I placed all my worth on finishing with a good time, on a statistic value, and the pain I felt didn’t align with that expectation. The pain told me the truth: that I was under-fueled, unrested, too worn out and just not trained well enough to run the kind of race I wanted to. That experience led to a new kind of thinking about running and races, and it opened my eyes to a habit I have outside running as well. I don’t like to interpret the feelings I have or sit with them, so I imagine other bad things happening. I ignore my legitimate feelings because I don’t feel equipped to handle them; I find it easier to prepare for imaginary tragedies than to deal with the hardships that are very real and demanding of attention in my life. This wasn’t an easy thing to realize about myself, but I can see it happening now that I’m aware of it, and I try harder to do something about it and to be present with the pain rather than imagining a dramatic exit from it all.  

This is the kind of self knowledge Sheehan talks about in his book. We’re not discovering things like our preferred ice cream flavor or dream job; we’re learning more about character defects and our spiritual capacity for growth through these flaws. Ice cream preferences and career aspirations are all great, and they may occupy our minds for a time during the long stretches of time we run, but those parts of ourselves aren’t what gives us value. When we’re able to identify our weaknesses and do something about it all while continuing to run and to live, then we can see real value in our strength to endure through that kind of pain and grow because of it. Sheehan writes, “Walk to clear your mind. Run to clear your mind. If you do, you can see yourself, however imperfect, as a unique adult. When you accept imperfection in yourself, you accept others at face value too.” This acceptance is the key to finding freedom in running and in recovery. If we can learn to accept ourselves for where we’re at and to accept the pain or joy that we’re experiencing in the present, we’re enough and we’re aware of what we need to do to continue in the direction we’re heading. 

There will likely be more on Sheehan; I’m only a few chapters in.