In the days leading up to covid I was training for a half marathon. The race was scheduled for April 5 but the universe seemingly had other twisted plans for me. At the same time that the world shut down, I began to get a grating feeling in my left hip every time I ran. Soon, it devolved into stabbing sciatica running down the back of my right leg, and an uncomfortable squeeze when I twisted or stretched the wrong way. With limited access to doctors and chalking it up to side-effects of a new routine, It would take me six months to get diagnosed with a stress fracture in my hip.
Now, almost four years later, I’m a good girl doing all the right things. I foam roll, I stretch, I do clamshells to make my glutes stronger. And yet, every few months, something goes out of whack and once again I’m injured. I suppose that part of getting older is coming to terms with the fact that your body simply doesn’t work the way you want it to most of the time.
But, I’ve also had to re-think the way that I approach running. I always hoped to experience the feeling of accomplishment that comes with crossing a marathon finish line. And while I may not have dropped my dream of one day attempting a marathon, I’ve had to break out of the racing mentality. I can no longer run my fastest, or my longest, or my hardest. Instead, it’s just for the sake of being there, slow and steady in the moment. I learned that I couldn’t push through pain or ignore the uncomfortable feelings that come with running. If I was going to keep myself from being injured, I had to be present, to listen to my body, and to fight my instincts to run fast so I could speed on to my next to-do.
It’s humbling to find myself scaling back my ambitions and having to come to terms with my own limitations. But, it’s better than the alternative, pushing myself so hard that I eventually become too injured to run at all.
Outside of my running life, One word people who love me often use to describe me is impatient. I guess it shouldn’t be all too surprising that someone who pushes themself to the point of injury probably doesn’t know how to take the foot off of the gas elsewhere. Walking to dinner, my boyfriend will tug at the back of my shirt to slow me down. This newsletter becomes its own race that I rush through to check off my to-do list but perhaps don’t carve out the time to sit with my thoughts.
I’m no longer sure that racing is the accomplishment I used to think it was. In my rush to get to the finish line and celebrate the accomplishment that was behind me, I was failing to enjoy the moment that I was in, or to even be present at all.
Here’s the thing, a bodily injury is obvious – when it got to a point where I was on crutches, hobbling, I had no choice but to slow down. Dealing with the mental side of things, however, was not always so overt. Not too soon after I found myself forced to slow down and heal my injured hip, I left my full time job feeling burnt out and began to reassess what was meaningful about my work. Was it when a big story went live? Was it when I got a promotion? These checked boxes felt like validation, but they weren’t actually fulfilling me.
Not to be too heady, but there’s a Lao Tzue quote I read once that resonated with me, “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
I’ve spent a lot of time living in, and spinning out about, the future — my schedule for a few hours ahead, how I’ll ever afford kids, my health at 70. Yes, there’s some necessity for being aware of what’s to come, but a focus singularly on the future and how I’m going to get there has only managed to make the tightness in my chest feel all the tighter.
Living in New York and surrounded by people who like myself are always forging ahead onto the new job, promotion, or project, I don’t know that I’ve always felt that I’ve had space to leave the racing mentality. But, in the moments where I have created a little space for myself to live more in the moment, I’ve been surprised by the way some of the pressure I put on myself has melted away. I’m able to find contentment and fulfillment without needing a trophy to prove it.
As someone who writes mostly about fashion, let me start by framing it in this way: racing is buying the buzzy Miu Miu heels with the intention of posting them on Instagram or wearing them to fashion week. It’s a purchase with an end game in mind. Running on the other hand, is walking into a vintage shop and taking the time to peruse the racks, try things on, and leave with that one shift dress that for some reason spoke to me. It’s about the experience and not the end goal.
All of this is not to say that living in the moment™ can’t sometimes be rather difficult. Frankly, I often find myself thinking mid-run that it’s all a bit excruciating. I’m not sure that I’ll ever fully commit to meditation or conquer mindfulness, I suppose it’s less about the zen of it all. To me, it’s more about sometimes sitting with discomfort, slowing down, and finding a pace that gives me space to think (and maybe enjoy) the road.