Am I back? No
This shit is humbling
A few weeks ago I raced the Heat Check mile. We never have road mile races in Austin, so I jumped at the chance to race. I ran a 5:57, which I was quite pleased with. It was a fun Saturday having my friend Vanessa to race with, and Jake and the girls cheering me on. And despite not getting to do much structured training in the weeks prior, due to my pelvic floor injury from birth flaring up, I ran pretty fast!
A few women passed me in the last quarter and I had to really draw on my old kick to get to the line. I lowered my head and charged like a bull. It was ugly, but it worked. A brief thrill.
After the race, another runner, a friend-of-a-friend, asked me, “So are you like, back now? From kids?”
In the moment, I bristled. “I’m here, right?” I said, then “This is a race, I guess,” and gestured around at the finish arch. I felt like I was being rude. But should I say more to explain my hesitance to say that I am back? Does it even matter? I’m not really trying to get back to my competitive heights anymore. But I’m physically here, doing something. What is that, exactly? Who’s asking?
Another finisher asked me if the race was my PR. I huffed out “No, I ran 4:41 once. That PR is now a teenager.” I want to say they looked bemused at my response, but I can’t even remember. All I remember is how I felt—self-conscious. How could I put this without sounding like an asshole or, only slightly better, a self-indulgent old-timer? I held back from also reminding them that back in my day we didn’t have super shoes, I was 50 lbs smaller, and we walked uphill in the snow both ways to school, etc.
I think my terse replies, and the desire to explain the “real story” stemmed from anxiety—if only people just understood, I often think, they’d get me. It’s one of the reasons I write the way I do. I love being able to work through this with an audience. And people do get me, a lot of the time. Sometimes it feels like people get me more on the internet than they do in real life, which is, perhaps indicative of the medium’s distance from reality. It’s easier to write a caption than it is to reckon with the daily messy middle.
I mused that I would feel better if the other racers chatting with me knew the back story—my journey in and out of years with the sport. Of course that was not the time and place to tell that story. We weren’t reminiscing over beers like old friends. They didn’t ask about that, frankly. We were just high-fiving at the finish line. But the cool things is that whether they knew me or not, where I’d been… I already had their sweaty, endorphin high-fueled support that morning.
A lot of people did set PRs that day. It was a race format our Austin running community hadn’t seen lately—exciting. It was also 75° and humid. Muggy, classic Austin beginning-of-summer. A small race, four heats, a few dozen runners. Just a good hard Saturday run. More of this.
Part of moving on from my old identity as a competitive athlete is navigating these interactions. I’m striving to do it more graciously. A new kind of practice, I think. I’m noticing that I’m hard on myself in a way that doesn’t really serve anyone.
So, no. The race was not a PR. I was not expecting one.
And also,
I ran my fastest mile in five years
I ran a big postpartum PR (-18 seconds)
I’m grateful. I’m out there in my fully able body, an adult with free time again, doing what she loves. I didn’t have that for a few years. I don’t discount that this is relatively speedy and a privilege to get out and do it.
This shit is still humbling!
My showing up is an expression of letting go of perfection and the ideal of performance > everything else. In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons it can still be fun. If it was only about performance, I would be so discouraged. And if it was exclusively not about performance, I wouldn’t be motivated.
It’s a little of both: it’s play, it’s work, and that’s the good stuff.
Finally, preschooler cheers are the best:
When I saw you did a road mile and ran (what I consider) blazing fast I was so excited for you! And it also stoked a little flame inside myself…that looks fun! So you’ve inspired me to sign up for a local road mile at the end of the summer, something I never thought would entice me at this stage in life/ running/parenthood. We have to still find the fun in this sport, as you write. If it was all about chasing times we would have hung up our shoes long ago.
Congrats on the PP PR!