This was inspired by the strength of a fellow brave runner not afraid to ask for help.
My dearest self, First of all, I am so very sorry to hear about your struggles, I cannot imagine the pain you are feeling. But I assure you that you are doing much better than you are giving yourself credit for. You shake your head, but you are. You are strong and in control here, you just need to be reminded how. I’ve never liked it when people say, I know how you feel, but I do. I know how you feel. Coping is a funny thing, isn’t it.? We all have to cope. Life sometimes sucks. It throws things at us we can’t handle, things we can’t even imagine. It sometimes feels unbearable. I assure you it is not; you are strong enough. I used to tie running up into all the messy strings that were life. It was a cobweb of how I celebrated wins, fought losses, dealt with stress, felt about eating, felt about others, felt about myself. But I realized that something like running, a simple action that cannot stand on its own, cannot be tied to all of those things. It is not meant to hold together our entire world. Slowly, over the course of multiple injuries, I worked on disassociating running from these things and as that happened, I was suddenly alone with myself. I diverted my thoughts at first, I didn't want to deal with them. They were not pretty. I took the energy I used to waste running for the wrong reasons and piled it into my mental game. If I felt like I “needed” to run or exercise, I didn’t. And I didn’t replace running with a different mind-numbing activity. I sat with myself and tried to understand. That decision took more out of me than running itself would have. More will power. More strength. Disassociating running from all of these things is the first step. Once you are able to pull the sticky mess of running out of that web and set it to the side, what do you see? What does it look like on its own? What was it at its core before all of this other stuff became tangled in its web? What can it be? Focus on that. Surround yourself with all of the things that bring you joy. The things you used to shy away from. The things you may have forgotten or denied during your times of struggle. I know there are things you didn’t or don’t do because of running. Do those now. Live your life outside of running, and I assure you, running will still be there when you return to it. One you return to running, you may find that you actually can make time for these other things. Things that will make your life even more full. Things that will make running even better. There will come a time where none of us can run. We won’t be able to hide from ourselves. What will we do then? I want you to be strong enough to embrace it with open arms, accepting and not shying away from it. When the day comes to leave running, or other sports, behind, you merely take out your scissors and cut it off the edge of your web. You are enough without it. Tough love always, Keely
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Our bodies are common topics of conversation. We’re constantly offering our unsolicited opinions of them.
“Have you gained weight?” “You need to eat a burger.” “You look [insert adjective that the receiving party does not want to hear and/or is not mentally ready for]” I bet you’re nodding right now. Why is it normal for human beings to be so critical and to speak so freely, so unapologetically, of other people’s bodies? This has become even more prevalent in the world of athletics, particularly running, and has unfortunately helped fuel a community of unhealthy habits, body image issues, and insecurities. Look good, feel good, right? Well, perhaps that’s where we’ve gone wrong. What this stereotypical body cataloging doesn’t do is take into account the internal state of a person. Our mental, physical, and physiological wellbeing can be vastly different from what meets the eye. This is often overlooked by the opinion givers but it is also overlooked by us. This appearance-driven mindset has trickled down to infiltrate minds. We take what we look like in mirrors and selfie-stick photos and use it to offer ourselves a false sense of health and accomplishment. From the individual up to the community, we need to shift the focus from the external to the internal. What’s going on inside us strips us down to our core; we can’t hide from it. And the number of likes you get or abs you can see won’t change it. It’s time we stop hiding from ourselves and take control of our health. Optical Illusions I ran White River when I was a newbie trail runner. I was still figuring it all out. I was nervous at the start line and ran out fast. As I led the race, I developed a following — an older man in his car. This is what I heard: “Yeah, Big Girl!” My stomach dropped. I grinned, laughed, and played it off as good fun. I had been given a pet name by a stranger, one that he felt was very clever, one that he felt I should be honored to have, and I pretended it was fine. It wasn’t fine. I won that race, but inside I wasn’t very healthy. I was constantly battling myself and under-nourishing my body. But what got pointed out to me that day was that somehow, after all I had gone through to get there and how well I ran, I was whittled down to two words. Two years later and after another big ultra-marathon win, I met this same old man again. He felt the need to tell me, “You’re not so big anymore, Big Girl.” I am not writing this as a pity story. This is trivial compared to much of the world, and for that I am grateful. However, I am writing this to emphasize a point and to hopefully elicit change in the athletic community. I’m 5’11. I will always be somewhat of a “Big Girl.” Actually, compared to a 3-year-old, we are all “Big Girls.” It’s all about perspective. I laugh now because I have come to realize that other people’s opinions don’t define me. But what I don’t laugh at is how prevalent this is in the sport. How we feel entitled to comment on bodies without asking about the person inside. I was a tormented little 22-year-old girl winning one of her first ultras, and I was given an unsolicited pet name. Two years later, more successful, but still slightly tormented, I was again reminded of that pet name. Two different races, two different mental states, and all that was commented on was how I looked. I wasn’t asked if I was doing okay, if I was feeling healthy, if I was fueling well, if I was happy. Most people don’t want to know the answers to those questions. Those questions are intrusive and require far too much compassion and commitment. They like the version of you they create in their heads. The optical illusion. Black and white photograph It turns out that I liked the optical illusion as well. Living in this society, we are trained to ignore the hard questions. However, over the years, I’ve started making myself answer them. To answer truthfully, I’ve had to stop comparing myself to others, and to train and live in a way that is good for me. No one ever took away a first-place trophy because someone was too heavy or had slower runs on Strava. When you stop comparing yourself to others and instead start critically comparing different versions of yourself, you may start to home in on your best self. Your best self does not have to be like anyone else. It comes from nurturing your body, treating yourself with compassion, and training at an intensity that allows your body to strengthen and perform. Your best self comes from critically acknowledging your flaws and shortcomings and tackling them head on. Taking a snapshot of your inside is very black and white, and if you don’t ignore it, can help you find your optimal performance. Unfiltered InsideTracker helped me face my flaws by highlighting blood biomarker levels that were extremely unhealthy and detrimental to my training. Even though I feigned surprise at the time, it all made sense. I was over-trained, malnourished, and extremely tired and unhappy. This showed up in my cortisol levels, female sex hormone levels, muscle damage markers, and iron levels. I couldn’t ignore what I was feeling anymore, so instead I got to work. Four years into my relationship with InsideTracker and I still don’t have it all figured out, but I’m sure trying. The photograph I received wasn’t very pretty, it was completely unfiltered, but it finally gave me the strength I needed to change. It can give us the strength we need as a community to face ourselves and prioritize our health. Health-Colored Glasses We all will look wrinkled and overly hairy when we are older. It won’t matter what you looked like at the start line 20 years ago, but rather how you treated your body. We’ve all seen the sparkle found in the eyes of the healthy. We should be commenting more on that. More on the presence of life, of joy, of health, and less on external appearance. We should see each other through “health-colored glasses.” We should be celebrating the sparkle. That’s what should define us. Sparkle and shine I challenge you all to start viewing yourselves and each other through a less critical lens, and instead celebrate what makes you unique, seek to understand your weaknesses, and prioritize your individual health. The next time you are given an unsolicited pet name, compliment, or criticism, look at them with your sparkling eyes wide and let your inner truth shine. |
Keely HenningerPortland, OR Archives
February 2021
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