Running, Beginnings and Endings

Everything has a beginning and an ending. As I sit here right now, I am ending a time of injury and beginning a time of recovery, renewal, and working myself into running again. While I’m excited about the prospect of once again enjoying an activity I once felt I couldn’t live without, I am also grieving the ending of a time of exploration, when I had time to delve into activities that my busy running schedule didn’t previously allow.

Everyone should start something new once and awhile. We get so used to being “good” at something, whether it’s running, work, family, or the easy patterns of the week, we can quickly forget what it’s like to be “new” at something. To begin comes with its own anxiety, fear, and unknown, but along with those feelings come excitement, anticipation and exhilaration of this unknown.

These beginnings are like a drug to me. I thrill for this change, the anticipation of something I’ve never done before, of something I know nothing about, but will come to understand over time. When I started running, each new distance was rife with experiences, each race provided a new challenge, and over time, what once was filled with uncertainty became normal, expected, and as much as anything can be, certain. I knew running.

Now, starting again, these feelings of newness are back. I can no longer just “go out for a run” of indeterminate distance, feeling the ease of each step at my usual pace. Each step now is it’s own struggle as I build endurance. I must plan my runs, being careful not to overdo it, feeling my legs aching in surprise at what once felt easy as my lungs ache and struggle for every breath. I begin again, slowly, uncertain, and anxious about how this new but old venture will turn out.

I try to remind myself to be patient. I want to be good right now, again, just like I was before my injury. New beginnings take time, patience, and consistency, I remind myself. It is okay to not be the best, when you’re beginning, I say.

At some point, this beginning will come to an end, and I will be back to my usual running self. But the experience of the new is something I will come back to, over and over, remembering that everything has a beginning and ending, filled with excitement, anxiety, fear, loss, grief, and closure. Sometimes all at the same time.