Going Fast

I love to run.

It’s funny for me, as a multiply-disabled person to say this. Me, who couldn’t take more than a few hundred metres at a time in the first five years after my pregnancy (that relaxin’s a bitch when you have a connective tissue disorder), with pretty extreme hip and lower back pain.

But I still love to run.

I didn’t think I’d be able to connect with my first love of running again, now that I am “of a certain age” and my body is falling apart. Last year, I struggled to stand up from sitting on the floor. My body was in rough shape.

I searched tentatively for a physiotherapist, wary and full of dread. Luckily, I found a good one. We started slowly, and I began to trust her. We started working on the muscles in my feet, then the larger muscles in my legs. It took a lot of time, but I began to get stronger and more stable.

A few months into my physio journey, I tried running on a treadmill. My body could handle it, but of course my stamina was terrible. I worked to build my stamina– starting at one kilometer at a time, then two, then three. Then five.

I love going fast. Even though I’m still on a treadmill, and I’m not actually going anywhere, it feels great to go fast. I feel my legs move quickly underneath me as my whole body works in sync. I can feel the sweat prickle on my forehead and drip down the side of my face.

My body has adjusted to going faster and longer. If I don’t run for a few days, I get antsy and start prancing around, tapping my hands and feet on things and randomly start doing squats in the middle of teaching a lesson. (My students are used to my weird and random movements at strange times, often in the middle of direct instruction. My students accept me with my weirdnesses, and I think they’re a bit amused by it most of the time. They know that I’m a competent teacher, and that my competence is un-corelated to my spectrumy body movements.)

The gym has become a safe place for me, and I have built my routines that help me feel comfortable there. First I go to the locker and then I put my purse in. I take out my water bottle and my ear buds. Then, with phone, ear buds, and water bottle in hand, I lock up my locker and head upstairs. (Bathroom break first, usually!) Then head over to the treadmills. I do around 2 miles, then wander to the weight machines. Once I’m done poking around with the weights, I usually do another mile or so on the treadmill, for a total of 5k. I’ve done 5k in one go a few times– I stop the treadmill then restart it so that it’ll let me go longer than 30 mins. I figure it’s okay as long as there are other free treadmills. You gotta be a community player, but also I gotta do what I gotta do.

I’m signed up to run two 5k’s this spring. I’m excited to get outside and go fast– it’s been a long, slow winter. I might even go nuts and do a 10k even at some point.

I didn’t imagine my body would ever be able to do this. In the past, I’d always started training, and then get injured or burnt out, or deeply in pain. Then I’d stop, sinking back into my exhausted baseline.

So far so good this time around, which isn’t bad for a broad over 40. Right now I’m in a little bit of a “training slump” as they say. (Do they say that? I don’t know. I say that, so I guess that’s what matters.) I’ve been stressed out from life and stuff, and I’ve had to prioritize survival over gains. I’ll get back soon, though.

I’m gonna keep running.

I’m gonna keep going fast.