Wednesday, April 8, 2020 // The Statement
6B
I
don’t remember when I fell
in love with running. I cannot
remember my first run or my
first pair of running sneakers. Early
on, I recall equating running to a
mundanity, something I did to stay in
shape and keep active as an incredibly
uncoordinated individual who failed
when it came to team sports. As a child,
I hadn’t discovered the runner’s high
or that sweaty addiction. But between
cross country camps and routing solo
long distance Sunday mornings, running
turned into a part of my daily life — a part
of who I am. I went from being a person
who ran, to a runner. I never had the
grace or the long legs or the innate talent
as an athlete, but I had the drive. As I
recognized the onset of anxiety in my
early teenage years, I found that running
quelled my anxiety the way nothing else
seemed to.
Though I don’t remember the impetus
to begin, I do remember my mother
dropping me off to middle school cross
country practice in 2008, me with
unlaced mud-caked sneakers holding
a water bottle, wet with condensation.
I remember my first five mile race,
11 years old, looping the roads of my
hometown, the longest I felt I’d run in
my life. I remember the near unending,
heat soaked runs I took in St. Louis two
summers ago, the 100 degree sun tanning
my sunscreened shoulders as my legs
willed another five, six, seven miles. I
remember the first time I ran 15 miles,
with my brother trailing me in a beach
cruiser bike, down a New Jersey beach
adjacent sidewalk in August. I remember
rounding the final corner of the Detroit
Marathon, a finish line of red and blue
balloons swaying against a freezing, navy
October Michigan sky.
I remember falling deeper down the
rabbithole of near dependency on such
meditative movement, when I moved
to Michigan as a college freshman and
strained to hang on to some part of home
within my new routine. Somewhere in
the midst of paper bibs pinned to pink
athletic shirts, roads and miles and paths
and ankle injuries and Gatorade bottles
and pairs of sneakers, I fell in love. I
became addicted to the golden flush
behind my cheeks as I finished a blissful
jog, runner’s high radiating through me.
I’m addicted to the sweat, the thrill, the
motion. I’ll never stop.
R
unning has always been a
solace, a safe space where I
can sort out my thoughts, an
invisible place that helps me find answers
to complex questions and scenarios that
seem murky or impossible to untangle.
Running has steadied my breath when I
feel like I can’t inhale; it puts unsettling
emotions
at
ease
and
consistently
reminds me to remain grounded in times
of tribulation. It’s been a form of moving
therapy since I can remember, a method of
calming panic when I’m anxious. There’s
something about the repetition, resolve
and regularity that has rendered running
a constant in my life — an activity to fall
back on in times of uncertainty.
It is through running, specifically after
completing the 2018 Detroit Marathon,
that I’ve learned to have an unabashed
appreciation for my body, in the short,
muscular legs I’ve always detested.
They’ve carried me, according to the
Nike+ running application I sometimes
use to track my outdoor running distance,
935 miles in the last year. Anytime I feel
stressed about schoolwork or my future
or a relationship, I lace up my sneakers
and I take to the road.
With wind in my face and concrete
under my feet, I have the ability to choose
— to turn left or right, to stop and look out
at a body of water, to focus on everything
or nothing, to slow down and to speed
up. If I slink out of my childhood home
before 8 a.m., as my parents and brothers
sleep, the roads are quiet, devoid of car
engines, and the air smells of salt water.
If I wait until after 4 p.m. to chase
golden hour, the neighborhood smells
of dinnertime and the inaugural use of
barbecue grills. As I traverse familiar
streets and head toward the beach, I pass
handfuls of other runners and podcast
walkers, people with this mutual
affinity for the road, and we smile at
one another, lifting a sweat-slicked hand
in acknowledgement. We connect in the
way you can with strangers handling a
circumstance the same way.
I
t’s no surprise then, with the
onset of pandemic COVID-19 and
physical isolation, I found myself
looking forward to and welcoming
consistent outdoors runs. When the
University
of
Michigan
closed
the
Central Campus Recreation Building
and the Intramural Sports Building
after canceling in-person classes and
transitioning online for precautionary
measures, I was forced from my winter
treadmill routine to the streets of Ann
Arbor. With the spring weather just
starting to show, I had no complaints. On
rainy or colder days, with nothing else to
do, I waited for the best moment — when
the sun peeked out or the sky temporarily
dried up — to leave the house with no
determined path or plan except to run
until I couldn’t anymore.
Many students, trapped in the house
with roommates or family, feel the same
tug to running outdoors.
Lana
Wolf,
a
junior
at
Cornell
University and a New Jersey native, has
picked up running as a part of her daily
routine since COVID-19 dispeled her
from her college campus. Never a regular
runner in the past, Wolf is now running
near every day and said, “There’s
something special about running right
now and being in nature exercising …
seeing families playing in their yard and
other people out exercising — I just feel
like I’m part of a community.”
I feel similarly in the undefinable
comfort of distant connection, especially
in a time where I go hours and even
days only meeting the eyes of my
immediate family members. Even when
the infrastructure of our country shakes
and crumbles, our overarching sense
of community remains firm — we’re
all navigating a disconcerting time in
our nation’s history, we all need ways
to cope. Being quarantined with my
15-year-old cousin, a runner herself,
has had a tremendous influence on our
relationship. At least three times a week,
we run side by side, talking each other
through our current circumstances.
The ungovernable and unmanageable
emotional toll that COVID-19 has taken
on so many of us leaves us craving some
way to have a semblance of routine or
sovereignty over our lives.
Olivia Kem, a senior at Santa Clara
University and Phoenix, AZ native, was
a semi-regular runner before quarantine
and has found herself much more drawn
to the activity with the dawn of social
distancing. She has upped both the
mileage and frequency of her running
since the pandemic altered daily life.
“I realized that a huge reason I enjoy
running is because it gives me something
that I can control and improve on. I can
push myself to go a little farther or a little
faster everyday and this is something
no one can take away from me,” she
said, “This is especially important now
when it feels like everything in my life is
controlled by COVID-19. I did not realize
until now how much I value this control.
Running has also given me the motivation
to get out of bed early in the morning to
beat the Phoenix heat, which has also
helped me stay sane by providing me
with a sense of purpose each morning.”
Since I moved back home to quarantine
nearly three weeks ago, I’ve noticed a
large increase in the amount of runners
in my neighborhood. Running has gone
from a pastime some people in my town
enjoyed, to a hobby dozens of people
have picked up. Workout studios and
gyms have temporarily closed, leaving
people without a way to release stress
through exercise. Largely in part due to
my own infatuation with running, and
my giddy desire that everyone find the
same solace I feel when running, I am
ecstatic to see people eagerly jumping on
the runner train, and their newfound —
or reinvigorated — love for running.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Running through quarantine
BY ELI RALLO, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SCHOTT