Temporary.

Just over here filling cups.

For better or worse, the past decade plus of my life has been measure in racing seasons.

2024 was the first year since I ran my first race in 2011 that I haven’t gotten to a start line, let alone a finish line. Even within eight stress fractures, a months long stint in an eating disorder treatment facility, and a global pandemic in these past fourteen years, I ran at least one race every year.

I had something measurable to reflect upon at year-end, to mark a tangible point of progress. I had race photos to share via social media (“look at this hard thing I did!”), congratulations coming in from internet strangers, another ranking on Ultrasignup.¹

And I had a sense of accomplishment.

Instead this past year, I’ve been puttering around, snapping photos of sunrises and sunsets, walking more miles than I ever have in a year, questioning if my body had finally crapped out on me permanently, and feeling very, very stagnant. The high-achiever in me hasn’t been too happy with this state of being.

I’m grateful that I’m in a better place than I was a few months ago with the pain, though honestly I’m not sure if it’s because the pain has improved or I’ve just gotten used to it.² I’m grateful that I’ve been able to return to running, though it’s been a series of starts and stops and old things flaring up and frustration and questioning why the hell I’m doing all of this. But even in the worst of pain flares, I remind myself that it’s subsided before, and will subside again.

Temporary.

And that’s what I’ve been telling myself when I mull over how unproductive I’ve felt these past 6 months, when I feel so very stagnant like I’m not doing anything of meaning: it’s temporary.

It’s a time in which I’ve withdrawn inwards. I’ve even struggled to write and sharing my writing, which is a new one for me. I’ve spent so much of my life sharing every feeling and life up and down with anyone who will listen, so it’s left me a bit untethered to feel like there is nothing I want to say. I suppose I could say I’m “wintering,” I guess. Or “cocooning.” I’ve been told those are the fancy words for “I feel like I am doing nothing and it’s greatly unnerving me.”

But instead of fighting it, I’m reminding myself that this is a phase in life: maybe it’s a necessary one, maybe it’s not.

Maybe it’s temporary.

It is temporary, I have to believe.

I don’t have enough faith in my body right now to fully trust that I will be able to go back to measuring my years in race bibs and mountain adventures. I’m hopeful, but the longer this all lingers, the more it seems like something I’m going to have to manage for the long term, not recover from.

The task is, instead, to find another way of achieving that sense of accomplishment that is not connecting to crossing a finish line. I hate that I’ve struggled to find something else to fill the void. I hate how I feel like I show up as a better person in all aspects of life when I’m able to run. I hate how I judge myself, that I haven’t tried hard enough to find something else. That I can’t let go.

So what I’m coming to accept is that, most likely, nothing is ever going to be able to replace the feeling and fulfillment I get from running and racing: the cup that running filled cannot be replaced by something else. So the goal is not to fill the emptiness left by running, the goal is to find new and different cups to fill.

Perhaps what I need to learn is that what is temporary is my death grip on running being the main source of joy and purpose in my life. What is temporary is the grief that comes with the potential complete loss of a sport, and the very certain inevitable shifting of relationship with it. Like all grief, it will never entirely disappear, but the edges will soften with time.

I’ve made a conscientious effort to find non-athletic pursuits these past few months and I can slowly see them starting to take hold. They won’t replace running, no, and they won’t fill the void: thinking that something else could do that was my first mistake. However, what they can do is compliment my life: not replacing, just adding, diversifying.

I mentioned I’ve struggled to write in my usual first person blog format these past few months. I haven’t struggled with writing though - I’ve just found a new medium that has captured me, in the form of writing poetry. Poetry isn’t a form that comes naturally to me, but it does give me more creative license to write about issues and themes that I usually shy away from in this space, especially around my eating disorder experience. I’ve always been pretty careful in what I write about my eating disorder and recovery out of respect of not triggering people, but poetry has given me a form to write the grittier, darker side. Maybe I’ll share it on here someday, but for now they will be performed in the dark rooms of late night poetry open mics with a colorful cast of characters.

Poetry won’t replace running. Nor will the singing I’m dusting off after twenty years (yikes, no one told me the voice is “use it or lose it”…), or any other physical endeavor I’ll pick up along the way. But the more filled cups I have, the less an empty one might sting.

I will be the first to admit there is a cognitive dissonance of grieving a sport while simultaneously engaging in it and holding out hope that it will return to me. It’s a feeling akin to when I grieved the loss of having children when technically it’s still an option for me. I’m simultaneously white-knuckling and holding on for dear life while starting to let go, and it’s definitely fucking with my brain.

Maybe this rough patch in my relationship with running is temporary, and it’ll come back to me in a way that I find fulfilling and meaningful.

Or maybe this grief associated with it is temporary and I’ll settle into “life on the other side” of competitive athletics.

Either way, something will change.

1. And clearly we all know this is not what matters but hot damn if it isn’t what social media led us to distill our lives down to in this past decade.

2. While I never received a firm diagnosis, it seems like that root of all my hip/low back/sciatic nerve issues the past six months are rooted in SI joint arthritis. While autoimmune testing couldn’t rule out ankylosing spondylitis, for now it’s a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in the left SI joint. Now is this actually the problem or just natural aging that you see in the joints? Zero idea, though PT and manual therapy to address that left SI joint have been helping. Now I’m back to dealing with “old familiar” niggles and issues with my other hip, which is annoying and frustrating, but at least the devil that I know.