View Workout (Hannah Avidon )
A Year's Worth of Thoughts
April 1, 2020 (Morning)
Exercise Type: Run
Comments:
Hello hoppers! For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm Hannah and I graduated last year. Boy has it been a long time since I've written one of these. It's currently 2:30am and my body seems to have decided this is the exact time it will start feeling especially anxious and and lonely and sad about the state of our world right now. So as I was sitting on my floor, staring off into space, and wondering what could possibly make me feel better right now, my mind, as it often still does when I need something comforting, turned to running-log.
Typing a post here makes me nostalgic and also feels really lovely in this moment. For the last four years, logging, like running, was an almost daily occurrence for me, but in the last seven months, I don't think I've run more than five times. I totally never imagined this being the case. I never used to understand when seniors who'd been very involved in the team would graduate and completely stop logging. It made me sad (and a little bit resentful if I'm being honest) that they just disappeared from the team. I swore to myself I wasn't going to do that. But then I got to college and everything was new and disorienting, and the stability of this daily event of logging didn't really fit into my life anymore. Countless times this year I've thought of the team and wanted to craft the perfect post explaining my new relationship (or lack thereof) to running, but I was scared I couldn't get it right or to feel guilty for not running or who knows what else. I never did it obviously. But now, in such an incredibly disorienting time, I think this daily stability is just what I need.
Since coming home, I've felt incredibly stuck between my two athletic worlds: GDS running and MHC frisbee. While this team is irreplaceable in my heart, I've really grown to love this new sport this year which is so very different in so many ways from running, but has the same values of support for teammates and trust in the athletes as running. I've felt like such a part of both of these teams, but at home now, I have neither one and it means I don't know who I am as an athlete right now. I'm still learning Ultimate, I can't really claim that sport as mine yet, but I also have barely run since August (the longest since 6th grade). At what point am I no longer a runner? So I'm writing this to hold myself accountable to running tomorrow just for 10 minutes. That's nothing and I want it to seem like nothing because I want to do it and finish it feeling happy, not upset that I did it. I've made excuses for too long. I've been scared of doing those awful first 3 weeks where everything about running sucks all alone for far too long. But what better time to get over fear and get back out than a pandemic!? Isn't that just kind of what living is these days?
So in conclusion to this rambling essay that I've mostly written for myself, let me share some super intellectual collegiate wisdom (lol, I wish) with you all that really, I'm just trying to get myself to believe. Some of you will graduate and go on to run in college and continue to love it as much as you do now. And that's great. Some of you might decide this is enough of team running for you and just run occasionally for fun throughout your life. And that's great. Some of you might decide not to even stay on this team until graduation. And that's also great (though tbh, this is the most amazing team and you should really consider sticking with it because it's the best thing I've ever been a part of in my life). But some, and I would guess many of you, will go through a point in your life, whether that's months or years or decades where running isn't as much of a part of your life as it is in this moment and then at some point, space will open where you want it to be a part of your days again. And, as I keep telling myself, that's definitely okay. In some of my hardest moments this year which were completely unrelated to running, I've frequently looked back to my time on this team for comfort or knowledge or happiness. I'm lucky enough to know that this team is always there for me. And whether my ten minute run tomorrow is what gets me back into it or whether it's not a big part of my life for many more years, I know, when I'm ready, running will be there for me too.