If you run, you are a runner.
It doesn’t matter how far you run.
It doesn’t matter how fast you run.
It doesn’t matter what shoes you have.
It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.
If you run, you are a runner.
One thing they don’t tell you about running is how lonely it can be. We might all be in this together but the hours and effort we put in are mostly solo. You spend a majority of the time psyching yourself up just to get out the door and giving yourself silent pep talks. Even your biggest cheerleaders don’t see the actual time and effort you put in. No one sees the monotonous and unglamorous runs alone, the bad runs and the ones you barely finish. No one knows how many times you had to convince yourself to keep going, knowing no one besides you would even care if you quit. No one except you knows the feel of completing a race on your own terms and gloriously crossing the finish line with no one to greet you on the other side. They don’t see you sitting alone on a curb mentally high-fiving yourself after the race with a “Good job. You came far. You did this.” They don’t know how many times you overcame feeling disheartened and defeated and discovered gusto in places you didn’t know existed. So yeah, you accept that the journey is lonely at times, mostly lonely, but it’s your journey and yours alone. We might post the high points because they seem noteworthy but the real moments, those intimate moments when no one is watching, are the ones that create everything. No one will really know the depths that it took just to get where you did, especially when no one but you is cheering you on.
