I am sweaty, itchy, and covered in spider webs. I’m dying for a shower, but I know if I get in now I’ll still be sweating when I get out. No good. I fill a glass from the fridge. Tuck into a half-eaten muffin that had been left on the kitchen bench. I haven’t run in months - a hiatus fuelled by necessity as much as a lot of good excuses and the seductive allure of staying in bed. It’s so fun not running, that I find it’s easy to forget the way running fundamentally changes who I am.
I’m still unfamiliar with this version of myself: the kind of person who runs—a person who willingly subjects themselves to the pain and agonising repetition of the trail. I’ve committed enough time to the effort to nearly consider myself a “runner”, but it still feels like a shirt that doesn’t fit - leaving me exposed and uncomfortable. I would hate for someone to conflate the label of “runner” with any kind of fitness or athleticism. I certainly can’t consider myself serious. I listen to enough podcasts with ultrarunners to know that I don’t have whatever that is. And here already, this close to the surface, we’ve come close to the rub of it - that cringey, competitive streak that pokes its head up from the depths of middle school.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Outsider to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.