After Years of Trauma, Running Is My Home. Here's What I'm Doing to Make It Safer.
For many people, running offers healing. But for too many of us, running doesn't feel safe. It is important that as a community, we recognize this problem, and take steps to protect one another, and the space that we share.
Much of my early life was spent attempting to hide. I tirelessly and unsuccessfully tried to assimilate into the white family that adopted me and the rural midwestern community I was raised in, and found myself desperately seeking an escape from deeply repressed childhood trauma. Running found me at a time when—unbeknownst to myself—I was embarking on a journey of healing that would get much worse before it got better.
At 13, running presented itself as a pain I could control. Unlike what I’d experienced up to that point, I got to decide the terms, and I pushed myself hard. For a couple of years, I searched for the edge of what my body could tolerate. Eventually, I found it. I ran every day multiple times a day until I couldn’t. I made myself sick once before each meal and at least twice after. During runs, I would crouch in ditches on the side of the road to make myself sick, and then I would force myself to run harder and longer.
Two years later, my body broke. With bilateral tibial stress fractures, I was no longer allowed to train with my track team, and so I trained alone. The volume and intensity were no longer possible, but I continued to try to drag my broken body through whatever painful miles I could.
In my first year of college, I was hospitalized for severe hypokalemia, a condition characterized by low levels of blood potassium. After passing out in the parking lot of my dorm, I found myself in a hospital bed. But in that moment, all I could think about was how I needed to get out and run.
At 27, I found myself in a mental health treatment center after months of hurting myself, hurting others, and feeling despair at the fact that I woke up each day. All I could think about was how tired I was of running, both physically and mentally.
Over the years I used running as a means to do harm; I treated my body like others in my past had treated it, with blatant disregard and cruel disrespect. I had betrayed my own body. I kept trying to take from it, and it had nothing left to give. It had healed itself over and over again despite what I put it through, and I knew it could not withstand any more. I stopped running and allowed myself to begin to heal.
Today, I am 34 years old. I work hard every day to heal myself, with the support of my partner, my friends, and my therapist. I am grateful for what my body allows me to do and where it takes me. I am learning when to give myself space from running, when to seek it out, and how to grow with success and learn from failure. I am working to better understand and navigate the lasting effects of trauma. It is nowhere near perfect, though I have found a flow.
In recent years, I have found my home on the trails. In my first few steps off the pavement, I was enthralled with my new surroundings and the new limits yet to be tested. I progressed eagerly from 50K trail races in the Midwest, to a 200-mile race circumnavigating Lake Tahoe, to winter ultramarathons including the Tuscobia 160 and Arrowhead 135. In September 2019, I set the first female supported fastest known time (FKT) on the 310-mile Superior Hiking Trail.
Every experience on the trails is new and profound. Facing longer distances and more challenging conditions and terrain,I became addicted to the excruciating simplicity of going deep within myself just to take a single step forward, to travel one step further than I had before.
In this time, I’ve learned two things: For me, running is healing. And for me, running does not feel safe. Most of my life, I experienced deep shame around my black hair, brown skin, and almond-shaped eyes. These characteristics, combined with being a woman, have subjected me to countless instances of sexual harassment, intimidation, and acts of racism. I have been followed, shouted at, threatened, and mocked. Every instance was followed by shame, humiliation, and fear. I used to believe that this was my problem to deal with and to solve. If I wanted to be left alone on a run, I should wear looser clothes, longer shorts, tuck my hair up into a hat, and run in certain places, during certain times. I now recognize that, due to its systemic and persistent roots, this is a problem that requires collective responsibility and ownership.
There is a preference by many to keep issues like racism and sexual harassment separate from running: “just run,” they say. In a society that has accepted racist microaggressions as harmless joking, and normalized sexual violence as something that is blamed on the victim, “just running” is no longer an option. These conversations need to happen, in every space.
In running, there is the physical space, and there is the nonphysical space, where social connection, healing, and personal growth are fostered. That space needs to be inclusive and it needs to feel safe for everyone. I became a member of the Board of Directors for the Superior Hiking Trail Association (SHTA) because the Trail is a space that I often seek out for healing. I want to represent a diverse perspective and encourage an expansion in the ways we think about protecting the trail. I am committed to working together with the board, staff, and community to develop a deeper understanding of who is, and more importantly, who isn't on the trail. We have an important responsibility to understand how current systems and structures are potentially preventing access to this amazing resource. The SHTA staff and board of directors are a driven, passionate team that I am proud to grow with and be part of.
For those who run without the burden and fear of sexual harassment, please take time to hear the experiences of others, understand your privilege, and take responsibility to act. Sexual harassment is not a women’s issue, it is a human rights issue. Just like we must commit to anti-racism to dismantle racist systems, we must similarly commit to anti-harassment to dismantle the societal systems and persistent norms that uphold sexism and harassment. We all have a role to play.
For those who run with the burden and fear of sexual harassment, continue to show up and build one another up in order to promote an environment where we all feel safe. Lean on one another and share our stories. Our power is in our voice.
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