The Runner I Used To Be

Tuesday evenings at RunSomeMo — 2023 — training for the 2023 Shamrock Half Marathon. This is a time where I see my healthiest nature as a runner. We would get ready to start run club, and Mike and I would look around at who showed up. We would advertise a Run Together Run. We committed to run together — no matter the pace, we all matched it. Didn’t matter if that was a 12-minute mile. That was the pace. That was community.

I was running 40-50 miles a week back then. PR’d at Shamrock with a 1:33. But that’s not what made that season some of the best running I’ve ever done.

What made it was everything running held. During that time, running wasn’t one thing.

Yes, I had ambitious goals, and I committed myself and trained with those goals in mind. But, it was what happened beyond that, that ensured running never lost its joy. Running had the rhythm — the metaphorical pounding of the pavement that calibrated my neurodivergent brain. It settled me psychologically in an almost therapeutic state. It was time of solitude to think and process what was happening around me. Then, and probably most of all for my extroverted personality, it was community connection — the ability to be fully attentive in that space. I showed up ready to lead. I had cared for myself, and I came ready to encourage others.

Now, many of you know this journey takes a turn — and the details aren’t the point. What matters is what it feels like the injuries have taken from me.

They have taken my consistency: I struggle to run — sometimes I make strides and then fall right back into the same cycle — or get derailed by a minor tweak. The rhythm that once regulated me becomes guided by pain instead.

Then the solitude gets lost: It has become an inner anxiety instead of clarity. When the rhythm starts to go, the solitude goes with it. It becomes unenjoyable. And without both, I feel like I have lost a significant part of me.

Then there is the community: In all honesty, this has been the tried and true consistency in these last few years. It doesn’t matter if I am injured or running, the support is there. I’ve never fully thanked them for it. I’ve taken it for granted more than I want to admit.

I remember when running felt easier, I could give at run club — guide folks on the run and it felt like I was running with them. Now, I am typically the one that needs to receive — I need someone to run with me. I need the therapeutic walk (a time of solitude), or someone to push me to run and on a run.

Because I miss the runner I used to be. But not in the way you might think...

If I’m honest: I don’t want to chase my old times. I know any PR I achieve will feel incredible. That ambivalence is real. But when I sit with it, what I really miss most isn’t the pace or the mileage. Those are goals I can work back toward. What I miss are those things I labeled earlier — the rhythm, the solitude, and my presence in the community. A presence — not a performance. And without all that running held, I feel like I am trying to perform the runner I used to be without the presence of mind to actually be there.

What keeps me showing up anyway is the community.

When those miles fail you, community carries you. It has become a steadfast thing. Sure, it can feel like always being the one on the injured reserve, always making excuses. But real community doesn’t keep score. It carries you — supports you.

It is grace with running shoes on.

I have never stopped belonging in the running community. And I want to get back to the runner I used to be — not to the pace or the finishing time, but to everything running held. The rhythm. The solitude. The presence.

Embodied community is meant to be the thing that holds you. It doesn’t measure you against who you used to be. It meets you where you are and helps you move toward who you can become.

Community is the thing that holds you when you can’t hold yourself.

If you’re in this gap right now — feeling like the journey back to yourself is long — maybe the question isn’t how to find the runner you used to be. Maybe the better question is: who is still showing up for you? Because you don’t need to have it figured out to show up. Sometimes showing up is the only thing, and community makes that possible.