We host today’s sharing of the experience sent to us by one of our readers (who asked to remain anonymous). Beautiful because it tells another aspect of how running is beneficial not only to the body but also, and more importantly, to the mind.
If you would also like to share your experience, please write to us at info@runlovers.it
“If my personal experience can be useful to someone, it almost becomes a duty to share it,” Sandro wrote in his post, and it set me off. Even I – who have always been reserved and never entrust social media with my life – felt called upon and here I am, in front of the computer, writing to you; sharing my experience. Hoping to be helpful to someone.
After the various lock downs, covids, and the way they revolutionized our lives, I was at a point where I was stuck, where everything seemed to be going wrong. In fact, to be honest, it was really a point in my life when I experienced on my own skin the saying “luck is blind but d*ck can see very well.” I don’t want to bore you with what happened to me, but in a nutshell, when your parents have health problems, you lose your job due to staff downsizing, and even a relationship (which started recently, thankfully) ends, you don’t know which way to turn to start over.
These are moments in life, I know, they happen and they have happened to anyone before-though I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. I don’t think it’s a pathology, it’s life; and that’s how I’m dealing with it: trying to get back on my feet and fix one thing at a time, following needs and priorities. What else can I do, after all? Nothing, just this, trying to move forward with my head down, picking up – rebuilding, it would be better to say – my life piece by piece.
I’m lucky, I have a lot of things that go well and satisfy me but, I don’t think it only happens to me, I mostly see what goes wrong. Like when you hurt your hand and then you inadvertently bang it all over the place, as if to remind you that you hurt; that it’s there and the pain won’t go away.
The heaviness of life
Just in those moments you feel heavy, almost oppressed, as if life is hugging you from behind but squeezing too tightly until it holds you down and almost takes your breath away: the weight of life.
I always claim and feel very much my own the concepts of independence, self-sufficiency, self-determination: I always try to solve my own problems-even small repairs around the house. That’s why I’ve looked for so many ways to get this oppressive weight off my shoulders. Regaining lightness. I don’t think it is a “pathological” situation or some syndrome. It is simply just a moment of conjuncture that I have to somehow get through.
I confess: I have been looking for many ways to regain lightness, that of the heart which then becomes physical as well. I tried yoga, meditation, breathing (sorry, Sandro, but that didn’t work for me) and nothing: the weight remained.
Until – meditating, so maybe it helped a little bit – I visualized this feeling as a “toxin” that was contaminating my body and so I had to find a way to expel it. Throw out the heaviness to regain some serenity, some lightness, just enough to have moments of “break” from oppression.
From here to starting to run the step was very short.
It was last May, and little by little-along with the sweat-as I ran, the heaviness went away. From my very first outings (to call them “workouts” would be presumptuous), I ran and felt free, light. Tired but myself again.
Lightweight.
My cyclical period is not yet over, but the worst times seem to be over. Thanks to me and thanks to running, dog days are over.
Running is not the solution but it helps to find one.
And this year I too will be in Milan running my first race, the Deejay Ten. And I look forward to immersing myself, too, in that tide of people who, until recently, I considered “nuts in shorts” but now see only as many people who, like me, are looking for something and running to find it first.
The Deejay Ten is our heart race, the moment when we met and combined all our reasons for running. New Balance has made a version of its Fresh Foam X 880 v12 (here in the women’s version) specifically for this race-a shoe that contains all the enthusiasm and positive vibes that the Deejay Ten contains.