We continue with the project – in collaboration with ASICS, technical sponsor of the Milano Marathon – to tell how running helps us improve; not only physically but also mentally.
Today we host the story that Paola sent us.
Ready? Go!
It was that year. 2016. I met you in spring, one night, among glasses, bars, tears and neon lights. The hair is natural, such as it is, an unruly mass of waves and curls, mostly waves, as I tell you about my life.
You listen attentively and seem to like me already, despite that hair and sad topics. I have been vegan and running for a few years now.
Henry is about to die in the hospital, but it will happen in June. In that spring I trusted, I fell in love, I went to London for the first time. I didn’t run in London, but when I was home I did, all the time. Recently separated, I was penniless and carved out spaces to train between jobs.
Mostly I remember the mornings, getting up at 4 a.m. not even that difficult, since I hardly slept, and the icy village streets, the darkness, the dressing, the music blasting in my earphones: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Ramones, Persiana Jones.
Yes, Persian Jones.
Their song in the playlist is “the moment to react,” I can relate to it. A group I know only by name, they make me remember Henry as a teenager in the 1990s. I was a teenager myself during those years, and it was a strange, difficult time with him, of quarrels and closures, we who had always been so close growing up. As soon as I enter the darkness a kind of terror mixed with resignation grips me and cuts off my breath. I realize I am alone and the music isolates me even more, it covers the sound of footsteps, of feet landing, I sense the body slowly waking up and coming out of numbness.
I quickly travel the first section so as not to find the level crossing closed. The street where I am running is the same Via Giotto where I was born and raised, and I have been back there for a few months, in the small house where my grandmother lived. I am standing on the sidewalk of San Gaetano, the same sidewalk where I rode my bicycle many times when I was 8, 12, 15 years old. Purple shorts. Fuchsia canvas shoes. Long hair that the wind caresses and blows, like a flag.
I dart toward the square, and as I cross the tracks, I feel out of enemy territory, out of people’s judgment and closure, and out of a few bullies stalking me. Maybe I’ll go to the library.
Instead, I am running my third kilometer and want to complete at least five kilometers. During those intense months, under a thick layer of pain, an idea, a new challenge, germinates. I have already run a few half-marathons, but the dream is her, the Queen.
One livid afternoon I emerge from the apathy that often grips me when I find myself in the small house, alone, sitting at that exaggeratedly large table relative to the room, designed specifically for family gatherings. I look for the Venice Marathon website and step by step, I sign up. The date is in late October. It is a great little joy that I almost feel I deserve, a temporary shelter from the perfect storm that is brewing everywhere, in all areas of my existence. Then, it’s like a movie. Some days are endless, everything bad that can happen to you happens, until it crushes you.
But slowly love finds the right path, and even though your feet ache, you keep making your way through the rocks, the thorns, the devastation. Running helps me out of pain, never promising anything it cannot deliver.
These are daily achievements, it is the wind that dries the tears, the unexpected smile of those who see in you a winner, just because you are running between the life that goes on, despite the betrayals, the wounds, the doors closed in your face, despite what you have been forced to learn about illness and death, despite the chasm inside you. It is a reconstruction.
So you find yourself in the fall, running the last long run before the race, still broken, but holding on. On the big day you are nervous, scared, lonely and tired. You pin on your T-shirt the heart-shaped photo with Henry happy in nature, in the water. It is cold. You are in the last tier, the “slow” tier, and you feel invisible. The national anthem begins and you get excited, even more so. It gives you the strength, the spark to go.
You’re just starting out, trying to dose your energy, but you’re running too fast. So you miss the start. A classic.
You watch the other runners, almost no one is alone like you are, they are in a group, giving each other advice and courage, some laughing, you envy them a little.
Along the route, someone cheers the names they read on the bibs, and I hear mine a few times. They are strangers, unaware that they provide me with excellent and essential fuel. I thank them again, with all my heart. On the Liberty Bridge, the wall of 30 stands out in front of me.
I am about to collapse, I allow myself to whine and walk a little, I have excruciating pains in my feet and hips, I think I will not make it, I will never make it. No one is looking out for me. I shake it off, mentally slap myself and, roaring, start running again; I’m still in the race. And in regulation time. Speed be damned. There are 14 bridges to cross.
The arrival at St. Mark’s Square is a most potent tonic, more than any energy drink, everything opens up and is immense, I smile, impossible not to be penetrated and dazzled by the Great Beauty that surrounds me, I regain an almost elegant running style. I will only find out when the race is over, when I see myself again in the short video you shot as I passed right there in St. Mark’s, where you were waiting for me, you lacked the voice to call me, and I didn’t catch a glimpse of you among the people, caught up in mystical ecstasy. That’s a lot, 42 km, but you’re there, Paoletti. Below the finish line, I raise a hand and point to the sky, Enri-I say through tears of joy-we did it.
ASICS really means Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, indicating how much mind and body are connected and how much the brand makes this its banner. The complete vision of man composed of “soul” and “body” are also the fruit of the latest ASICS “Uplift your mind” campaign, related to mental well-being achieved through running.
Editor’s note: The photo of the person on the cover is not related to the author of the post