7.22 miles

Running is the action of putting one foot in front of the other. On trails. On roads. On a track. For miles and miles. Earbuds in, sweat dripping, heavy breathing. For non-runners, this sounds absolutely ridiculous.

That's what I used to think too.

In the seventh grade, a somewhat friend of mine told me I should do the cross country team. I didn't even know what cross country was. All I knew was that I was overweight, not athletic, and definitely not a runner. I said no.

Two weeks later, I ended up at a practice.

I didn't run. I was not a runner. I didn't know why I stayed past the first couple of days.

One day, I beat that somewhat friend of mine the last hundred meters of a race. As I look back, I realize that she wasn't the greatest runner out there, but to me, on that day, I thought I was a Nike championship runner. Maybe it's because it was the last hundred meters, and I propelled myself forward, and I realized that day that there was room for improvement. That I could be a runner if I wanted to.

I trained with high schoolers over that summer but threw away my eighth-grade season to pessimism and the belief that I would always be nothing more than an overweight kid trying to be a runner. Because I would never be a runner.

I stayed with running, but underneath the belief that I was trying, was the underlying belief that I wouldn't get better, that I was stuck being this bottom of the food-chain, overweight, wannabe, runner. I watched my running buddy go through depression and become a top fourteen runner. And there I was, watching from the sidelines even though I was on the field.

Any runner will tell you that the majority of the game is mental. That you have to believe in yourself, otherwise you won't improve because you will always think that you can't. You have to stop thinking you can't, and start thinking you can. It's crazy to me that I am now spitting out those exact words to the younger people on my team.

There is truly a moment when it all clicks.

My junior year I took a turn on the emotional roller coaster. I broke down in the middle of a cross country race five days after my childhood best friend broke up with me. I didn't see the point in running. I wasn't getting any better. I didn't see the point in living, even though I knew I still had to get up in the morning. I stopped running.

My senior year, I came back with a vengeance. Maybe it was because I thought I wouldn't have the opportunity to run anymore, or that I realized I needed to fight for things to change. My best friend joined as a senior too, and I'm grateful that she ran alongside me rather than sprinting ahead and pushed me to keep running when I wanted to stop. 

I used to watch my friends as they'd speed away from me on runs, and I'd just stop then and there. I didn't think I'd ever be able to run with my skinny best friend and my running buddy turned team leader. 

But I run with them now. 

7.22 miles in 66 minutes on our long run.

I didn't ever think I'd run with them.

I'm a runner.

I'm still at the bottom of the splits list. And that's okay. It's okay to not be the best, to not even be close to being the best. As long as you're improving, as long as you're trying, then it doesn't really matter. 

Running is about setting goals. It’s about saying ‘I want to do this’ to something you think is impossible, and then working towards it every day until you wonder why you thought it was impossible in the first place. It’s about pushing to do the last set even when you can’t breathe. It’s about knowing that the pain you feel is temporary. It’s knowing that you are capable of anything you set your mind to, as long as you keep pushing forward. 

And life is like running a race. You hit a wall at some point, even though you’re on the verge of succeeding. Even though once you get to that finish line, the feeling of knowing you succeeded will outweigh the pain in your head and heart and legs. And even if you don’t reach your goal, knowing that you tried should be enough. That you tried instead of giving up before you started. 

By my senior year, I was running 26s instead of 31s. I didn't lose 40 pounds and qualify as part of the state team. I didn't go from 31s to 19s. I didn't find a version of myself that beat all the standards. What I did do was find something to put my life into, something that gave me a reason to want to go to school and push myself to my limits. I found a way to channel all the anger, towards my parents, my friends, and myself into the pavement. My body is my body, and it's flawed. But I do know that my body and mind can take me on 7.22 mile runs with my best friends, and they propel me forward in life and on the track.

- Stephanie Tan