I didn't realize how important running was to me until I couldn't anymore.

Today I have been injured for 18 months with shinsplints and knee problems...but I am on my way to a full recovery. 

I never realized how important running was to me until I couldn't anymore. I find that in my life, I have only been grateful for experiences when they are over. I regret not being in the moment and enjoying my life, I regret always looking ahead and doing things in the hope that they will bring me to a better place, instead of valuing the life that I have right now. Running is a gift, and I didn't fully realize it until I became chronically injured. It is a gift that lets you realize you are alive, and although you are struggling, you can conquer your battles. Running is a metaphor for life, because every day you run, you struggle, and through the struggle you become stronger. Sometimes you don't win the battle though, and that's okay. You just have to try again tomorrow.

One might ask how I got chronically injured. Truly, it began in soccer. Lots of soccer players become runners as soccer requires lots of running. In the fall season of seventh grade, I couldn't do soccer, so I joined the cross country team as a way of conditioning for the next soccer season. During that time I developed anorexia. I wasn't serious about running but I am a hard worker, and made the varsity team. Over the course of the season, however, I became weaker and lost muscle mass due to my eating disorder. I dropped off of varsity because I had mininal energy and my times suffered...

When fall turned to winter I developed binge eating disorder, basically the opposite of anorexia. I was eating as much as I could and I hated myself for it. I never had been a person with healthy self esteem and my confidence dropped, my friendships suffered and I became awkward because I was always self-conscious. I thought I was super fat and avoided mirrors so I wouldn't have to look at myself, while other girls would always look at their reflections. I wasn't fat though...I never became overweight, even though I almost doubled my weight from when I was anorexic, because when I was anorexic I weighed so little. I have never been overweight, only underweight, but I still hated myself...

The spring season of seventh grade, I still was not recovered from any of my eating disorders (I never got help because of how I was raised, even though my family cares deeply for me). I still participated in track and field that season, and did sprint events because I was ashamed and afraid to be slow, due to gaining lots of weight. My sprint times slowed throughout the season because I kept gaining weight.

The summer after seventh grade consisted of me trying to lose weight, and running so that I could get ready for cross country in the fall. I felt obligated to do cross country, but I don't know why...it wasn't to lose weight. I wanted to run. Even though I tried to lose weight I still engaged in unhealthy eating habits from binge eating disorder, and wasn't successful. I felt fat and uncomfortable in my thick skin, but somehow I improved my times even more from seventh grade. In eighth grade, I stayed on varsity the whole cross country season, and was the fourth fastest girl on my team. Even though I wasn't skinny anymore and hated my body, I found a certain type of confidence in myself. I was expecting to be slow because of the weight I gained, but I came to the new season stronger and faster. (Note: I did weigh quite a bit though, fast runners are typically pretty skinny and I was on the high end of a 'healthy' weight) I came out of the season satisfied with the work I had done, and proud of myself. Most importantly, my focus on running had drivem away my focus on my weight, and I was no longer plagued with eating disorders.

Once cross country season ended, my dad convinced me to join an indoor track team. The team was advertised to be for "fast runners only" and I was afraid to join, because I still wasn't very confident, but I joined anyway. 

Joining the team turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. Yes, almost all of them were faster than me (three of them are nationally ranked distance runners and are my age), but they really embrace the team culture. Everyone was so motivated, dedicated, and hard working...everyone who was on the team was at practice because they wanted to be there, not because their parents made them. I have never been on a team that was this motivated. The workouts were crazy hard (our coach ran track for West Point so go figure), and I became even faster than I was before. I joined a second track team which was only for high schoolers (remember I was in eighth grade at the time, and most of them were upperclassmen) and I became fast enough to run in the middle of the group. But that was when I got injured. I had blood blisters on my feet from running, and then I developed shin splints. This was in February of the indoor track season. 
I made one of the worst decisions ever...and I ran through my injuries for five months on track teams for my school and for the other team. My injuries got worse. Finally I decided to stop running and recover in July, so that I would be healed for when cross country season started in my freshman year of highschool. 

In my freshman year, I did not heal. I went to physical therapy but stopped when I decided to do swim season because I was not recovered enough to do cross country. 

Swimming was a challenge for me, because when I was younger my parents forced me and my brother to take swim lessons and we hated it, and I wasn't very good at swimming...but the hardest thing for me was wearing a swim suit. Even though I no longer had eating disorders, I still weighed more than I wanted to, and I was ashamed of my body. I didn't know anybody on the swim team. I barely knew how to do the swimming strokes we were required to do. Waking up at 5:00 in the morning to lift weights before school was exhausting, and almost everyday we were kept at practice swimming more than the allotted three hours after school. Mentally and physically, swim season was exhausting. Every week at least one girl would go to the locker room to cry, and two girls on the team kept having shouting matches and fighting each other. Luckily they resolved their issues with each other, but only because the coach gave them consequences for bringing the team down with their fights. During swim season I did not compete in the meets. I did mot participate in weekend team bonding events. I wanted to spend as little time with the swim team, because I wanted so badly to be on the cross country team. I took them for granted.

Throughout the rest of ninth grade I still did not recover. In the winter when I ran I still had shin splints. In May, I started to have knee problems as well as shinsplints, so I began physical therapy again. 

Now I am entering my sophomore year of high school. I am on the cross country team, but am still injured. I am still in physical therapy and I am (extremely) slowly but steadily making progress. When I am not at cross country, I am going to swim practice. It is late August.

What I have learned through these years:

Running makes me feel alive. When I run I'm not dead on the inside anymore. I'm breathing hard and hurting but also living in the moment, and it feels worthwhile. Call it a runner's high and explain all the science behind it, nevertheless, I say that running just gives me happiness.

Running makes us all fitter and stronger and so does all exercise, but for me, it makes me feel strong, and the feeling is everything. I have confidence that I can do well if only I try, and I always try when it comes to running.

At cross country practice, I run only a mile. It isn't enough to train for meets, but it is enough to make my lungs and legs and heart work. It makes me view the world through rose-colored lenses. I actually enjoy it. I can't take it for granted anymore, because I have been through too much to not love running.

Running has saved me. I did not have access to help when I had eating disorders, and only came out to close friends about them a year after they were over. I didn't even accept that I had anorexia until it was over, because I thought I was too fat to be anorexic, even though I was well under a healthy weight. I didn't get external help from family or medical professionals, but I got help from running and myself, which is the most powerful way to recover--when you can help yourself. Running made me have newfound confidence in my body. Also, during certain times when I was injured, I had some suicidal thoughts. I was never serious about those thoughts, but I sank into some hard times because I was afraid I might never run again. Now I know there's hope, because I've joined the cross country team and have support in my goal to recovery. 
I am determined to win this battle, just like any race that I've finished. And I know I can do it, because running has taught me that.

I would just like to thank the reader of this long story, because writing this has been like therapy for me, even though it is a very short version of the actual story in my life. I hope it can help you and inspire you. Keep running!

- Anonymous