So often when I discuss body image, I relate it to how we see ourselves aesthetically and physically. We look in the mirror and all we see are the dimples, the flabby stomach, the weak arms, or the extra skin.
We see a photo of us, and we can’t stand how we look in it. We’re so focused on how we look in the image that we don’t even notice the teenager grinning beside us or the toddler clasping our hand.
We spend an inordinate amount of money, time, and energy trying to shrink or tone our bodies to fit some cultural ideal or because we assume that a smaller body always equates to improved health (newsflash: it doesn’t).
But sometimes our body image suffers not only because of its appearance but because we feel like our bodies are failing us in some way.
Not too long ago, I burst into tears at a doctor’s appointment. We were discussing the results of an MRI I had on May 14th that showed my high hamstring tendinopathy (something I’ve been trying to overcome since 2013 when I suffered a partial hamstring tear) on my left side actually appeared worse than it did back when I had my most recent MRI in 2015. The MRI also revealed I now had high hamstring tendinopathy (HHT) on the right side along with increased marrow edema, which is medical speak for a potential bone stress injury.
“I guess this means no marathon,” I snuffled. (I hired a coach back in the fall to train for the CIM in December with a goal of qualifying for Boston.)
My health care provider kindly replied, “Not necessarily.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said sheepishly, embarrassed by my tearful and emotional deluge. “I shouldn’t be crying. It’s just running. It could be so much worse.”
“It isn’t just running to you,” she kindly said. “And, sure, it could be worse, but it also could be better. You could be training for your marathon and running the way you want and would be capable of if your body would allow it.”
Then she shared something that I’ll never forget. She said something like this (please note this is paraphrased and not quoted word for word):
The way I see it what you’re dealing with is like a woman who has always wanted to be a mother but is facing infertility.
At this point, I interrupted her, “No, no. Infertility would be so much worse.”
“Hear me out,” she continued.
Both of you have a dream that requires that your body cooperates in order to fulfill your dream. You’ve been doing everything you possibly can to achieve this dream. You’ve been doing everything “right,” but you’re realizing you don’t have as much control over making it happen as you’d hoped. You both feel like your bodies are betraying you.
To make matters worse, there are a lot of different experts telling you to try different things to be able to conceive or, hey, maybe you should consider adoption.
In your case, the experts all have different suggestions on how you can get better and return to running the way you used to, but you’ve already tried so many things and spent tons of money and time and nothing seems to be working or helping.
On top of all this, it feels like everywhere you look there are happy people who have what you want so desperately. For the woman struggling with infertility, everywhere she turns there’s a woman with a swollen belly. The woman who longs to be a mother sometimes feels like all she sees is other mothers constantly. There are happy moms and then there are the moms who complain about their pregnancies and how awful they feel. And the moms who complain about their kids. All the moms – the happy, grateful ones and the struggling ones – irk you.
As for you, you see people running everywhere – in your neighborhood, on social media. Your running pals just keep covering the miles. So many other runners never seem to get injured or to feel tired. You hear about people who do get injured, but they take time off, rehab, and eventually, they heal and are off running again. It seems so unfair.
Both of you are experiencing a tremendous sense of loss, and you’re not sure what to do with that loss quite yet.
“I guess what I’m saying,” she concluded, “is it’s okay to be sad and angry.”
I immediately told her again that infertility would be so much worse. I can’t imagine. After my first miscarriage, I felt hollowed out – like all the light had been scraped out of me – and I was worried I’d never hold another baby again. I also remember when I couldn’t get pregnant right away with baby number two (um, what was I thinking?) since I was still breastfeeding (ecological breastfeeding has worked for me in naturally spacing my children) and how frustrated and anxious I felt.
Then I always just sort of assumed that another baby would probably just come after baby number 4 (my Thomas, who is 7 now), and eventually a baby did come but only after I’d accepted our family size and was happy to be beyond the baby-bearing stage and gave away every thing baby in my possession.
Two-year-old Charlie, my darling bonus baby, has taught me many things, including that God has a wicked sense of humor and will always be trying to keep me on my toes and to just trust Him already.
I pray sharing this analogy won’t come off as insensitive to any woman out there who has to bear the cross of infertility, but my healthcare provider’s words and deep empathy touched me deeply because it felt like someone finally understood the loss I’ve experienced every time I’ve thought I was finally going to be able to run happy and make my dreams happen only to be faced with a chronic injury rearing its ugly head. I do feel like my body is betraying me sometimes. I do get angry and sad.
The day I read my MRI report, I cried for almost 24 hours in between taking care of kids. I cried because I was frustrated. I cried because I was angry at my “stupid” and “weak” body. I cried because I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing another runner sharing her hard workout on Instagram along with mantras like, “If you believe, you’ll achieve it.” Or, “Be strong. Show up.” “Don’t let setbacks keep you from crossing the finish line.”
Shut up already. Sometimes you do believe it with all of your heart and soul, but there are things completely out of your control that keep you from achieving it. Sometimes you do show up and you are strong, but a part of you is malfunctioning and there’s no reset button. Sometimes setbacks do keep you from crossing the finish line.
After weeping and spreading snot on Charlie and my pillow, I launched into obsessively Googling “high hamstring recovery” and “high hamstring surgery” even though I’d previously read almost every flipping study, rehab protocol, research paper on HHT, etc. (A sidenote: One of the most frequent ways people end up at my website is by searching “high hamstring tendinopathy.” I’m not the only freak, and it really is a beast of an injury.)
When I read this professional runner’s story (for maybe the umpteenth time), which mirrored my own in many ways, I looked up the surgeon she went to in Norway, texted a flurry of links to my husband while he was busy at work, and was seriously ready to pack my bags.
I also posted a lengthy comment on a Facebook support group about HHT, asking for advice. When one well-meaning stranger advised me to perhaps rethink my running goals and to cherish the fleeting years with my toddlers, I wanted to scream, “I have stopped running for five months and religiously did physical therapy and was prodded with needles all over my body. I didn’t even know what the obturator externus (I dare you to Google it and imagine how fun it would be to get needles poked into it) was until I had a constellation of dry needles dancing in it. And this precious toddler is my fifth baby, so yeah, I get it that babies don’t keep and I need to cherish this year and blah, blah, blah. Tell me something I don’t know, will you?”
I fortunately did not scream at her in ALL CAPS, but I’m ashamed to admit that I did end up sending her a direct message that surely came off as defensive, if not unhinged. In the entire history of my online life, I have never lashed out at a stranger. There’s a first for everything. I quickly shot off a subsequent apologetic message, sheepishly admitting that she was the unlucky scapegoat for a host of emotions and frustration.
God is indeed merciful because my craziness did not persist for much longer than a couple of days. Back in 2013 when I had to quit running completely because of the tear, I fell into depression, partly because I was so sad and angry about my injury but also because running helped me with my mental health and also was a social outlet since I sometimes ran with friends. Running was so much to me, and now it was gone.
When the tear healed and I was capable of returning to the pavement again, I told myself I wasn’t going to ever take running for granted again. I would train wisely. I was going to approach running as something I wanted to do for a long time rather than pushing myself in the short-term only to achieve performance goals that might lead to a wasted body and physically drained mama. I was going to treat my body with respect.
I checked off the first one. I hired a coach this past fall. I trained under her expertise and tutelage. I stuck to my workouts religiously. In retrospect this may have been a part of the problem. I respected my training, but I wasn’t respecting my body or what it was trying to tell me. It was giving me signals that the mileage I was doing was too much, but I was constantly comparing myself to others who were handling higher mileage loads or slaying their speed work.
If they could do it, so could I.
Pain is inevitable.
Push through it.
I can do hard things.
And I can do hard things, but sometimes the hardest thing of all is relinquishing control, accepting your physical limitations, and loving your body any way.
I recently found myself crying as I read about Gabe Grunewald. She’s a professional runner who had been fighting rare form of cancer for years. This week she passed away. She was 32. She had dreams of qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Trials. She had talent and grit, but she also had cancer and the challenging treatments that come with its diagnosis.
I went back and read through a lot of her Instagram posts and never once did she express any form of body loathing, and she didn’t even complain about the sickness that had ravaged it.
She was one of those people who didn’t ask, “Why me?” but instead “Why not me?”
She used her diagnosis to encourage others to be #bravelikegabe and to start a nonprofit to spread awareness and raise money for rare cancer research. She shifted her focus from competing with the cream of the crop to running as a form of gratitude. She never was an Olympian, but, my, she was a champion. She ran through treatment even if she couldn’t run like she once did or wished she could. She ran for the joy of it. So often we approach movement in terms of losing weight or achieving some other goal like getting stronger or faster or leaner. But what about moving your body as a joyful act?
When I told my parents I wanted to train for a marathon in my twenties, they were worried at first. I’d just “graduated” from treatment for my eating disorder. They’d seen me use running punitively – a way to negate being “bad” for eating too much or eating the “wrong” thing. They’d seen me push too far through pain, leading to a foot that became so damaged and bruised it turned a deep purple, even black in some places. I kept running until my track coach saw my foot one day after practice after I’d thrown aside my sweaty socks and told me I couldn’t run until I got it checked out. An X-ray screamed STRESS FRACTURE.
I assured them that this time I was approaching training and running differently. Not only was I running to raise money for cancer research, but I was also going to run from a place of joy.
And that’s what I did.
I didn’t even own a Garmin or any sort of timing watch. My stomach quivered with nerves the morning of the race, so I only ate half a plain bagel (I would not recommend this fueling strategy).
During the race I didn’t want to have to stop and pee in a port-a-potty, so I skipped all the aid stations and just didn’t drink (stupid, stupid). I ran the first few miles with a good friend. When she urged me to go ahead because I was feeling so good, I hesitated at first but then let my legs take over and lead me further along.
I never experienced the infamous wall despite my atrocious fueling. I soaked up the Alaskan wilderness. I noticed the rhythm of my breathing and the cadence of my feet. When I started to feel a little tired, I thought of people fighting cancer.
Around mile 23, a coach saw me and shouted that I was on pace to finish well under four hours. I couldn’t believe it. I pushed on. There’s a photo of me from late in the race, and I’m smiling. There’s no race-face grimace you so often see on runners toward the end of a race.
When the finish line was in sight, I had enough left in my tank to sprint. I did not collapse or swear I’d never ever do that again. I felt euphoric. I felt joyful.
Later I would describe the experience as spiritual. The only other times a physical event has made me feel the same way and, in truth, even more euphoric is during childbirth.
I was incredibly fortunate to run a sub-4 first marathon with little long distance experience, no strict training plan or speed work, and no real expectations. But I also ran that race differently than I’d been most recently approaching my running. The race course was not a proving ground; it was a playground. I had no rigid performance goals in mind. I just wanted to finish. I did not run it from a place of comparison. If So-and-So can run this pace, then so can I. I did not run it to affirm my worth or value. My running was fueled by a faith that I could do it and joy that I was doing it.
In some ways my most recent MRI has allowed me breathe a sigh of relief, to return to the kind of runner I was years and years ago. It wasn’t just in my head – the tightness, the sporadic, fiery pain, how it was starting to hurt just to sit again, how easy, slow runs were fine but when I attempted any quality runs, the speed hurt and my legs didn’t feel like they had the power to turnover quickly even though my heart felt strong. There was something real going on; my body was trying to tell me something important.
When I returned for a follow-up visit to the same doctor who offered me so much empathy after my MRI, she asked, “How are you?”
I surprised her as well as myself by replying, “Really, really good. I’ve cut way back on my mileage, and I’m not doing any speed or hill work. I had to ‘break up’ with my coach, but she was very encouraging and understanding. I no longer feel achy and tired, and my hamstrings seem to be holding up okay. It’s not hurting to sit or drive anymore. I don’t understand why my body can’t handle more, but it’s done so many wonderful things for me. I just have to accept that not being able to run like I want to or like others can doesn’t make me weak and to accept my limits and to respect them.”
She beamed. And so did I.
She then told me about so many runners she sees who keep pushing and pushing themselves until they really can’t run at all instead of just scaling back.
“You’re being very wise. I wish all my patients could learn to respect their bodies like that,” she said.
Oh, if she only knew how long it’s taken me to quasi-arrive at this sometimes-sorta-wise-place.
I’m currently reading Ryan Hall’s Run the Mile You’re In: Finding God in Every Step, which I highly recommend. It seems providential that I decided to pick this book up at this time in my life because so much of it speaks to me. He is arguably the fastest American long-distance runner ever; yet, while he has no regrets about his grueling training and laser-focused work ethic, he admits it frequently left him completely depleted. He needed naps every day. He felt great when he was running, but he felt drained doing anything else. He knew God was calling him to something else, so he retired. He still runs a few times a week, but he’s focusing on strength training and coaching others. He feels more energized than ever before. He had reached his physical limit.
I reached my own. It just took 30-40ish weekly miles sprinkled with quality runs for my tendons to talk and my body to feel tired. We all have our own limits. Just as we all have our own physical designs. I’m constantly urging women to not constantly be trying to fix, shrink, chronically diet, or even run their way to a different body or a size they see as ideal. A pear-shaped woman is going to have a hell of a time trying to make her hips go away. A more straight-shaped woman might tone up more easily and quickly, but she may never achieve a thigh gap because of her hip to waist proportion.
I’ll continue to encourage women to learn to accept the shape of their bodies, but I also see a need for us all to learn to equally work on accepting the function of our bodies and to find things to appreciate about what they do for us even when it feels like they’re letting us down big-time.
Infertility, a running injury, sickness, chronic pain, age, breastfeeding challenges, the inability to have an orgasm (we’re all adults here), or just being clumsy…all of these can make us feel inadequate. We might accept that our bodies are instruments rather than objects to be picked apart, constantly tweaked and changed, and/or put on display. But what happens when that instrument fails us? It no longer performs or does what we want it to do or what we think it should be able to do? What then? How do we make peace with a body that is letting us down in terms of what it can do?
What has personally helped me tremendously in my running journey (and beyond) is to look outside of myself and my own injury and problems and put my frustration and pain into perspective and then to use it as a resource I can draw upon to minister to others.
For two years after my high hamstring tear, I was pretty miserable. I thought at the time it was because of the injury, my pain, and having to change my running pace and goals. Looking back, most of my misery was probably rooted in my being so intensely focused on myself, what wasn’t fair, and what I wanted and couldn’t have.
I refuse to let that happen again. I’ll continue my rehab protocol. I’ll continue dreaming of another marathon and maybe even running Boston, but I’d rather run for a lifetime and inspire others to look beyond their performance goals and to pursue what Hall describes as “heart goals.”
Hall mentions in his book that our greatest legacy is our relationships, not our achievements. I admit that every once in awhile I wish I’d put in more miles when I was in my running prime, but that happened to coincide with my husband’s most intense medical training, when I had to work quite a bit as a freelance journalist to supplement our income, and when I had four babies I breastfed into toddlerhood while living in a transitional area where it wouldn’t have been safe to get up super-early to run (like I do now). I won’t ever regret those years and what my body did for me even if it didn’t involve running long distances.
I’ll likewise never regret falling in love with running when I was 14. Running has gifted me with many wonderful relationships and good friends. It helped me appreciate my body in a whole new way. Yes, it has, at times, provided me with a sense of accomplishment. It has been my outlet to escape the ennui of the daily grind of motherhood. It has offered a time to ponder and pray as well as to listen to audiobooks and true crime podcasts. And now, most recently, it’s teaching me once again the discipline of surrendering. God knows I’m a control freak. He knows that any addict – and having an eating disorder makes you a kind of addict – has to be careful about turning to something new into their idol and a means of controlling and proving my worth. He knows I need constant reminders about what’s really of value in this “image is everything” world.
My eating disorder gave me something to be proud of. Restricting my calories and purging through compulsive exercising, laxatives, and vomiting was hard work. The pursuit of thinness required commitment and discipline. It made me feel strong and powerful. Losing weight was a measurable, tangible way to see “improvement.” I took a lot of pride in being so good at my eating disorder, and I also remember feeling a lot of shame when I no longer had the “better” eating disorder, when my anorexia morphed into bulimia, when I couldn’t lose anymore weight or gained all the weight back I’d worked so hard to rid myself of.
I can easily turn running into the same sort of thing, to letting it define me, to becoming obsessed with the numbers involved in running – my weekly mileage, the paces, my race finish, my VO2 max. I can fall into the trap of feeling like a failure if I can’t constantly adhere to the “best” pace or live up to my goals.
When I was crying to my oldest daughter that day I was in a funk after seeing my MRI report, she asked me, “Why is qualifying for Boston so important to you?”
I honestly didn’t really have a great answer. Sure, I wanted something to work toward. Yes, running experts had told me I had the potential to make it happen and it was a realistic goal. But I started to think of how I’d hear about another runner doing it and then I wanted it, too! Instead of celebrating this runner’s victory, appreciating my own victories (being able to run again at all!), and focusing on working toward a different goal – perhaps like just being able to run happy and healthy for the unforeseeable future – I’d wonder what was wrong with me or I’d push myself harder or start to hate my body and my stupid hamstrings and glutes.
I finally said to her, “I just really want to do it.”
My daughter, so wise beyond her 14 years, replied, “Well, then maybe you’ll do it someday, but if you don’t it doesn’t matter. None of us could care less if you run the Boston Marathon or not. We love you no matter what, and you’ll still be a runner whether you do it or not.”
Her words have stuck with me.
When my nana (my grandma) was still alive, we asked for her stories. We never asked to see a list of her achievements. When I remember her now, I reflect upon her faith, wisdom, and sense of humor. Just last night I told two close girlfriends how Nana used to say she had no doubt God was very merciful because as soon as your face starts getting all wrinkly and sprouting hair in unsightly places like your chin, your eyesight goes and you can’t see any of the startling changes. I knew Nana graduated from college during a time where that was much more of a rarity for a woman, but I have no idea what her GPA was. I don’t care. I already know she’s one of the wisest women I’ve ever known.
“What did you do with your life?” I imagine my grandkids asking me one day. How sad it would be if all I had ever accomplished was being fit and thin and/or running long distances.
I hope instead I can say something like, “I wrote. I read good books. I ate delicious food. I ran and enjoyed the friendships that came with it. I laughed and read lots and lots of bedtime stories aloud. I went to Mass even when I questioned the mystery of it. I loved a lot of people. I guess I lived pretty well.”