my heart is racing

a series about becoming a runner and what running is teaching me

There’s a special kind of clangggg that rings through the gym when you rack a barbell with no weights on it. It was the same sound the sledgehammer made as it flattened my ego against the anvil of reality. I first heard it in my mid twenties when I started lifting weights, never having gone to a gym before. I’d been overweight for most of my life and at my heaviest I was 230 pounds. Those first few workouts were the awkward, earnest attempts at becoming healthy. Being OK to start with lighter weights was what kept me going back to the gym. I added 5 pounds to my lifts each time, and a few months later I was adding 90 pounds to the barbell. I hit a personal record of squatting 285 pounds, while losing 35 pounds that year.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving of last year, when a friend asked me if I wanted to run a half marathon with him. It felt absurd to even consider doing it. I never thought I was fit enough to be a runner and envied anyone who did. The last time I was at the track in Astoria Park, four people ran past me and I was too ashamed to keep going. I got viscerally scared thinking about running 13.1 miles without stopping. That’s why I was so surprised when I heard myself answer, yeah I’ll run it with you. 

Looking back, the reason I said yes was because I was actually answering this question in my head: 2023 was a hard year of tears and grief, but you got through it. Would you want to go through something hard that ends instead with tears of joy? 

During that chat, my friend shared with me his two rules of running.

Rule No. 1: don’t get hurt. 

Rule No. 2: for most of your training, keep your heart rate between 140-160 bpm (or a pace where you can hold a conversation while running). Follow Rule No. 2 and you’ll most likely keep Rule No. 1. 

So when I went for my first run the Monday after Thanksgiving, I followed Rule No. 2 and when I looked down at my Apple Watch and it said I ran a 14:30 min/mile pace. Clanggggg. My ego felt the slam of the sledgehammer against the cold hard embarrassment of another humble beginning. But I started. That’s what matters and now I just have to keep on going.

When I tried running in the past, I was never able to keep Rule No. 1. I convinced myself I needed to run a mile in under 10 minutes, or what was the point? Anything slower and you might as well just do a lot of walking. And so I’d get to about a half a mile and my mouth would be wide open, panting for air, wincing from a stitch in my side. My knees were aching and numb and I’d be limping for the next two days because of shin splints. And if I actually managed to run a mile or two my body wondered, Are we running away from a fucking bear or something?! My heart was probably beating at 170-180 beats, which is the same as walking into the gym for the first time and thinking I had to squat 135 pounds. 

I’d end up shaming myself during those runs thinking I wasn’t mentally strong enough, that I wasn’t man enough, or resilient enough to ever run like those other runners. But really it was because I was just running too fast. I think that’s the number one reason people hate running: they run too fast and they end up hurting themselves or just wanting to explode from breathing so hard.

When I accepted the fact that it’s my heart that is racing, and I had to build up the muscle like I did when lifting weights, it all clicked into place. Every run since then, all I cared about was running as far as my training plan told me to run and doing it without going above 160 bpm. I let go of any expectation of speed (although my pace would naturally get faster each month). 

Following rule number 2 made me keep rule number 1, and have been running consistently for the past four months. Last week I ran 10 miles. Ten miles. TEN MILES. What?! Am I a runner or something running 10 miles? 

The picture on the left is my dumb smile right after I finished the ten miler.

Even with all the identities I’ve taken on throughout my life—musician, photographer, writer, coach—I never thought “athlete” would be one of them. But I’m training for a marathon! I’m following a program, I’m scheduling my days and weeks around my runs, and even if it feels a bit awkward to say, these are all things an athlete would be doing. This is the most embodied identity I’ve taken on considering I’ve had such a spiteful and neglectful relationship with my body for most of my life. But these last four months have been a process of reconciliation between me and my body, this temple of God.

That run took almost two hours and I loved every minute of it. Feeling the rhythm lock into place and feeling the flow between my breath, my body, and my mind is addicting. I have had moments when I’d suddenly ask myself Who am I? Because I can still remember the time when I couldn’t imagine myself doing what I did. 

Running has become a teacher, an active spiritual practice, a bountiful gift I’ve given myself. There’s much more I want to write about how running has been this wonderful teacher for my life, but I wanted to write down while I can still remember, what it was like to start running and how I became a runner.