By Erin Clow
One, two, three, four, the rhythmic pounding of my heart in my ears.
A cold sweat consuming my body.
My breath becoming deliberate and focused, yet shallow and rapid.
And a feeling in my stomach of unease, a mixture of almost debilitating anxiety and self doubt about what lies ahead.
These are the physical changes in my body before every running race I have ever done. I know them well. They are part of my “pre-race ritual.” The predictability of these physical characteristics, producing a strange comfort, a sense of normalcy before the unpredictability of each race.
June 15, 2017, I felt all of these things. Except on this day, I did not start a race and have these physical symptoms fade into the background as my body took over and did what it was trained to do. I was unprepared. There was no sense of normalcy or comfort. I was blindsided. On this day my father passed away suddenly. On this day I lost something that until now I haven’t been able to reconcile or really articulate. I lost my guidepost. I lost my anchor. I lost my father and my motivation and joy for running.
My father was a man of few words. A man who showed very few emotions. Stoic in his demeanour. Compassionate in his actions. He did not deliver praise readily, so when it came you knew something monumental had just occurred. An athlete all his life, my father was a collegiate runner turned high school track-and-field coach. He revelled in implementing effective warm-up and cool-down sequences. A real stickler for proper technique and form. His passion for the sport was quiet and steady my entire life.
I found running in my twenties. I was not a lifelong athlete. When I first started running, one minute of light jogging was followed by five minutes of heavy breathing and recovery. In the beginning, I didn’t share my efforts or goals with my father. I don’t really know why I kept it a secret. Perhaps I was afraid that if I failed he would somehow be disappointed. In retrospect, I yearn to go back to these early days and months of running and to share this experience and learning with him. In the end, perseverance prevailed and what seemed impossible became possible. I ran my first 5k race.
I will always remember this race. It was a muggy, October morning in Georgetown, South Carolina. The air was still and filled with the sweet scent of salt from the intercoastal waterway. In the car ride to the start line, my father offered his own variety of reassurance and motivation. He coached me through the different segments of the course and provided his sage guidance around the “right” and “wrong” ways to warm up prior to a race. He would be on-course about 800 meters from the finish line, ready to provide me with the final push to the finish line. Vividly sketched in my memory, I remember the look on my father’s face when I rounded the last corner before the finish line. I had done it. I am sure he yelled, something about my form and how it could be improved, but I knew he was proud. I ended up placing first in my age category for this race, but the result did not matter. In completing this race my father and I had found a new connection point, a new point of love. In this moment we connected at the vertices of running. A sport we both loved. A sport that provided us both with immeasurable joy. After this race I went on to run dozens more, always with my father on-course.
In the days and weeks that followed my father’s death, I instinctively and habitually laced up my running shoes. Desperately seeking an escape from the sadness and loss. Searching for a space to breathe and retreat. Seeking routine. Instead, the familiar endorphins were gone. The sense of accomplishment was gone. The joy, gone. All replaced with moments of panic and sobbing on sleepy, residential sidewalks. This new reality painfully raw. Emotionally and physically I wasn’t the same runner I was before my father’s passing.
Five years have passed and I have yet to run another race. I have talked about signing up, trained for multiple 10ks, 12ks and half-marathons, but never made it to that starting line. It has taken these years for me to process and begin to understand that I am and will forever be running with grief. I am not running through grief. I am running with grief. A grief that will never be gone, but will ebb and flow like the ocean tides. It is messy, complicated, and difficult to articulate. It is ever present, even as memories fade. Running for me has always been a solo sport, except maybe it wasn’t. I am coming to understand that while physically alone when running, my father’s words and presence were always with me. Now they are not, and that has left a cataclysmic hole, unlikely to ever be filled.
Penning these words isn’t a personal call to action, to sign up for that next race, nor is it about self-pity or blame. It is about self-care and the permission to express that I may need more time. More time to remember and heal. More time to run without racing. More time to explore what racing means to me without my farther. More time to discover a different joy and passion for running. Writing this piece is part of my own healing, but I hope it reaches others living with grief and loss. Whatever it may be, know that you are seen and validated. Be gentle with yourself. Your feelings and actions are you own and belong to no one else. Run with your grief. This is certainly not the end of my running career, rather a new chapter with countless pages still to be written.