I’m a Runner
"Running is not, as it so often seems, only about what you did in your last race or about how many miles you ran last week. It is, in a much more important way, about community, about appreciating all the miles run by other runners, too."
--Richard O'Brien

I’m a runner.

That’s one of the few things that I define myself as. At this point, it’s not even a question. My life—as a sixteen year old high school student—revolves around running, and I’m proud of it. When I’m not running, I’m thinking about my next workout, I’m envisioning my next race, I’m checking my competitors PRs, I’m daydreaming about becoming one of the best runners ever, I’m doing what I can to be a better runner—the best runner. It’s such a hard sport to explain because there’s so much more to it that is unexplainable unless you experience it for yourself. I could try all day to put the emotions and the physical aspects of running into words that you’d understand, but it’s just the same as voting for the next president compared to actually becoming the next president. You may think you understand how that person would feel, but unless you’re in their shoes you have no idea what emotions flow through their mind, or precisely what they’re thinking at that moment in time. My friends and family who don’t run don’t understand how running is so much more than a sport to me, and they don’t understand the meaning behind my races, and they don’t understand the emotions I put into each race, and they don’t understand how the results of the race have a huge impact on how I’ll feel the rest of the day, and they don’t understand how much perseverance I put into the sport, and they don’t understand the dedication that I must have if I want to be successful, and they don’t understand the sacrifices I’ve made and the reasons behind them, and they don’t understand that it’s hard to have confidence in your abilities when everything else has told you otherwise. I’ll tell you this: There’s a lot more to running than the races seen by the spectators. Bad races kill me. I feel defeated. I feel like everything I had worked for was pointless. But here’s the thing—I’m not allowed to give up. That’s not what runners do.
Runners fight back.
And no matter how I feel after a race, no matter how bad I do, or even how well I do, I have every intention to get back on the track the following day and run my heart out again. I don’t have any other choice. I don’t give myself another choice.
I toed the line.

Every emotion poured through me with no end—just as they do during every other time I step up to that line. There were the typical nerves, but this time there was the pressure to do well. Julia was coming in ready to hand off the baton to me and then it was my turn to give everything I’ve got. The weather was beautiful. It was seventy degrees, the sun beat down on us, and there wasn’t one cloud in the sky. But the best part was the fact that there was no wind—wind only drags runners down and prevents us from getting a good time. But today weather wasn’t a factor—it was the best day we had to race all season. We had been cursed with cold, windy, rainy Friday night meets in which everyone is miserable and the last thing on our minds is racing. But this was my time. It was my time to prove myself and show everyone what I could do.
I never thought I’d be in the position I was in. I was racing to show everyone what I was capable of and that I could race any event that my coach put me up to. I wasn’t a runner. Not at first. My freshman and sophomore years I was terrible; I was a girl who tried to run, yet had basically no potential to be something special. My coach talked about my “potential”—I didn’t see any though. How could I ever be as good as a runner as my brothers? They’re two of the best runners my school has ever had—how in the world could I ever accomplish anything even remotely comparable to what they had done? That was the problem though, that right there. I didn’t believe in myself and I didn’t think I was good enough. What got me going though was the fact that I didn’t want to be known as the little sister of the two best runners in school history—the one who tried to run, but wasn’t any good at it. I wanted to be known as myself, Cailin Eckhart. After cross country season sophomore year I took my fate as a runner into my own hands and dedicated myself to running.
Run. Look. Grab. Go.
With the baton in my hand, I’m off and running. I have to get out fast and go. Get in position. Run fast. That’s all I have to do. Do what I’ve worked all season for. Obviously it’s something that I’m capable of. One foot in front of the other, that’s all there is to it. The first 100 meters is always a bit quick just because of the adrenaline rush, but after that it’s all about the race itself. In my head I knew I was racing in a relay—I was racing for not only myself, but my team. That was the important part. Look up and ahead, not down at the ground. The next team isn’t too far ahead, you can catch them. You’ve trained for this.
I ran every day after school—weekends too.
You could find me out there in the freezing cold, pouring rain, with snow coming down hard. No matter what the conditions were I knew I needed to get my run in—there was no other option. Missing a run was like missing a night a sleep or forgetting to eat for a day. It became a part of my daily routine, so much so that I worked around running when I was scheduling things. I figured that if I took one day off that it was seconds added on to the time that I could possibly run in the following season. I always had my goals in mind along with the need to get better, the aspiration to make a name for myself, and the want to become something greater than I had ever dreamed.
The second the gun goes off for a race, or the second I grab the baton, I’m off and running—all my worries vanish. All my nerves are gone and I’m ready to get out there and do what I came there to do. We all know that the goal is to run fast, but that is much harder than it seems. When I’m in a race, I feel my legs weighing me down, my feet are like cinderblocks, my arms won’t pump, I can’t get up on my toes, every part of my body tenses up, my lower back becomes tight, my shoulders cramp up, and I can’t breathe. I’m not lying when I say racing is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. In fact, that might just be a bit of an understatement. But when you’re out there racing, it’s a different world—pain has to be the last thing on your mind if you want to do well. That’s what makes a good runner. The bad thing is that I focus on pain and that doesn’t make for the best runner. I tell myself, “Run faster.” My legs don’t listen. I hear my coach, “Come on Eckhart! Get out there!” That doesn’t change much either. Sometimes I just lack the will to do something great and that’s what kills me in the end.
My first 200 was slow. Did I know that while racing? No, of course not. That was mistake number one. I wasn’t aware of what I was doing out there—as much as I wanted my mind to be focused on the race, it wasn’t. I felt like I had no control over what time I would run, when in reality I possessed all the control in the world. No one else was running that leg of the race, except me. No one could manipulate my time, except me. No one could make me run any faster, except me. As my consequence, I came through the 400 slow too. One lap of a two lap race was done, and in a two lap race there’s not a whole lot of time to make up for a mistake made early on. And here’s the thing with relays—if I do bad, I disappoint my team. That was my biggest fear. At least in an individual event if I run poorly I’m only upsetting myself.
As I was running that second lap of the race, I heard the screams of only a select few people—my coach, my parents, and my closest teammates. Nobody else mattered in that moment. I felt like I was a thousand pounds heavier than I actually was going into that last 200. I remember praying that I’d feel light on my feet, but I didn’t, and I got discouraged. I tried so hard to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of, but the motivation wasn’t there. The next team was a good fifty meters in front of me at this point, and when there’s no competition breathing down my neck it’s hard to get myself going. I kind of just tell myself, “Well, what’s the difference at this point? Nobody is going to catch you from behind, and you don’t have a chance of catching anyone in front of you, so why waste your energy?” Come on, 150 meters left, get up on your toes and start sprinting. That’s something I know I have to do, but I didn’t. I told myself that I was doing everything I could, but I know for a fact that I wasn’t. Sometimes I let the pain, and the hurt, and the inevitable want to stop running get the best of me and it bites me in the butt every single time. I couldn’t let myself do that—not this race, not now. If you let pain take over, you won’t get the results you want. I learned my lesson.
I let pain take over.
The moment in which one finishes a race is either one of two things, there is no in between. One option is that the runner is ecstatic—they’ve either won, or have gotten a PR (personal record), or just ran their heart out and left everything they had on the track. The other option is complete devastation. The runner feels like he or she has legs of stone, twenty pound weights in each arm, in the midst of an asthma attack, and is using every last ounce of energy to remain standing. Despite the trashed feeling, the runner has run his or her worst time, got last, or just felt dead the entire race and knew nothing good could have come from it. In both of these cases, the runner has options: use that race to fuel his or her training for the next race, or just stop running all together. At one point or another, every runner faces this decision—let me tell you, it’s not as easy as you might think.
Olivia came up to me. “2:33,” she said. My body sank. I wanted to curl in a ball and cry. I wanted to bawl my eyes out. I wanted to be alone and in some way pound out all of my frustration. That was not the time I wanted—I wanted a time at least three seconds faster than that. I had no excuse for such a terrible time. The weather was perfect, the competition was there, the handoff was good. I just didn’t step up like my coach wanted me to—like I needed to. And that’s what got me. I had been a disappointment, and that was the last thing I wanted. He had expected me to run the best race of my season and I had failed miserably.
Tears came to my eyes.

I know that one race doesn’t define someone as a runner, but at the time it sure felt like it, and I can vouch for any runner who has ever had a bad race. It feels like your whole world is collapsing in and like all the hard work that you put in was for no reason because your times aren’t an accurate representation of the countless hours spent at practice, the aches felt day after day, the sacrifices that had to be made, and the months spent in preparation. All of it—worthless. Imagine wanting something so badly that you were willing to do anything to have it. You’re prepared to step on toes and fight off anything or anyone that got in your way. It wasn’t an easy journey, but you were within grasp of that thing you wanted. The opportunity was perfect. And then right when you’re in reach—it’s gone. And it’s all your fault; there’s no one else to blame. You put in so much effort and what for?

I was emotional mess, no doubt about it. That race was supposed to prove to my coach that I was just as good as anyone else on my team and that I could run in that relay. In the end, I showed him just the opposite, and that’s what crushed me. I wanted to impress him, and I didn’t. I wanted him to be proud of me, give me a pat on the back, and tell me that I just ran better than he had ever expected, but I didn’t deserve that.

That one race broke me.

If I were to tell you that that race only got me to cry once, I’d be lying. Every single time I thought about the race, I broke down. It took every ounce of willpower that I had to hold in the tears and my emotions all day at the meet because I couldn’t look weak, I didn’t want to let everyone know that I was utterly disappointed, because that’s not who I was, and one bad race shouldn’t have gotten to me like it did. I let one race define me—there was another mistake.

At the end of the day, runners have bad days. It’s one hundred percent true. We all have days in which we struggle to get through the workout and fail to put up the times that are expected of us. It happens. Coaches understand, teammates understand, and I understand when it’s someone else. But when it comes to me, however, I just can’t accept it. An off day means I’m a failure and that my running is going nowhere fast. I figure that I might as well give up now because if I continue to run, then I’ll just continue to embarrass myself. I feel like I’m falling down a slippery slope—nothing good can come from it and the ultimate outcome is failure upon more failure. It’s hard to make light of a situation like that, and look positively toward the future, or use my past disappointments as fuel to do better in my next, to work harder in my workouts, to be better than what I had last shown. Of course, I know the difference between what I should do and how I should think, and how I actually react and what my actions really are.

But why did I have to have an off day today? The day I needed to prove something. Why?
My world came tumbling down that day. I cried about it all weekend—multiple times. My aunt had picked me up from school after the meet and dropped me off at home. I put on a smile for her, and told her that I was upset with my race, but there’s nothing I can do at this point. I made it seem like I was just shrugging off the race—putting it in a box, locking it up, throwing it out, and forgetting about it. I was beyond uncomfortable sitting in the car on the way home. My muscles were tense and I was shaky. When we got to my house I was praying that she didn’t want to come in, because I just couldn’t handle it at that point. Everything I had felt was about to come crashing down into one immense catharsis, and I needed to get myself together all on my own. No amount of support from anybody could have prevented me from the breakdown I was about to have. As soon as we pulled up to my house, I grabbed my things, said my goodbye, and rushed to unlock the door of my house. My unsteady hands fumbled with the key for what seemed like an hour before the door finally opened and let me in. The very second—I kid you not, I mean the very second—that I closed the door behind me, the tears were streaming down my face. The sobs were overcoming me and I had lost all the self-control that I had tried so hard to maintain throughout the day. Every thought I had about that race resulted in even more tears, and more disappointment in myself. I just couldn’t stop myself from breaking down. And you may think that I’m a bit over dramatic about it all—and maybe I was—but it was a way of coping. Maybe my problem is that running means so much to me—maybe too much. So when I can’t do what I know I’m capable then it’s kind of like my whole world is falling apart. Every time I cried all the thoughts of race came flowing back to me—the things I could have done differently to do how I wanted, the dissatisfaction I felt in myself, the dissatisfaction my coach felt in me, the dissatisfaction my teammates felt in me, the thought that this was all I actually was capable of and I wouldn’t amount to much more this season, the feelings of embarrassment, and even just how sorry I felt for myself.
I couldn’t get over that race.
Then my dad talked to me the following Monday after he picked me up from practice. We were pulling out of the school parking lot when he brought up my race from Saturday. I know my dad pretty well—probably better than my other brothers and sister do. I know that he isn’t one to be much for words, but I know that when he does bring something up that he has something important to say, that whatever he is about to tell me I better listen to becomes there’s a lot of meaning behind it, that he’s about to give me some good advice, and that he truly cares about how I’m doing and knows by best interest better than I do. His words made me rethink everything that I had been feeling. He shed a whole lot of light on the subject, and I decided from there on out that I wasn’t going to look back at that race the same way again.
“Why are you getting all upset about this running stuff? It’s just one race. You’re not looking to run one good race at an invitational. You know that. You know that your ultimate goal is to run your best race at the end of the season at the most important meet. These meets leading up to that are just practice and mean nothing.”
I was kind of surprised, and speechless. He knew how I felt about the race even though I hadn’t said much about it—because I didn’t want to ever talk about it again. But my dad knew how I was feeling, and that shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. So now was the time to let everything out, and try my absolute hardest not break down again. “But what if I don’t get better? What if this was just showing me what I’ll do in future races? What if it was just letting me know that this was all I was capable of?”
“You don’t think all the training you’ve put in since November has meant anything? You think that all the running you’ve been doing has meant absolutely nothing? You have to trust all the work you’ve put in, because you did it for some reason, right? So why not take advantage of this bad race, work hard this week, and come back ready for the next meet. Don’t let this race get to you. It’s not worth it.” He knew what he was talking about, and I knew that too, so I listened. The thing is, if my mom had said that to me I probably would have just brushed off her consoling words and tried to deal with everything by myself. But because my dad showed that he truly understood where I was coming from, and knew my feelings were completely irrational based off of all my work, I realized that how I had reacted to the race was a bit absurd.
I knew all along—this race wasn’t an accurate representation of how far I had come, yet telling myself that didn’t help things. But when my dad pointed it out plain and simple, I understood. I was racing for the end of the season, not the middle. I know myself and I peak at the very end, and in the middle of the season my times don’t change much. The same thing happened in cross country. So the thing to do was go after my workouts for the next week leading up until conference and then sectionals. Show my coach what I could do and let him know that I’m ready to go and he better be watching when I get out there and make my name known over the next few weeks.
I’m a runner.
And in the end, that is what defines me as a person. Not some bad race. Heck, not even a good race. I’m a runner because of the work I put in, the miles I run, the workouts I push myself through, the races I run, and because of my love for the sport.