There Will Always Be Highs and Lows

We enjoy the excruciating pain, the feeling of exhaustion, and the glory that comes along with it, we know what it means to be consistent, and where consistency can take you, we push our bodies to their limits and beyond because we want to, and we learn that with the right mindset you can accomplish anything. We’re runners.

Running became a passion of mine when I joined the track and XC team my sophomore year in high school. I hated it at first, just like how everybody outside our community does, and my first season came to a quick end when I pulled my hamstring in my second meet. I wanted to quit. I figured that it was a sign that it wasn’t for me. However, something inside of me told me to stick with it, and eventually, my injury faded away into the past and my times finally started dwindling down. I was so excited to see progress. I started enjoying every aspect about running. Unfortunately, as most of you probably know, running isn’t always rainbows and butterflies. By the time my senior track season came around I began to suffer from more injuries. I had hip flexor and knee pain pretty much all season. My times weren’t what I was hoping for, and I started to become depressed. I had built my life around running. It felt like the walls around me were closing in. But then I remembered back to that first season. How that injury wasn’t such a big deal because running was just this thing that I did for fun. It didn’t feel like a job then. I was so patient through that injury because I knew that eventually time would go by and the injury would eventually go away with it. I forced myself to maintain this way of thinking during the rest of my senior track season and everything turned out better than I could ask for. I was able to go to state where I eventually medaled, which if you were to tell me that would happen at the beginning of the season I would have thought you were crazy.

So, this is what brings me here, typing to all of you today. To go back to that first paragraph, no matter how cool you thought that intro was or how badass it made the sport of running look, don’t forget that you’re still human, and that all humans will go through there highs and lows. Many of you may not have experienced this “low” with the sport yet, and many of you may have, in either case, listen closely, you’ll get through it. It sounds obvious, but when you’re in that low point you often forget that small detail, that everything will eventually be fine. From experience, knowing and remembering this fact makes those low points feel more like a puny ditch compared to the Marianas Trench. From even more experience, the low points can feel like bottomless pits when running feels like the backbone of your life. Just remember to remain optimistic, to have fun, and to make memories along the way.

There are so many great things about running. Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint what those great things are, especially when some non-runner asks, “why do you like running?” The answer to that question when you really get to thinking about it is usually “I don’t,” but if you don’t, then why do you run? Well it’s because you do, but you don’t. Confusing, but I’m sure some of you can relate. It’s not necessarily the thing that we do that we love, it’s the journey, the path, the wondering that we do along the way that makes us love what we do, and we can’t ever forget that, because if we do, we’ll begin to question why we even started in the first place.

- Zachary Meacham (@ZacharyMeacham)