The Pain and Joy of Not Running the Marathon

In March 2014, I completed my first marathon in four hours and 58 minutes. It was a blustery day, but the British drizzle had no chance of dampening my mood as I crossed the finish line, because my body had done far more than conquer 26 miles. 

Eight years earlier—in 2006—just as I was about to graduate from high school, I had developed a severe eating disorder. 

I’ve never been able to pinpoint exactly what caused it. Perhaps it was a nasty remark from a thoughtless boyfriend, or an awkward photograph that skewed my self-perception. Or, maybe I was just wired that way. Whatever it was, in the years that followed, I cycled through anorexia, bulimia and a hellish hybrid of the two. It got so bad that at times I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep going; I just didn’t know if I could. I self-harmed. I was always cold. My heart beat irregularly and the voices in my head roared in my ears at all hours of the day and night. I cried, I lied, and I ran to escape it all.

According to research, almost half of all eating disorders occur in conjunction with an exercise addiction, and I fell squarely into that 48%. I started running almost exactly when I stopped eating, and the more I ran the less I ate. 

But I was fortunate. I had parents who arranged drastic medical interventions, including two hospitalizations each for three-month stints. I had doctors who treated me like an adult, and who gave me agency in my own recovery. As the years passed and I continued to recover, I found purpose in work and study, eventually making friends who helped me rediscover the levity in life: reasons to laugh.

The ugliest facets of my old life began to fade away: the way the hospital linens scratched my skin, the dark jokes about being an inmate, the glasses of water some of us would chug before a weekly obligatory weigh-in. 

And my body got stronger and more resilient. I rebuilt muscle and fat. I wasn’t always shivering. I stopped feeling faint when I stood up too quickly. I learned to taste food in all of its depth and complexity, and even acknowledge that I enjoyed it. At a glacial, but steady pace, the guilt that fueled so much of this terrible disorder began to ebb.

‘This One Indulgence’

But the running never really stopped.

When I was in hospital, I’d been forced to be sedentary: Two 30-minute slow walks around the hospital grounds, watched by a nurse, were my daily allowance. It was my nightmare. And as soon as I was discharged, I started exercising again.

It felt like a compromise. I’m eating, I told myself. I’m gaining weight. I’m going to therapy. So just let me have this one thing.

The one thing turned out to be what I came to think of as sustainable. Or put another way, the calorie mathematics computed:  The weight stayed on, and so I ran. I ran on treadmills late at night and along city streets early in the morning. I ran at home and on work trips and vacations. I ran where I lived: Zurich, Berlin, Frankfurt and then London. I ran 5Ks and 10Ks and half-marathons. Occasionally I ran with friends, but mostly I ran alone. 

And in that March of 2014, on the seafront in blustery Brighton, armed with what a physiologist might describe as a ‘perfectly healthy’ body weight, I hobbled across the finish line. 

As I hugged my parents and my soon-to-be husband, the salty spray of the English Channel mingled with rain, sweat and unbridled tears of joy. Sure, I’d survived the last five hours, but I’d also survived the last eight years.

Ongoing Recovery

At just 25, I considered that marathon proof of health: a benchmark in my ongoing recovery. That evening, I felt nothing but delighted as I devoured greasy, salty fish and chips. In the months that followed, I also tapered back on an antidepressant I’d been taking. I was happy. I planned my wedding. I planned my life. I ran another marathon and many halves.

In 2018, I gave birth to a daughter. As my body expanded to accommodate hers, I didn’t feel repulsed by it as I had feared I might, and in my early days as a mother, I had neither the time, nor the energy, nor the inclination to worry about the shape and appearance of my arms, my legs or my stomach. 

In many ways this was the most indisputable manifestation of healing. There were bigger things at stake that made my illness feel like a relic of a past life, or someone else’s past entirely. I’m grateful for that, and I’m proud.

With the running, however, it’s different. My compulsion to move is still one of the most powerful determinants of how I spend my day, and the prospect of not being able to exercise is bitter.

Over the years I’ve learned the power of moderation. In the same way as others strive to drink responsibly, I endeavor to move responsibly. And as is to be expected, my success in this regard oscillates.

During the Covid-19 pandemic—holed up in New York City, a place I’d just moved to, with scant freelance work and in constant fear of my family dying—my running mileage soared. 

These days, I force myself to run a bit less. If I start doing too much exercise and don’t stop to rest, the balance tips, my immune system falters and I get sick. With a 6-year-old relying on me, it’s a gamble I can’t afford. 

Triggers Everywhere

Any addict in recovery can tell you about the torment of triggers. 

For someone who’s been through an eating disorder and exercise addiction, I can tell you that triggers are everywhere: calorie counts on restaurant menus, mannequins in shop windows, a casual conversation about ice cream with a friend. And, if you live in New York City and are known as someone who runs, the biggest trigger of all might be the New York City Marathon. 

The world’s largest marathon has been going since 1970. Its iconic five-borough course attracts athletes from around the world. If you’re only ever going to do one, it’s the one to do, I’m told. In many respects, it’s the mother of all modern marathons.

These last few weeks of October, when I see hundreds of  runners in Central Park squeezing in their final training before the great race on Sunday, I can’t help but feel a twinge. And it’s a time when so many people I know ask me the same question: Aren’t you doing the marathon this year? 

It’s innocuous, of course, and it actually doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But it is a reminder of who I am, and what I’ve been through, and it forces me to tune in— if only for a moment—to the lingering echoes of a time when life felt almost impossible.

“Not this year,” is usually how I respond. “Maybe next.” And then, quite rationally, they draw conclusions about why I’m sitting this one out. Some of those conclusions are probably accurate.  I mean, let’s be real, training for a marathon is incredibly time consuming.

But there are other things they probably don’t know. Like the fact that I’m scared that a training plan could nudge me back into a dangerous headspace. That running in a serious and competitive way at all, could be tempting some sort of fate.

The truth is, keeping nascent addictions well-managed and under control can be painful. But it can also be weird, occasionally even funny. Sometimes things that should be hard, feel easy; other times, the inverse is true.

And come Nov. 3, when more than 50,000 people will line up in Staten Island to conquer one of the world’s most iconic races, in the city that I call home, I know I’ll be doing something just as hard: I’ll be cheering them on from the sidelines.

Sure, I can run a marathon. But I can also not. And maybe, just maybe, in a few years it’ll be different.