A moment that changed me: I thought fitness was my superpower. Then I realized it was a ball and chain

me I want to thank Jane Fonda for my discovery of fitness in the late 1980s. Even in my teens, he would take me across the mat doing his workout videos in front of the TV. I also spent hours plowing up and down the pool at the local leisure center and working up my muscles in the gym.

I always considered fitness to be my superpower. Something I worked hard on, for sure, but something that complimented me. keep fit i mean really fit seemed to me an admirable and noble pursuit. I could fit into nice clothes easily. I could push my body and trust it wouldn’t fail. Whatever other qualities he didn’t possess, anything he wasn’t good enough at, he could walk into a gym or walk a starting line for a race and pass a meeting.

I trained to be a personal trainer so I could guide others to their fitness goals. But it was running that really took hold of me, quickly becoming part of my identity. I ran my first marathon at 22 and went on to become a coach, write books about running, and host running retreats.

Running can feel like freedom, but it can also be about control. Distances must be covered, paces maintained, kilos dropped, personal bests (PBs) improved. I now see that clinging to the pursuit of fitness at such a young age was a way of asserting control over my body, seeking approval and bringing order to my family life. It worked too. But it also became a habit.

Like a magic suit, a fit body protects you from the scorn of others, as well as the common concerns of aging, such as weight gain and ill health. But it takes time, energy, and discipline to achieve and maintain that body, which require rules and restraint that can be life-limiting and reek of patriarchal control.

For three decades I was immersed in fitness. But when the lockdown happened, when they closed gyms, athletics tracks, swimming pools and running clubs, when sports events were canceled, when I was limited to solitary running, a feeling swept over me. What was all this for?

One day, in that infinitely glorious spring, I was running along the river bank. Running had begun to feel joyless and unusually labored. That point, a few miles in, where you can step away from the physicality of the effort and just let it happen, was proving difficult. I was present, with each loud and heavy step on the way, my cadence was explained for what, for what, for what? I tried to move forward until suddenly neither my body nor my brain could find a reason to continue. I slowed down to walk. I stopped the clock. I sat down and cried a little, the sweat drying on my back. Then I walked home.

It was not a unique one. As I continued to go through the motions, my dedication to fitness felt increasingly hollow. And frankly, shallow. As Sarah Donaghy said when I interviewed her about the Food Bank Run: Running can be a lonely, even selfish endeavour, focused on individual performance and PBs.

As I struggled throughout that summer, pushing myself to run like a piece that no longer fit, I began to think of it as a ball and chain, a drain on my resources. This was a major setback for someone whose career was largely built around running.

Finally, I could no longer ignore the questions my body and mind were asking me. My search for answers led me to reconsider not only my attitude towards my body and career, but life itself. Finding meaning and purpose, achievement and aging and to the ultimate goal, mortality.

Aging certainly played its part in this change. I turned 50 in 2019 and was starting to realize that the absence of new PBs wasn’t some kind of temporary blip, it was terminal. No matter how hard you try, you can’t compete with the 30-year-old you, or the 40-year-old you. If running is no longer about improving, achieving, what is tin whatever, I wondered. What do I get out of it? What do I put in it? Is there anything else I should do?

For many, this is the point where age classification comes to the fore, many people take great pleasure in being good for your age. Part of me has great admiration for the 80-90 year olds who train for Masters competitions and chase every possible fringe benefit. But as the planet and its human and non-human inhabitants face climate breakdown and all the injustices, inequalities, exploitations and losses that come with it, I can’t help but wonder if all that energy could be harnessed better

I stopped running for a while and was horrified when I could no longer fit into some of my clothes. The shame of my expanding and softening body almost lured me back, but once again my body rebelled, literally voting with its feet. I don’t want to be ruled by running againI wrote in my diary. Do you really want to be the same person you were a year ago, five years ago, instead of moving forward?

Four years later, I’m less fit than I was. I cannot assume the same protective benefits of fitness for my health. I can’t automatically pick up size 10 pieces, or assume I can parkrun in under 22 minutes. Not being able to do these things already feels as uncomfortable as having a visible belly. But there are also benefits. All that energy I poured into fitness for three decades is back to me. I think more, notice more, write more, have wider interests. I finished a part-time master’s degree last year and volunteer in conservation work. I am more aware of the world around me, good and bad.

In his essay How to Live With Dying, philosopher and lifelong avid runner John Kaag writes how a cardiac arrest, minutes after finishing a treadmill run, changed his outlook on life. At a certain point, going the extra mile doesn’t make you a better athlete. It just makes you an idiot, he says.

There is still a strange ache for my old fitness level, my old body and even the rigors of the chase itself. But whatever I have lost, I have gained much more. In the end, Kaag writes, most of us wish we had spent less time on the treadmill, in whatever form that might take.