By Madison O’Brien
On a recent run, my body said to me, “I want to walk.” So, I slowed my pace, paused my watch, and lengthened my stride, taking deliberate steps as I strolled down the path. Snaking through the quiet woods, I began to test myself to see if I could identify all the trees. I tried to read the landscape and figure out how it came to be the way it is. In my observations, I came across a ten point buck munching on leaves right along the path. He didn’t notice me for a good while, the wind blowing my scent away from him, so I silently snuck up from behind to see how close I could get. When I was about thirty feet away, he took notice of me but seemed unbothered. He continued his grazing, although watched me with a careful eye as I inched my way along the path, trying not to scare him off. Those thirty feet of distance dwindled to twenty feet. Our eyes locked with every few steps. We spent about five minutes in our little dance before I decided to leave him and be on my way. At that moment, I appreciated the feeling of closeness to the forest.
When I first started running, I would have ridiculed myself for stopping to walk. I ran cross country and track in high school, so everything was competitive, and I perpetuated the mindset that runners never stop to walk. I’d beat myself up for not running far enough or fast enough or just enough in general despite doing well on the team. The accomplishments I acknowledged always were related to PRs and never how I actually felt physically or mentally during the run. Running to me then was just a sport, and I did it for the same reasons anyone does sports in high school: to keep in shape, make friends, get extracurricular activities for my resume, and well, because I enjoyed it.
As I headed off to college, I was hoping to continue running, but managed to end up at a school without any organized sports. Determined to keep up my practice, even without my team cheering me on at every mile, I started running on my own and with friends. I had never really run by myself before and found it challenging to stay motivated. I’d run my usual 5K like I did in high school, and was always watching my pace to see if I was faster than my previous time or not. My constant pace checking didn’t really make sense. There was no race, but pushing myself was all I knew running to be.
Fast forward to the pandemic, and running took on a different meaning for me. It became my lifeline because it was the only thing getting me outside and away from online classes. Lucky enough though, my housemate was also an avid runner, and her excitement for new trails was infectious. We’d start off the day by saying, “I’m feeling four miles today,” then come home having run six, seven, or eight miles without even thinking twice. That had never happened to me before; I had never gone for a run and just kept going for the sheer fun of it.
Our runs were full of adventure; we even tried to vlog one once. As soon as we got home, we curled up on the couch to watch the videos of the run we had just completed. Another time, it was snowing in May, and we wanted to run up Cadillac, the highest nearby peak. As we made our way up Dorr, pushing for Cadillac, we got turned around. It was a complete whiteout on the summit of Dorr, and the wind would’ve pushed us right off the side of the mountain if we weren’t careful. Back at home, we immediately ripped off our wet clothes and slipped our freezing bodies into cozy sleeping bags, talking about how fun the excursion was despite harsh weather and numb toes cutting it short.
“Running became my form of creative expression.”
In the beginning of the pandemic, running was all I did, but it wasn’t until a friend asked me how I was being creative during quarantine that I began reflecting on my new relationship with this practice. Running became my form of creative expression. I had never considered myself a creative person in grade school because I was taught that creativity meant art or music. But the idea of running as my creative outlet surprised me just as much as it surprised my friend. Running is never described as creative, but then I started to think, why can’t running be creative?
Running is like dancing. Once you allow your body to move freely, it will naturally feel the rhythm of feet drumming the earth that passes below. For me, the drumming will start off slow when I first kick off. Each beat is a little different than the last as I find a steady pace, and the drumming becomes smooth. My body seems to find the rhythm without much thought and the music crescendos and decrescendos, moving in accordance with the beat, up hills, over boulders, and through puddles.
Running can remind us of when we were kids. As the world passes outside the car window, a child can transport themself to a whole new world, one they’ve invented. When I run, my mind is at ease as I watch the world go by. With my feet falling one in front of the other, I too am transported to another world. I jump from rock to rock, and my mind hops from one thought to the next:
What made today so strange? What made today so good? What should I bake when I get home? What sort of forces made the rocks beneath my feet? How long did it take? Am I really that insignificant in the grand scheme of things? What is love? Why do I always seem to come back to curiosity as being the most important thing someone could have? I wonder what that squirrel squeaking at me is thinking?
Most importantly, running is yet another point of connection between me and the landscape. As someone who has benefited greatly from being outdoors, it’s only natural to find meaning in the moments I choose to spend with nature. The landscape is not just a place for me to trot through so I can get my mileage in, but a place in which my soul can melt and my imagination flourish. As Henry David Thoreau put it, “It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination… without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation.” With each outing I take, each mile I track or don’t track, I am running to cross the threshold between stagnation and awakened imagination.
High school me would agree with the words I have to say today, but deep down, would not have her priorities in line with these truths. The person I am today still loves some good ole fashioned competition, pushing myself to PR in that segment I’ve been eyeing, but I know that running is not just about getting mileage or a faster pace. I know that running is much more.
About the Author
Madison O’Brien was born and raised in Massachusetts, right on the coast of Cape Ann. She now lives on Mount Desert Island, where her need to be near the ocean and mountains is satiated by sea kayaking in Frenchman Bay and running the many trails of Acadia National Park. When Madi isn’t in Maine, she can be found exploring the landscapes of Latin America, dancing, and visiting friends. As a college student, Madi loves to see where her curiosities take her, always finding time to play and explore between studying. Plus, she loves being goofy! Check out that wicked snot rocket!
