When Marathon Training Became a Painful Obsession, These Shoes Saved My Running Soul – runnersworld.com

I started running because I was lonely. After college, I’d moved to Boston, ostensibly for a job but really for my boyfriend, who loved me but also worked 80-hour weeks. I spent the summer finding an apartment and working at a publishing company. It was a true nine-to-five that left my evenings inauspiciously open. I imagined that this would be the place I made something of myself. I envisioned feverish writing broken up by happy hours in candlelit bars. I’d be socially and creatively fulfilled. In demand. On Saturdays I’d have to stay in and write. “Sorry, I have a deadline,” I’d tell the friends I hadn’t made yet.

The days shortened as idyllic New England fall faded into winter, and I was forced to confront an unfortunate fact: I hated Boston. I hated how the sun set before I left the office. I hated the dirty slush on the sidewalks. I hated the wind tunnel in front of the Hancock Tower.

I went home in the dark to an empty apartment I couldn’t afford and sat in front of a blank screen I couldn’t fill with words. I was paralyzed by fear. I wanted to be a writer but I was embarrassed to even say so out loud. I was willing to work hard, but what if I tried and failed? I didn’t want witnesses. Boston stayed bundled month after month, hunched over and hooded in the face of record-breaking cold. Everyone, I noticed, except the runners. On my way to work after a blizzard, I saw their tread marks in the snow. From my office, I could see them on the path by the river. Even with runny noses and teary eyes, they looked vibrant and alive, the exact opposite of how I felt.

Cayce Clifford

The day of the first thaw, I ran a three-mile loop. For the first time in months, I felt strong and energized. It was in the 40s and wet—still fairly miserable—but there was a whisper of spring, a promise of possibility. While I was having a transformative run, the other runners on the Esplanade looked nonchalantly fast, like they did this every day. Based on the race logos on their shirts—BAA, California International, Chicago—they probably did.

When I got home from that run, I put my name in the lottery for the Marine Corps Marathon. I’d never run a race of any distance, but I needed a goal that required my best in order to finish. The lottery felt like I was putting it in the hands of fate.

I got the Marine Corps entry and dedicated my free hours to the race. The time commitment I expected to be a burden felt like relief. I had my reason not to stare at a blank page or go on awkward new-friend dates. I could just run.

I learned to love the call of the coxswains on the Charles, and Boylston’s undulating hills. Maybe I wasn’t writing stories or finding a community, but the solo miles felt meaningful.

Cayce Clifford

I finished Marine Corps in just under four hours and feeling ecstatic. As I crossed the finish line, my competitive drive that had been clouded by doubt and fear sparked to life. I set my sights on a Boston Qualifier the following year and leaned into my obsession. Rest days felt optional while two-a-days felt mandatory. At my desk, I pored over Runner’s World archives and online forums. A little less than a year after my first marathon, I got my BQ with a two-minute cushion.

I had given up on writing. Unless I was impressive, I didn’t see the point. My ambition and energy were now aimed at the marathon. I didn’t need Friday night plans when I had a Saturday morning long run. My word count was zero, but my mile count was 30 a week and rising quickly. I was doing something that felt significant and bigger than me, even if it wasn’t my original dream.

With every BQ and PR, I expected a sense of accomplishment, but it never came. There was always another five minutes to shave off, a smarter training strategy, the upward expanse of mileage I hadn’t run yet.

Eventually, the wheels came off: a stress fracture in my tibia and bursitis in my hip, which took months to diagnose because I kept downplaying the pain, afraid to hear I’d have to stop running. I spent six weeks irritably cross-training, then jumped immediately back into a training cycle, ignoring the obvious signs that what I was doing wasn’t working. I was laser-focused on a marathon PR and I wasn’t going to let a little pain slow me down.

Cayce Clifford

On a visit to see my family in Atlanta, I went with my dad to Big Peach Running. I blamed my Asics for the twinge in my shins, never mind that I went directly from an injury to 12-mile runs. I was convinced the shoes were the problem. The salesperson told me that while I did need new shoes (the Asics were too wide, so I tied my shoes too tight to compensate), it wasn’t to cure the shin pain. He said my feet were damaged far beyond what was normal, even for a distance runner. I was surprised. I had bruises on the top of my feet and blisters in between my toes, sometimes a purple toenail or two, but thought they were things to be proud of. I wore my disgusting feet as a badge of honor, the same way I wore the constant hunger and soreness and 5 a.m. wakeup calls. If I wasn’t suffering, was I really giving it my all?

I bought a neon pair of the Nike Pegasus, a lighter shoe with a soft upper that was allegedly going to let my feet heal. Despite my skepticism, the bruises that stained the top of my feet for years disappeared after a month, and my toenails returned to a healthy pink.

Switching shoes gave me a glimpse into how much better-how good, for a change—I could feel. In the Pegasuses, my feet felt secure, supported, and pain-free, even as my muscles fatigued during long runs. I’d been operating under the assumption that in order to be my best, I had to hurt. But my drive to embrace pain began to fade.

Cayce Clifford

I was newly engaged to the boyfriend I’d moved to Boston for and had already signed up for the Paris Marathon with my fiance and future siblings-in-law, a race I told myself I’d run “for fun.” I trained in my Pegs on half the mileage I’d been training on previously. I toed the starting line with a sense of dread, berating myself for flying across the ocean to give less than my best. But over the 26 miles, that critical voice in my brain quieted. I was in Paris. What a waste to spend a morning yelling at myself instead of just looking up.

My feet felt light. My legs, fresh. I felt full of purpose and heart. Running on the cobblestones lining the Seine, I called to my soon-to-be in-laws who were cheering at mile 16, “I forgot how fun this could be!” I’d focused so much on the metrics of running—weekly mileage, target pace—that I lost track of that vital feeling running first gave me on that late-winter day. I finished just shy of my PR, the race photographer capturing my dopey smile as I sprinted the final stretch.

Cayce Clifford

When I got home, I realized I’d done the same thing with running that I had with writing, doing it at first for the love of it and then getting caught up in ego, times—or bylines—and competition. For a change, I opted for a month of slow, easy mileage. And I started working on an essay. The first day was the hardest, the prose messy and unstructured, but like long runs or intervals, hard isn’t bad. Hard is progress. Instead of being preoccupied with the outside validation that had made me stop writing years before, I wrote what I wanted to write. I knew how to work hard, but I learned when to push through and when to rest. My progress was slow and uncertain but it didn’t matter. It was about the work, not the outcome.

Last year, I moved to San Francisco with my now-husband and started writing full-time. Instead of using my training routine to avoid people, I used it to make running buddies who are now good friends. I took time off from racing and ran out of love rather than obligation. My miles—still in Pegasuses—now are slotted among passion projects and trips to the dog park. I’m sure I’ve run thousands of miles in several generations of the Pegasus by now, but I don’t count anymore. I’m writing a novel, and my days are full of work that people may never see. Or maybe they will and hate it. I don’t care. Like my afternoon miles, I’m writing for the love of it, and that is enough.