This summer will mark the tenth anniversary of my return to running. As I neared my fiftieth birthday ten years ago, I knew that I had to walk across that threshold securely on a path that was leading me back to myself. I knew that I needed to start with my body, but I don't think I realized that my mind and my soul were longing for a fitness all their own. In retrospect, I suspect they were the captains of this adventure all along. After all, as my coach says, the body does what the mind tells it to do.

I also could never have known that the person I hired for some temporary personal training would become my coach and my friend, walking this path with me and having my back for ten years. I didn't sign up to run, although years before I had been a runner. I signed up to strength train and drop some weight, and I wasn't exactly thrilled when he suggested he write some run workouts into my plan. But I trusted him, so I reluctantly gave it a go. To my absolute surprise, I found that there was a little runner living deep in my soul, tending a fire that was started long ago, waiting for some oxygen to fan the flames back to life. I was lit. Running and I were reunited, and what a team we are!

Were? Are?

The last ten years have been a whirlwind of adventure and change; I will dare to claim it's been a transformation. And all because of running. Every corner of my life has been cleaned out, examined, and rearranged. My body, my mind, my soul, my heart, my grit, my career, my endurance, my thoughts, my dreams, my priorities, my audacity, my clothes, my shoes, my books, my experiences, where I go, what I want, what I do, who I know...I set out to really be me. And I can say that I feel like me. What that means exactly, I can't explain. But it feels different and so much better than before.

And now I am one year away from sixty, but not exactly in the spot I expected to be in. The trajectory of running was forward and upward for six years, and although I understand that nothing about life is linear (and I'm glad about that), I did not expect to be this physically challenged at this juncture. I could not have even dreamed of being this physically challenged, especially after six years of getting stronger and faster. But a perfect storm of surgeries, life events, and menopause has found me scratching my head, wondering how I found myself in this space with more weight, less strength, lost fitness, and so much pain in my knees. My running has been reduced to twice per week, maybe three times per week if the stars align perfectly, and those runs require a very long warm up to coax three or four miles out of the workout. Plus, there is a real cost for managing the pain.

With the caveat that I have not been as consistent with my strength training this past year, I have tried everything--so much PT, so many therapies--physical and mental, so much meditation, so much CBD and Advil cream. I do have some weight to drop--that would benefit my joints. I do need to be consistent with my strength training--this would also benefit my joints. There are still some levers to pull, but I also have not been sitting back hoping for change. Maybe most importantly, I have kept the faith, and I have continued to show up through all of it. But pain is a worthy adversary, and a tiring one. I would like to be tired from my workouts, but I am mostly tired from pain. I am tired from seeing a set of stairs and gearing myself up for the ascent or descent. I am tired from the painful step up onto the treadmill, and from the long warm up to get to a point where the push of the workout somewhat overrides the pain in my body. I am tired from the research about pain and the podcasts about pain and the strategies about how to approach it, bully it, cajole it, ignore it, even love it. I don't care anymore if it's trying to tell me something about my life. I don't like the delivery method, and I need a break. Which is where I landed yesterday. In a surrender of exhaustion from fighting this for so long, I stopped the treadmill and decided not to run in pain any longer.

This is exactly what I have been stubbornly determined to not do: no matter what, I was not going to stop running. I know I want to run. I'm just afraid it's going to look like I've given up. I will turn sixty next year, and I'm still determined to run my biggest ultra yet--one hundred miles. It's a big ask from where I am right now. Audacious. Out of reach. And maybe just what I need. And I know you have to run a lot to get ready to run a lot. But I have been resisting what my body has been telling me: Please stop running, just for a minute. If you want to run, you have to stop running.

So, I stopped the treadmill and gingerly stepped down. I did some stretching and PT, exercises my body was asking for. I felt relieved, but also sad and worried. What will my coach say? I got in my truck and pulled out of the gym parking lot. What if I'm totally wrong about this? I drove to the end of the block and stopped at the stop sign. The church across the street had changed its marquee:

They alone can truly feast, those who had first fasted.

Okay, I have my confirmation. If I have matured as an athlete at all over the last ten years, and I think I have, then I know that sometimes you have to stop running to keep running. I know I am runner, a statement I could not own at the beginning of this adventure, even though I was, well, running, training, and racing. There's no need to panic; it's not the end of the road. Although this current era feels long, it's just a hiccup. I love running and I am runner. I am a runner when I'm sleeping, even though I'm not running. I'm a runner when I'm working, even though I'm not running. And I'm a runner when I have to pivot for minute. There's other work to do until my body says, okay, give it a go, but right now, it's time to fast.

But god am I looking forward to the feast.