When I was in my twenties, if someone told me, ‘Soon, you’ll become a runner,’ I would have laughed and called them a fortune-teller. I never believed in superstitions. It wasn’t until my 31st year of life, when I ran my own 21.0795 kilometers, that I began to see things differently. There was no crowd along the way, no runners, no ambulance, not even a supply station, because it was not a marathon organized by anyone. I didn’t run the dream city’s half marathon at the beginning of the year. Instead, one day after work, I ran back and forth along the usual seaside, finishing a long run that belonged solely to me.

I love this city because the parks linked along the seaside have drinking water and crowds everywhere. I didn’t feel lonely while running, and seldom bored. The music in my headphones, the changing clouds in the sky, made that evening the best running scenario anyone could arrange.

Why did I start running?

I’ve always thought that I stopped liking sports since junior high school. When I was a child, I loved climbing like a monkey. But after entering junior high, due to a vague sense of gender identity and an inexplicable belief that “fragility”is a kind of feminine beauty, I started observing the pretty girls, learning to wear beautiful skirts, and styling my hair beautifully, but I forgot that strength and courage were part of my inherent beauty.

One of the most vivid memories is from third year junior high, during a 200-meter run in physical education, when the girls in my class left me far behind. It took me almost a century to reach our teacher who was waiting at the finish line to grade us. His look seemed to say, “It’s okay, children who love to study are usually not good at sports.”I was indeed good at studies during junior high, but I could never forget that 200-meter run—I hate being left behind! I compared my beauty and popularity with others, always living under other people’s gaze. Maybe it was after turning 30, or maybe the persistent strong genes in my bones over the years, which gradually pushed me towards running, a solo sport, and now I can proudly and certainly tell everyone “I am a runner!”

The real change happened much later than that 200-meter run! The triggering point was the birth of my nephew. That year during the Spring Festival when I went home and held the little baby, I surprisingly felt weak. My work and mood were not very good at the time, and my face bore the bitterness that many adults do. That day, I decided to become a “young lady who loves to climb stairs”. At that time, I didn’t even think I would become a runner. “For an impatient person like me, running is undoubtedly the least suitable sport in the world,” I thought back then. Unexpectedly, I inadvertently embarked on a sustainable path of physical exercise. That year, after returning to the city where I worked, I really started choosing stairs over elevators.

In the beginning, I read a lot of books on how to exercise, how to form habits. One memorable one is “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” I’m not sure if I’ve become smarter, but I appreciate the author’s ability to capture the reader’s hidden desires. Then I started running 1 kilometer, 3 kilometers intermittently for a year. During this period, I read no less than 10 books on running. Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” gave me the most deadly hit. Since then, all my stubborn cognition and understanding of women have been shattered one by one. I started to like the me in sportswear, and no longer tried to hide my hunched body in a skirt that didn’t fit. It was also from then on, I determined my lifelong dream: “I want to be a writer!” I also want to write warm texts that can subtly change the reader. Good writers don’t preach, and I, like ordinary people, thought preaching was the only way to show my strength. But my life goal, that’s a story for another time.

About running, I want to say: “Just run! ” When you start something, no one can be sure of the future direction. Many people worry all day but never take a step. We don’t necessarily have to become runners to start running, so my hidden insecurities gradually fell off, like the half piece of toenail that fell off after running this half marathon.

Why do toenails fall off after running?

I don’t know the scientific explanation. It’s just that I’ve lost toenails before from long runs, so this time, when I found the next day that half a toenail had come loose and fallen off, I didn’t panic. The nail will grow back, and even if it doesn’t, there’s no way to change it. You just have to accept it. In fact, my calmness has something to do with a book I read before, Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.” I don’t know if you’ve read it, but what she wrote wasn’t a story, but something that really happened. When she hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone, she lost toenails, lost shoes, and almost lost her life. She’s a strong woman, but before that, she was like everyone else, born with inherent flaws. We are all patching up bugs and aging along the way.

Probably after reading that book, I subconsciously knew that losing a toenail wasn’t a big deal, and I started wanting to hike, even dreaming of one day traveling alone around the Pacific Crest Trail. But what I want to say is, “There’s no rush!” We always think there are fixed nodes in life that everyone should follow, such as “a woman’s 30th birthday in China”. I once thought that day would be as sensational and tragic as the collapse of an iceberg, but in reality, nothing happened when I turned 30. It was only after a blink of an eye when I turned 31 that I thought to look back and remember if that day, that year was any different from other years and dates. The answer is, “Yes!” After 30, you start to become freer and more content from the bottom of your heart. Of course, some people change earlier, and some people change a bit later.

The half of the toenail that fell off after running symbolizes a part of ourselves that everyone sheds along the way. Life becomes interesting, and the unknown is so adrenalizing because we are all changing, can change, and have to change. No matter where you are in life right now, those things that are important to you, they all matter. We need to accept and understand ourselves, and truly love ourselves, which is very difficult!

What does the last kilometer feel like?

Actually, there’s no special feeling, just like stepping into a certain stage in life, many times we think it’s a major node, but in reality, crossing it is fleeting, and it’s over before we’ve had a chance to savor it. Indeed, at that time, I felt like I should record the feeling of crossing the finish line, so I picked up my phone and watched the meter change, but the app on my phone jumped to 21.07 and couldn’t be precise anymore, so I unknowingly said goodbye to my half marathon goal in an instant. I was happy, but it didn’t last as long as I imagined. 

I thought that running a half marathon would at least make me feel incredibly proud for a week, but in fact, when I got home that night, I had already switched into the state of a seasoned marathon runner – what I had just completed wasn’t the goal I had been setting over and over again in the past few years, but the routine that had long been within me. I smiled at myself, because it’s so much like what many success books describe: “once a goal is achieved, people will greedily push further.” I don’t think I’ve become greedier, because being greedy for running is the most laughable thing in the sweaty summer.

May we all discover more interesting possibilities within ourselves!