Her Active Life

Click here for the Lead Stories

Katie’s Sunday Column: “My Life as a Runner Began for all the Wrong Reasons”

Posted June 24, 2007 at 06:32 PM by Katie Drummond

Section: Her Fitness, Her Health, Her Motivation, Her Story, Special Features

HerActiveLife.com is excited to introduce the following regular Sunday Column to its site!  Senior writer Katie Drummond waxes philosophical, dishes out healthy recipes, engages us with her nutritionl savviness, and invites us on her personal health and fitness journey. In this first column, Katie lyrically writes about her battle with an eating disorder, the turning point in her life, and how running gave her the strength and determination to regain her health.

My life as a runner began for all the wrong reasons. Five years ago, at 16, I fell into the same trap as so many young girls, and my weight became equated with my self-worth. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know why, but somehow I went to bed one night and woke up the next day with an absolute certainty that the number on the bathroom scale should naturally dictate how I felt about my body and my value as a partner, a student, a daughter, a woman.

It soon wasn’t enough that I was eating nothing but rice cakes spread with mustard for lunch or just skipping lunch (and breakfast, and dinner) entirely. When I couldn’t stand to keep starving myself and changed my tactics, the scale snidely informed me that, no, throwing up wouldn’t make me any better, prettier, or worthier either.

Fed up, I tried another means of self-improvement, and started forcing my exhausted teenaged body onto the family treadmill every night. I would spend hours slogging off mile after mile, headphones firmly planted in ears to tune out my aching muscles and ignore the noiseless agony of my worried mother, as she listened to that whirring machine erode and destroy her youngest daughter.

This illogical descent went on for two years. As my body weakened and ate away at itself, I enjoyed running – and life – less and less. I don’t even think I ever enjoyed running in those years. I ran for control, for perfection, for the precision of digital red numbers ticking off calories as I purged them from my body. Never did I run to feel the sweat on my face, to enjoy the scenery, or to revel in relief at yanking off sweaty trainers after a strong, energetic 5 miles.

But something had to give, and it did. In January of my first year at university, with my weight as low as ever and my stomach growling in the silence of my dorm room, the phone rang. My mother had died.

Immediately life recast itself. I moved home, I mourned, and I tried to determine who I was without my indomitable fortress of a mother only a phone call away. How could this woman - a fit, energetic, longtime runner - die at 52? Questions about her mortality quickly turned into questions about my own, as I realized that while anyone can die young, no matter how healthy, my own lifestyle wasn’t helping my odds.

Even as I recovered and re-emerged a healthier woman over the next year, I never stopped running – a decision that might make most counselors and medical experts cringe. But what might not be advised for most worked for me, because I now ran for different reasons, none of them related to matters as shallow as size zero jeans or atoning for a late night three-cookie eating binge. I ran for my mother, with every mile my feet pounding out homage to her fortitude. And I ran for myself - in part for reassurance, to know that I was healthy, I was breathing, I was alive, and in part for wellness, to know that I was doing what I could to take care of my body.

I could never say that I’m thankful I lost my mom, but I don’t know that I would have become the strong, confident, athletic woman I am today without her sudden loss to shake me from my madness. I also can’t claim that I’ve got myself all figured out – eating and health are still challenges for me, as you’ll likely read in weeks to come. Still, I have made enormous transformations in my perspective, and my health and wellness will continue to be lifelong priorities.

No matter what your reasons for staying active, I hope they’re nothing like mine used to be. In writing this column, I want to inspire a love of athleticism for the sweat, passion, fervor, and pleasure that it brings. But don’t expect (or dread) a tearful tirade like this one every week – with all that passion and fervor I work up on those runs, I’ve got a whole spectrum of sass and spirit to share as well. From ramblings to recipes to rants, I think that Sundays at heractivelife.com are about to get a little more interesting. 

6 comments, add yours | Permalink | Share this article

Tags: anorexia, body, bulimia, death, eating disorders, exercise, fitness, health, purge, running, self-improvement

Like what you see? Subscribe to our feed!

6 Responses to “Katie’s Sunday Column: “My Life as a Runner Began for all the Wrong Reasons”” (Leave a reply)