Like A Bird Set Free

By Claudia Lane for DyeStat

Editor's Note: Two-time Foot Locker champion Claudia Lane's senior season of cross country was diminished by injury and she won't be competing this weekend in San Diego. She has written about what her experience away from running has been like and shared this piece with DyeStat. Lane's Legacy At Foot Locker Secure. 

 
People always say things.

You can listen to, avoid, or accept what they say. In accepting you are believing. What I’ve learned is that I can’t accept every little thing people say anymore. I can’t believe every word or action makes me lesser because I can acknowledge now that would result in a lesser version of myself. Because things are just things. I don’t avoid what people say by any means. But in learning who I am, I realize that what other people say shouldn’t affect me in the manner in which it does. I have to hold closer things that matter most to me without fear of hurting someone else.

It’s been the other way around for a little while.

People always say you’ll never know how much something means to you until you no longer have it. People always said I’d realize this someday. People always said the things that mattered were the things you didn’t pay attention to. Because when you’re living through every moment, you’re seldom paying attention to the little things that matter. Tying your shoes. Having a slight argument with a friend. You’ll think that the things that matter most are the things you’ll definitively know are important in a moment. People always said, “Live in the moment,” so I’d try not to overthink things while doing them. I still try. But I overthink things anyway, so I guess I should’ve accepted that part of myself. I’m still trying to accept. I should accept rather than deny the fact that I struggle sometimes. That I’m not always going to be happy, that everyone has hard days, that I’m not always going to feel like I have a superpower when I run. Because for the past few months, I’ve felt that power has been taken away from me.

I felt like a bird who was so inexplicably free, wild, powerful. Every time I ran I would feel myself being carried through with the wind like we were dancing; The strange way it would tease me while it played with the wisps in my hair; How I’d pretend I was part of the cloudy weather that day; The silly way I’d wave with my sweaty palm to the seagulls perched on the sand next to my route.

I was just so free. Like a bird set free.

I imagine the way a bird would feel after being unrestricted for so long to be caged. Watching the wind outside but not being able to dance with it. Seeing part of the world but locked outside of it. I’m not a bird, but that’s how I’ve felt for the past few months. Locked out.

Upon receiving the news of my stress reaction back in May, I was disappointed but kept my positive attitude. For those who know me well or have seen my quirky self during interviews, that’s usually how I am. I love to laugh, smile, have fun and be weird. I didn’t usually deviate from this side of myself because my world allowed me to be this way. I was able to run and feel free every day when running, I had great friends, a loving family. Being locked out didn’t take its toll until about a month later.

I assumed I’d be able to start increasing my mileage as soon as I started running in July. At first, I was able to. I went to Nike Elite Camp, came back, trained, went to Tahoe, trained there, came back. School started. I was running. I was more relieved than happy at this point after having had to take so much time off. But something was different this time. I didn’t feel the same joy I used to when running. I wanted to feel that way, I missed that feeling, I needed it even. But when I ran after school, the wind seemed to push me backwards instead of dancing with me. When I ran by the crowd of seagulls they flew away before I had the chance to wave. A few weeks in it didn’t matter anymore, anyway.

People always say, and this is true, that when one injury improves one’s body compensates and thus another injury may spring out of nowhere. So I guess my right knee was irritated by my body’s new way of running and decided it’d be a lovely favor to give me tendonitis right as my season was beginning. That, and with taking every possible official college visit, things became harder. After my tendonitis healed, I began to have IT band issues. It was so tiring having to keep cutting back my training after continually gaining my fitness back. That, combined with being out of town almost every weekend in September and a few in October, I was not able to use training to the best of my advantage with my circumstances. My coach and I decided it’d be best to correct these issues with more physical therapy rather than keep training through injuries that could be prevented by fixing parts of my running form, which, in turn, caused me to compensate with different areas of my body that led to more injury. We decided it’d be better to fix these issues so I could try to compete in a few indoor meets this year.

People started to say I’d never be as fast again. People said that with my changing body type, I wouldn’t be able to attain the same times I’d previously gotten. This is where it changed.

Like I said, people always say things. I always used to believe them. When people I’d known for a long time took advantage of my easy going and generally sweet personality, I’d let them. I always try to see the good in people just like I try to find the light in any darkened situation. I’d pretend the things they said to me, about me, didn’t matter. But they did. Little things accumulate into bigger ones. Little matters can grow into daunting ones over time. To be honest, the past few months have been really hard for me. I think people look at me or see me on social media and just think “runner.” I know I’m more than that. But it’s really difficult to see that sometimes when people say things. When people do things that make you think that you’re really not that great. That maybe all you were was one thing, and when you are no longer exactly how you used to be, you’re no longer important.

The hard thing about my situation is that I have a bit of low self-esteem in the first place. Yeah, it probably doesn’t seem like that, but that’s because I am much more of a person than I appear in interviews. The way I’m portrayed online, through other people’s conversations, the way others perceive me; I am more than that. And I had to learn that in the past year when I was restricted from running. When I felt I was locked up. I had to learn that I wasn’t ever really locked up at all; I had to learn about other parts of myself that I hadn’t had enough time to explore before. I had to learn what things to listen to and what things I knew would negatively affect me. I learned that it’s true what people say: that it’s hard to realize how much something means to you until you no longer have it. But I’ve learned to filter.

Yes, my body type has changed since I was a sophomore and yes, injury is a part of the sport. No, I will not keep my ears open for people who attempt to filter negative messages to me because I know now I am strong in my own right. I do not need strangers, nor people I know, to attempt to define me. I can do that myself. Yes, I will be able to recuperate and find strength in the new person I am becoming. I can say without hesitation that my weakness is easily accepting, believing, allowing others to downplay the person I am. To underestimate me. But I also know my strength is my integrity. And although they often conflict, I know I have courage and grit. I know for a fact that I never give up. And I know that these stronger forces in me can overcome the weaker ones that others try to instill within me. But I know I am not weak.

Others may not see it from my lenient personality, but I can now say that I know the stronger forces that lie within a person are not the ones that are openly displayed to others. The strongest traits one retains are the ones that have a silent sort of power. Ones that are unexpected and raw, like a bird escaping its cage, silently flapping its wings.