Ran 'round the wailing world
The first time I placed blame on what people call ADHD tax. The second time I counted my blessings and acknowledged the universe for its gifts. I’m speaking of dropping out of the Chicago marathon in 2024 and 2025.
The first time I ran on my own as an adult for a feeling, was in New York City, 2013. I was living in the West Village, managing a dental practice in NoHo, and attending Cosmetology School at the AROJJO Studio. Not considering myself a runner, and leaving my apartment with no concept of where I would go or how far I’d run, I loaded up my playlist and headed towards the Hudson River Park and found myself in Battery Park. There was a bench overlooking the water and I sat to take a break. It was the first time I felt a moment of clarity with my thoughts since having moved to NYC in 2006. Time stopped and I thought, everything in my life has led up to this exact moment. I once had a friend point out to me, “Think of everything it had to take for us to meet each other. Go far back, to our individual parents meeting, and their parents meeting, and the events in their lives that created us and our subsequent life paths”. He was born in Michigan, myself from Idaho, we never lived in the same city or state, but we met from a blog post I made that he found and liked and reached out to express his agreement with my thoughts, which were about the music and media industry. We were both 15 years old at that time. So that same thought popped up for myself individually, with the realization that I knew my past and what led me to that bench in Battery Park, but the future was entirely unknown. I probably sat there for a good hour, soaking up this new found safe space, that for however long I wanted to sit and stare at the water, meant the longer I postponed the future and what events could take place. After that moment I began to incorporate weekly runs around the lower half of Manhattan and participated in my first 5k race which took place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That run was challenging and had I not had the support of a friend with me, I easily would have given up and think, oh well good try, running is not for me. Thankfully, I finished it but didn’t think further as to if I would keep running or not. I continued to complete short runs here and there, never going past two or three miles, until 2015.
The second time I ran was in Deptford, London 2016. My career change into hairdressing was not paying off either financially or mentally, and the man I had moved to London for had hurt me. It was a short run and coincidentally the band Future Islands had just released their album The Far Field. In a similar fashion as my first run in NYC, I loaded the album up and set foot with no direction or plan. The song Ran played, upon hearing it for the first time and running, my mind again with new found clarity, created an emotional high in which I began to cry, then the clouds moved in and rain began to pour. Sometimes, pain feels good, I kept running through the rain with my tears and clinging to every word and sound that was being fed through my ears. That was the moment I knew I needed running to be part of me for life, and I wanted to be a runner. I ran my first half marathon with my pace being 10.34 in 2018.
In 2020 my life changed in the most dramatic way possible, my visa was not renewed and I found myself in Phoenix, Arizona at the same time COVID swept over causing everyone to quarantine. It was too hot to run and there was too much pavement surrounding me, and the gyms were not an ideal place to be to run on the treadmill. The events that followed took me to Chicago and without having dealt properly with my grievance of leaving my home, the pandemic, and other painful experiencing going back even further such as my mother and I mutually cutting ties for good, and the failed relationship with my ex-partner who was also my best friend, a depression took over. Simply waking up one day in 2022 and not being able to get out of bed, not even for work, I emailed my employer and told them I was no longer able to work. For four whole months I neglected everything and stayed in bed. January 2023 the veil began to lift and no longer being able to afford to sleep for a living, I accepted a job with Orangetheory fitness. I called that my “healing” job, as it allowed me to work remotely and offered free classes. Never being a fitness buff outside of running, this was new territory for me. The job required that I take a class to be able to understand the company’s structure and properly explain the fitness experience to sell classes. First it was a struggle, but eventually I found myself becoming addicted to the work outs.
In 2024 I was fully out of my depression and having had weekly therapy and extensive time worked on learning to parent myself and heal from my past traumatic pain, I pushed myself to embark on the journey of running the Chicago Marathon. I signed up with confidence and excitement and unaware of the remaining issues I had within myself that would be highlighted by this experience. That meant, waking up early to run before the heat, eating and nurturing myself to be able to sustain my runs, all of this grouped into basically needing better habits and routine. The struggle was with routine, no longer clinically depressed, I found myself unable to get out of bed most weekends and constantly feeling overwhelmed, unable to make basic decisions such as what to get for groceries and unable to execute basic life tasks such as cleaning and laundry. This is not an exaggeration but laundry would sometimes take me hours or a full day to complete. It was suggested to me by a friend that I had ADHD and he urged me to try one of his pills. Reluctantly, I eventually tried one, that moment set off a great relief and mourning, as for the first time in my life I felt like I could handle life. I got my official diagnosis and prescription in August 2024 but at that time I was beyond behind in my training and had to accept failure and withdrew from the race for that year and instead was offered a spot for 2025 which I gladly signed up for thinking by then I would be in a better place with my routine.
I spent the last few months of 2024 working on losing the weight I had gained as a result of my depression. I had gained 40 lbs in four years! By February 2025 I had lost 20 lbs, half of the weight but knew with confidence that my training would easily melt off most of the remaining fat. I saw my weight as baggage physically and mentally, physically because it made my runs more difficult having to carry the weight, and mentally because it was a reminder of my depression era and neglect put on my body. It was never a vanity issue but a health concern and a need to feel like myself again which meant living in the intended body that made me feel like my true self.
Of course, life had its own plan for what my 2025 year would be and that included an increasing agitation to be home, in London, focus on my career both dental and as a writer. With the pressure of interviewing for jobs in London, the stress of preparing to relocate, stress from my toxic work environment, confusion was created that overwhelmed me. In addition, there was one remaining health concern that was not being focused on. I’ve struggled with iron deficiency for most of life and have been on supplements that I sometimes forget to take. Earlier in the year my doctor called me with concerns of my lab work revealing my deficiency was at its lowest, alarming and bordering anemia, an iron infusion was prescribed. This was also when I was planning my big ruby jubilee in London, excited to be with my chosen family again, I paid little attention to the doctor assuming because my energy levels hadn’t dropped (as they oftentimes do with my deficiency), I was ok to wait a while and see if they pick up. When I returned from my two week trip and the buzz from being back home with my loved ones wore off, the results of my deficiency came to the forefront now beyond just low energy I went into full anemia. Now challenged to prioritise where and how my energy was spent. The decision was made in July to again drop out of the race as it was clear there were other areas of my life demanding attention. This didn’t sit well with me but I knew it was realistic and the idea of lining up an international job and moving at the same time of running a marathon was simply not aligning.
I’m sharing this because I didn’t feel comfortable telling people that again I was not following through on my plan to run the race, I felt it reflected negatively on my character. There was great shame and guilt felt and considered this another failure for not taking care of my health and not being a devoted runner. Those thoughts and feelings have since left and I have been able to look at the bigger picture. The picture as a whole and a part of my story. Three days ago I set off for a short run which turned into an hour long run in which I whipped out a five mile run. My tracking app glitched and closed out during the final sprint. My runner’s high quickly turned into frustration with not being able to document this. Of course, now I see, not running a marathon and not tracking my progression does not mean I am not a runner. I don’t need a medal or an app to show I am a runner, running in itself has been a powerful healing tool in my life and had it not been for the goals of the marathon, I would not have encountered these individual areas of my life that needed to be addressed. Simply put, it’s made me a better person, a stronger person, and a runner. A few years ago I could not get out of bed to work to pay my bills or take care of myself. Now I juggle writing, dentistry, friendships, health, spirituality, mundane life tasks and can easily run five miles in an hour. This is a win, a major win. And the truth is my real goal is to someday run the London and Berlin marathons. For what it’s worth this was all preparation to one day achieve those marathons.
During the last month I also made some important decisions that I have not told some of my closest friends, that being, that I have decided to stay in Chicago for the time being, but that will have to be another post.
Thanks for reading, my hope by sharing this is that others can step back and look at their individual setbacks as a gain and part of bigger picture.
Julian Rose xx
Ran - Future Islands
Ingest, where it goes, nobody sees but me
So perfect and so sweet
But the rest, feels incomplete
Like the rabbit's foot I keep
In the locket, with no key
And I can't take it, I can't take this world without
This world without you
I can't take it, I can't take it on my own
On my own
On these roads
Out of love, so it goes
How it feels when we fall, when we fold
How we lose control, on these roads
How it sings as it goes
Flight of field, driving snow
Knows the cold
Ran round the wailing world
And what's a song without you?
When every song I write is about you
When I can't hold myself without you
And I can't change the day I found you
On these roads
Out of love, so it goes
How it feels when we fall, when we fold
How we lose control, on these roads
How it sings as it goes
Flight of field, driving snow
Knows the cold
Out of love, so it goes
How it feels when we fall, when we fold
How we lose control, on these roads
How it sings as it goes
Flight of field, driving snow
Knows the cold
Ran round the wailing world