Run, Anna, run!

Before I got sick I was reasonably fit, but never much of a runner. I liked the mental health benefits of getting outside, and so I’d plod a loop around Te Awa Kairangi, the Hutt river; but that was where I drew the line. More motivated friends would invite me on half-marathons, but I’d always decline politely, thinking, No thank you. That looks boring as shit.

In a few weeks’ time, it’s my four-year anniversary of developing long COVID, something that poured cold water on my exercise, especially running. At my worst, I was really frickin sick. My heart wouldn’t work properly, so I’d struggle with the basics, sometimes even climbing the stairs on all fours. But it got better – even if my progress wasn’t linear, which sometimes made me feel discouraged, and left me afraid that half-recovery might be as good as it gets.

Over time, as my health improved, I gingerly started running again. The turning point came a year ago when I discovered my heart had regained more strength than I’d thought. I was staying with friends in Martinborough and went out intending to go 5 kilometres, but I got confused and was too proud to check Google maps. By the time I learned my lesson and found my bearings I’d achieved two post-COVID personal bests: 9 kilometres, and getting lost in a town of less than 2,000 people.

From that day on, 9 kilometres became my staple – a distance that was hard sometimes, but I could usually complete. Just this last couple of weeks, I started wondering if I could maybe even push a little further. Running a long way hadn’t got any less boring. It was more that long COVID had been telling me I couldn’t. Like any nemesis, I wanted to spite it.

My fiftieth birthday is also looming, two days after my long COVID anniversary. That’s given me a kick in the pants – I can’t keep putting off the stuff I want to try – but at the same time, it’s sowed a bunch of self-doubt. A little voice inside me sometimes likes to ask, What if you left it too late and now you’ve missed the boat?  

This morning, I woke up feeling pretty good, and with a run in mind. My wondering started up: could I do more than 9 kilometres? I didn’t have a firm goal, and no great drive other than curiosity. I slapped on some sunscreen – the full extent of my preparation – and decided to just tootle along and see what happened.

The first leg of the journey, my usual 9-kilometre route around the awa, was frankly quite jaunty. I almost always make the classic mistake of setting out too fast, full of the joy of living – but by the 7-kilometre mark, my joy is replaced by self-pity and I just want to go home. Today, I got the pace right from the start. I moved into my second loop around the awa, feeling like I was all over it.   

My joy of living held out until about 12 kilometres, at which point it began to flicker dangerously like the low fuel light on a car. By about 15 kilometres it was gone. Gone. I was being passed by other runners who clearly weren’t even trying.

At about 17 kilometres I came to the end of my second loop around the awa. I was dehydrated as feck, on account of having not prepared at all, and I had almost nothing keeping me going except my spite. But I can dig deep for spite. And I’d come far enough that I thought, what the hey: I’m going to go for it. I now had a goal in mind.

I set out on the final leg: a shorter loop around the adjoining Trentham Memorial Park, known affectionately to locals as TMP. I was shuffling – carried only by the realisation that if I gave up now, my spite would possibly force me to do the whole thing again, and I truly didn’t ****ing want to.

At about 19 kilometres, I crossed the TMP carpark at the Barton Street end. A young guy called out Keep it up! from his car window. I knew this came from a place of kindness, but it didn’t help. I’ve run badly enough for long enough that I can tell when a bystander’s trying nervously to recall the CPR module of their first aid course.

At about 20 kilometres, I was dismayed to find my running track was closed, and I was rerouted across a field. TMP was hosting some kind of classic car rally, and I stumbled through it with a sense of painful irony: many of the cars were older than me, yet clearly had owners that maintained them in better condition.

At about 21 kilometres I cried out to God because my arse muscles hurt.

At 22 kilometres, on the final stretch along a stop bank, I stopped. I just stopped. I’d done it. Also, my body didn’t really work anymore. I was too dehydrated to think of anything but my failure to bring a drink. I walked the rest of the way to the car, and struggled to lower my seized-up carcass into the driver’s seat, but I smiled anyway. I knew it’d been a stupid thing to do. I should’ve trained first; but I also knew that if I’d tried to train, I’d have hated it so much I would’ve dropped out before I ever hit my goal.

Sometimes the stupid way is the only way.  

My long COVID is still there. I work four days a week, because although five would be possible, I wouldn’t have enough in the tank to write or do community work – a trade-off I don’t want to make. I sleep more than a normal person. And brain fog remains a thing: there are moments I feel like I can’t do anything right. But a bad day now is better than a good day two years ago. And a good day now lets me do things that, at my lowest point, I couldn’t dream of. If this is as good as it gets, well, it’s not so bad.

If you have this dick of an illness too, I want you to hang in there. It’s not linear. You simply can’t – until one day, all of a sudden, you kind of can. You wake up a slightly different person to the one who crawled exhausted into your bed the night before. When that happens, it feels like a small miracle. Hope is worth holding on to.

And long COVID or not, don’t let agism get into your head. Definitely don’t let the sexist agism in – the kind that tells middle-aged women our changing bodies mean we have less worth. Maybe it sags a little, but my body just delivered. It deserves my respect.  

What next for my sporting career?

I no longer have to speculate that a half-marathon is as boring as shit. I can tell you with absolute certainty. And it’s not just boring: it’s miserable. I doubt I’ll ever do it again. Zero stars. Would not recommend. I came home and had Ibuprofen for lunch and then put my PJs back on. I know I’ll pay for my stupid tomorrow, but if I find myself back on all fours to climb the stairs, at least I’ll see the funny side this time.

And turning fifty will be what I make of it. I might even launch a range of spite-themed activewear. Watch this space.