I ran and hiked 34 miles (52K) last Wednesday for my 52nd birthday. This was my first ultra distance adventure since the end of 2017. Five day after the run I’m still avoiding stairs and in the process of losing a few toenails, yet I am also enjoying a huge sense of accomplishment and feeling like I have welcomed back a long-lost friend.

November of 2017 I sought treatment for Binge Eating Disorder (BED). I had a lifetime of weird habits, horribly convoluted relationships with food, distorted body image and non-existent emotional coping skills. Yet I never knew it had an actual name. It does. Or that other people suffered like I did. They do. Or that it could be successfully treated. It can. I thought it was just me and I was ‘broken’ and food was an adversary I would fight my entire life. I would soon learn that for me, BED wasn’t actually even about food at all. I had developed ALL kinds of ways to deny, hide, manage the problem. (Blog here)

I had to take some important steps right off the bat. One of those steps was that I needed to back off of running. Running and coping and food were ALL tangled up and confused in my mind. In the desperation to hide what I couldn’t name, but absolutely knew was not normal, I had somehow turned running into a weapon. Pretty much overnight running went from being a friend to being an enemy.

To start the healing – I had to break those convoluted relationships up. It tossed ALL the things in my still-mostly-new-to-me healthy life into wild disorder. The only way I thought I knew to manage my weight and blood glucose was through running. with running in a greatly reduced role, I instantly started gaining weight and had to really watch my glucose readings as I learn how to manage these relationships independently. As someone who’d lost significant weight and gained an abundance of health through running; it was terrifying for me to grapple with running NOT being part of my life. And while I missed running, oddly I also started to fear, dislike, not trust running because it would trigger intense binging urges…

Ugh.

It’s been the past 6-8 months where I finally started to understand all the parts of the work I am doing were finally coming together; I was healing and getting stronger and even I could see it.

Time to hit the trails.

I stepped onto the dirt last Wednesday morning at 5 AM, headlamp blazing, with my friend Michelle Thompson, to leg out 34 miles (a course designed by Michelle). I wanted to see if I’d done enough work that running could be back in my life and not be a trigger for the eating disorder. And let’s face it; I’m 52 and if I’d clung to my old habits I wouldn’t even be alive to try this crazy experiment. And I know that. So I simply enjoy the hell out of each year that I get to celebrate being another year older. So this year we ran in the mountains. Climbing hills and crossing water. Stopping in our tracks to look at toads, rock formations, animal tracks (cougar!), flowers, wildfire burn scars and mountain peaks that are some of the prettiest in the whole world. Peeing in the woods – and in my own shoe at mile 3. Filtering our own water. Laughing, joking, crying and sharing trail-time with a soul-sister. Meeting friends at the end who came to cheer on the adventure. It was a magical day. Sitting here 4-5 days post-run when the binge urges would normally be active and showing themselves in full force; there’s only sore muscles, black toenails and some pretty soul-deep peace and calm. And I’m so happy to be feeling these feelings.

This was a carefully considered experiment with running to see if I could put all the pieces together and if we could all be friends again.

It really was a reunion of sorts.

A very happy reunion.

{Important note; as I worked toward this ‘experiment’ and continue to work to bring running back to a healthy spot in my life, my therapist is supportive and fully aware of what I’m doing.}

In the midst of COVID-19 things have gotten worse for those with previously stable eating disorders (here). I kept hearing anecdotal stories from friends about how their ED’s were out of control. I knew I was battling it as well. Some people are learning about eating disorders for the very first time.

You are not alone. No matter how twisted your world is with food/activity; you are NOT alone. Click here for resources that are free or low cost.

There is hope and help. You can heal from eating disorders.