Running towards embarrassment (and away from shame).

Running towards embarrassment.

When I was eight, I cared about what I looked like. I was a round kid with a tendency to turn red when crying or exercising. But when I was eight, I was also very, very bored after school. My school had a cross country team, and there was a cool fifth grader who ran on it and was for some reason willing to talk to me at practice. So I joined the team and started running every day. I immediately loved running. I loved how free I felt when I was doing it; I loved how challenging it was; I loved talking to the Cool Girl while we trained.

As I got older, I imagined myself as Steve Prefontaine, all flowing hair and graceful stride, or perhaps Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, glistening attractively with the sweat of the righteous.

Then, sometime in my late 20s, maybe when the Great Recession knocked my career on its ass, I started feeling less like Pre and Linda and more like Phil Dunphy power-walking: lots of frantic motion, questionable technique, and an overall aesthetic that suggests mechanical failure. Sometimes this feeling is reinforced by others’ comments: a friend recently reminded me of my reality at dinner when she said, “I saw you once when you were running, and I thought ‘OMG my friend is insane! She’s going so fast! She’s really sweating!'” I knew she meant it as a compliment, but I felt like I was simultaneously seeing every store window reflection of my big-thighed, red-faced self schlepping down a sidewalk. If I smoked, I would have dragged hard on my cig right then.

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But my friend’s comment — or maybe my reaction to it — made me think about how running has that unique power to reveal the absurd gap between our mental self-image and our physical reality. We are minds inside bodies that betray us at the most inopportune moments. On a daily basis, my sweat glands don’t care that I’m hoping to look contemplatively athletic rather than desperately overheated.

The real comedy emerges when we examine what we’re actually embarrassed about. Social norms dictate that we should feel shame about trying too hard at stuff — about sweating ungracefully, and about resembling gelatinous blobs while pursuing our fitness goals. But these norms reveal themselves as arbitrary. Why should it be embarrassing to have a human body that acts like a human body? Why should we feel shame about the natural consequences of physical exertion? Why should we be expected to effortlessly attain what we strive for?

The alternative social norm — the one that should guide us — would make it embarrassing to hold ourselves back from doing our best because we’re worried about appearances. It’s much worse to deny yourself living life because you sweat like a cartoon character. Sweat, after all, is a sign that you’re alive.

Properly placing what is actually embarrassing — and what is just an arbitrary social norm — transforms my running from an aesthetic performance into what it actually is: a philosophical practice of inhabiting my sweaty, living body as I try very hard to do something I love. Every embarrassing mile becomes an opportunity to recognize that how I look while running is neither inherently good nor bad.

When I stop trying to control the uncontrollable, I can focus on what matters. Yes, I’ve had to accept that I’ll never look perfect panting my way through a long, boring straightaway — but that acceptance isn’t resignation. It’s liberation.

So the next time you’re out there feeling your bra chafing and your elbows swinging wildly and your sweat soaking through your shirt and [insert whatever insecurities you have when exercising] — you’re not failing anyone, least of all yourself. You’re succeeding at being alive, in all your sweaty, gloriously human imperfection. And that, I would argue, is the whole point.