One Walk a Day: Finding Joy in Exercise
I have never thought of myself as a fit person. Fit people were the kids in my class at school who were on the cross country team, who did athletics, or who got picked by the PE teacher to demonstrate their long jumps and their headstands to the class. I couldn’t get through a PE class without feeling clumsy, ridiculous, and embarrassed. When I was growing up, it seemed like fitness was a thing I not only believed I did not have, but that I could never attain.
This feeling of fear and inadequacy surrounding exercise started at a young age for me. I remember when I was in primary school and I tried to become a part of the very low-key cross country team my school had formed. I was nine, and it sounded like a new and exciting thing to try. I had run the 5km Race for Life, a charity event for Cancer Research, with my mum earlier that year and made it to the end without stopping, so I figured I could be a real asset to the team. All I remember of my first race with the cross country team was a lot of mud, a lot of kids flying past me, and a feeling of intense panic in my chest the entire way round the course. I came in seventh to last. I cried the whole evening when I got home. I promptly vowed that I would never take part in a running race ever again.
Another of my ventures into the world of sport and exercise came after a former Judo Olympic champion gave a talk during an assembly one week at school. I must have been about eight. There were mats laid out in a large square across the assembly hall, upon which two men in white judo suits with black belts flipped each other over while the surrounding children watched in awe. They announced that they were beginning a Judo class in my local town hall, and I knew immediately that I had to get involved in something this cool. At first it was nothing but fun and laughter; just me and my friends learning cool flips and tricks in comfy white suits, having a good time. Then I attended my first Judo competition. My opponent was a girl who looked similarly small and innocent to me, but she was vicious. She did not just let herself fall when I tried to flip her like my friends had done back in the local community centre. She had such a strong grip on me as she tossed me all around the mat, it felt like I was drowning. I was like a ragdoll, flailing in her grasp, my helpless little face looking out to the sea of people watching, praying someone would put an end to this horror. The whole thing probably lasted about 90 seconds, and it was definitely the worst 90 seconds of my little eight-year-old life. I never went back to judo again.
The main thing I learned from my sad little attempts at trying out different sports as a child was that sport was just not for me. This is a belief I carried with me into my adult life. When I started university, I had this fantasy of joining a sports team and becoming the super fit version of myself I thought could never exist. One short trip to the sports fair reminded me that this was not my turf; sports clubs are for people who are actually good at sports. They are not for people like me; people who look neither lean nor agile, who run like ducks, who physically cannot do a single press up (not even the easy version with knees on the floor). My dream of being fit and fabulous would remain some faraway, unattainable thing in the distance.
Something I liked to do as a teenager in order to combat this now deep rooted insecurity, this complex I had about not being a “fit person,” was to act aloof. I enjoyed pretending that I hated sports and that this was a part of my personality that I was weirdly proud of. I said that I just wasn’t a competitive person; that I didn’t care about stupid games and races. I joined PE lessons at school because I had to, but the entire time I was putting in a real effort to make it look like I couldn’t be trying less. It was easier to not even try than to show people that sports were just something I wasn’t very good at. I was actually pretty convincing. I even believed myself; I really thought I hated exercise. It makes me so sad to look back on this and to realise that I thought I couldn’t enjoy something just because I wasn’t good at it. I shut off a whole world of fun and happiness because I told myself that it wasn’t for people like me.
I guess what this really makes me question is what “being fit” even consists of, and why it is something I thought I could never be. In my own head I had made this arbitrary measure of what it was to be fit. Fit people were people who were slim, muscular, could run, do the splits, or catch a ball without flinching. To be fit you had to be good at a sport and you had to look the part. That is the lie I told myself for so many years.
I often wonder whether this is something other people feel too. I wonder if other people feel like they cannot, or that they should not, exercise because they look too red, sweaty, or large, or they aren’t good enough at it, or it somehow just makes them feel worse about themselves despite being something that is actually good for you. That hurdle of the first jog, or first exercise class, or whatever it is, just seems too high. People might see you, they might laugh at you, you might be the only person in the class who can’t do something, you might not achieve the body of all those amazing people you see when you scroll through Instagram, so why even bother trying. This is a complicated thing. A feeling of distress or fear around exercising is tied to many different problems – body image, accessibility, gender inequality, toxic masculinity – to name a few. It is a complicated topic that really shouldn’t be complicated, because exercise is good for you. Why are we making this about so many other things, when the only thing that is actually important is our own personal health and wellbeing?
During the coronavirus lockdown in the U.K., exercise was about the only thing people could do. I remember watching Boris Johnson on the television announcing it in this strangely futuristic yet simultaneously war-time-like broadcast. I was holding my breath. I let out an enormous sigh of relief when he confirmed that we would still be allowed out once each day for exercise. My boyfriend texted me: “Will be going on some loooong runs in the coming weeks.” It made me laugh.
That one daily outing kept many people going. Exercise was a way to fill the countless hours of being at home with nothing to do. It probably helped some people to feel like they were able to do something productive with their time. It got air in our lungs and sunshine on our faces. I have never seen so many people out walking, jogging, or cycling in my local area ever before. Even now that we are able to get out more and see people, I can see that for some a little post-dinner stroll has become customary, a part of their daily routine. It makes me feel hopeful.
I pray that something we take from 2020 is the joy that can be found in exercise. That one outing each day during the height of one of the most stressful periods in most of our lifetimes was the thing that kept many of us sane. It was often the highlight of the day. It gave people happiness and fulfilment in a dark time; people began to notice how pretty the flowers were and how lovely the trees looked. People were realising the joy of being outdoors. They could see that just a little bit of physical activity in their day made them feel good. It didn’t even have to be particularly strenuous, just something small to get some juices flowing goes a very long way. But most importantly, people were exercising not because they wanted to look good, or to be better. There wasn’t the ridiculous “bikini body” pressure that normally comes at this time of year because everyone felt pretty sure they weren’t getting a holiday any time soon. There were no gyms, so it wasn’t such a worry what others thought or whether you looked silly. There was probably some level of goal setting and a desire to be fitter, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. On the whole, many people were exercising simply because there was inherent joy to be found in the activity itself, that wasn’t dependent on any other related benefits or aims. It wasn’t always about other people, or an expectation, or an end goal. It just felt good. We took a complicated subject and we made it simple again. I really want this to be something we hold onto in the future.
“It wasn’t always about other people, or an expectation, or an end goal. It just felt good. We took a complicated subject and we made it simple again.”
The simple thing is that exercise, and your fitness, is not about anyone else. It is about your body, your happiness, your health. I often wonder what would have happened if, when I came seventh-last in my local cross-country race at the age of nine, I had decided that this was not a good enough reason to stop running. It wasn’t the running I hated. It was the feeling of uselessness, embarrassment, and inadequacy. That is such a sad reason to give up on something that could bring me joy.
In my twenties, during a particularly stressful time in my life, I took up running once more. I’m not sure if I started running because my boyfriend did it, or because I just had an urge to get out, or because I felt like that was the thing people do to get fitter. Why I started running doesn’t really feel that important. It is the fact that I kept running. I ran because it made me feel great. It helped me to free my mind of stress and worry, it gave me space, it enabled me to discover beauty in my local area. It was challenging; I enjoyed trying to get faster, seeing myself improve. Sometimes I still felt demoralised by how unfit I was compared to others, or compared to the fitness I wanted to have. Sometimes I felt, and still do feel, a bit embarrassed when I run near people who I believe look more like runners than I do, “real runners” I like to call them. But most of the time, I feel joy in running. I do it for the simple fact that it makes me happy. My mind and my body feel better for it, and that is all that matters.
I don’t regret that I never went back to judo. It was kind of fun, but it definitely wasn’t for me. That’s fine too. What matters is that we are able to distinguish between the things that aren’t for us because we genuinely didn’t enjoy them, and the things we think are not for us because we don’t feel good enough for them. The benefits of exercise, for your mind and for your body, are so much more important than the noise and pressure that surrounds this subject.
Fitness means different things to different people, because we all have different bodies and different lives. I once believed that I could never be a fit person, because I believed that fitness was related to how I looked and how capable I was at certain activities. I now know that I am fit, because I’ve found joy in being active. I’m not that fast at running. I still run a bit like a duck. I still definitely cannot do a single press up, not even the knees on the ground version. But I have found a way to make exercise a part of my daily life, and something that I do for myself because I enjoy it. We can all do this. If there is anything that the coronavirus pandemic has shown us, it is that our health is everything. I hope that we can remember to put our health first always, and that we remember how great it feels when we do.
Anna Steen is a trainee solicitor and recent Law graduate from the University of Edinburgh. You can read more from her at Steen’s Beans.