last June, we took a job nannying for a family in the remote vermont countryside. we spent the sweltering summer months exploring the surrounding mountains. now, at the helm of the winter season, we collect kindling for the wood stove to heat the home after snowy treks.

1. Pace doesn’t always have meaning. Pace means nothing in trails
2. Cherish mid-run emotional support from an old cigarette-smoking men driving by in a Chevy truck 
3. Know which “Private property” and “No trespassing” signs to adhere to and which to disregard
4. Maps are useful & also sometimes useless
5. It’s okay to walk up a hill, or a mountain  
6. If you see a trail, or anything remotely resembling one, take it
7. If it has hill in the name and goes downhill, it is not a dead end
8. See an apple, take a bite. Side of the road apples are the best mid-run
9. Take ______ Hill road, ____ Point road, or Upper ______ Road for a good burn and even better views. 
10. Keep a keen eye out for yard sales
11. What goes up must come down 
12. Taking a trail and believing it will take you somewhere important, or in the least, where you’re meant to go is an exercise in trust. Do this every once in a while
13. % grade signs are your friends
14. Keep your friends close but the corner store guy closer
15. Life moves fast even when it seems as though it’s slow-living in the north country

1. writing thank you notes, or appreciation notes to people I care about

2. crossing things off of my mental to-do list

3. walking while listening to the Beatles in my AirPods

4. a long overdue hug from someone I love

5. accomplishing something with someone you are close to & sharing all that it took to get there

6. a long, warm shower after being out in the cold or just laying in the sun on the grass

7. that floating feeling when I don’t feel the need to breathe or feel or try, and I just exhale, and feel my body floating through miles of a long run

8. making my own decision or plan and executing it

9. core-highs on the core machine, while listening to some good tunes in my earbuds

10. connecting with a stranger via sporadic soul-to-soul conversation

The cool, morning breeze invoked sleepy tears in my eyes and I felt a quick shiver as my body reacted to the shock of the cold air on my brown, sun-worn legs.  

A pretense of what I was to do in the next hour to two crept in my mind; I blocked it out almost instantaneously, a skill I had perfected over the years.  

One deep breath. Then with a clear mind, I disappeared into the dark trail. A newborn antelope crashing through the brush and old fallen leaves that lined the floor of the trail. Clumsy, yet efficient and graceful. I try not to let the thought of what my chances of survival would be if I were actually a creature of the wild. But sometimes I glance around and feel the fear of hunters; it stimulates the adrenaline reaction I try very hard but fail to control. The legs move faster, and oxygen is permeating throughout my body and into my veins just fast enough to supply the muscles with life yet let me forget that I am breathing. The legs are still sore from yesterday, and my heart feels heavy. A forgotten soul, now I am on my own, free to fill my ninety minutes with anything I pleased. But I reach the sun-lit portion of the trail. The rhythm is an unwavering, synchronized, symphonic beat. I feel afloat as I continue to ride on the previous bout of adrenaline. 

The thoughts coming into my mind are no longer full sentences, just fragments or song lyrics, key words that come one when my body is in auto-pilot. 

Was I being punched in the stomach? What was it? Was it fear? Fear of where I was heading? That if I would give in? That when it grew difficult I would let it be easy? That when the decision came I would solemnly choose the easy route? I didn’t need to keep this gut-wrenching pace. I could ease it up just a little. 

But that would mean a grizzly death by the hunter for the young antelope. 

These thoughts conjured yet another bout of adrenaline and the legs pounded the soft trail faster. And following my contemplation, I choose to run faster. 

Because I realize the fear only diminishes when I reached that decision point, at the looming limit of bodily capacity. When I wondered if my body could continue and I stubbornly decided there was no decision, that I would persist. That is the only time when the fear is non-existent. At that moment. So far away, so seemingly unattainable, so difficult. But That is the moment I strive to reach every time I set foot on the trail, road, sidewalk, track, pavement, grass, gravel, or dirt road. To fulfill this fear and yield a feeling of self-accomplishment, to feel I tested, and I passed. 

So I pushed harder, the heart pounding deep inside somewhere, supplying the far extremities of this corpse flying in the dark woods. I went to a place of deep uncomfortableness and true endurance. 

The air through which I was gliding grew sticky and uncomfortably warm and my legs felt heavy from the growing lactic acid. My breathing felt uncontrollable but I remembered “ET has emphysema” and left one leg forward after the other. Through the unimaginable strain I smiled. 

5:16 pm. it’s dark out already as I start on my walk. unsure of where I’m heading, just looking to shake the legs out after the bike fartlek. a thought crosses my mind, as I cross the bass island bridge – the same thought that floods my mind every time I cross here.

I’ve spent four years on the other side of this road, driving back with the Coach sitting in the passenger seat. it would be around this time – 5:15, that we’d be en route to dropping him off at his house.

– I wonder, for a fleeting second, if maybe he might be driving home from school at this moment – in the passenger seat of someone else’s car, talking of someone else’s woes. and that he might look over and see me, a shadowy figure in the night, recognize me, and think; gee, I wonder what the bleep Julia is doing out here in the cold with no pants on.

but he would know that it isn’t out of the usual for me to clear my head like this, out on the lonely dark roads.

now I’m on the river walk, secluded. Dion comes through my AirPods, so I dance before checking that no one is watching. secretly I want someone to be there. but I do the job of chuckling at myself just as well.

I’m happy to be doing this extra mile. it’s loosening my legs so they won’t be as stiff tomorrow. it’s extending my cool down and honestly, burning a few extra calories. It’s something that brings me right back to the old days. because it’s something I would have done then. maybe this is why I am reminiscing about seeing the Coach. maybe I do that every time I roam these old roads.

the thing is, at some point – i’m not sure of when exactly – (calculations prove it must have been around 2016) I made a vow to myself.

I said, “Julia, what do you want to be?” part of me was not really sure of myself, or even ambitious enough (or so I thought and was told) to proclaim what I wanted with my life. but it took someone else to ask.

“Julia, est-ce ça te rend heureux quand tu cours?”

my grandfather asked me one day. it translates roughly to, “Do you enjoy yourself when you’re running?”

I paused. I thought for a bit. I’d been carrying the thought that running was something I forced myself to do, for the feeling I would have when it was done. but I asked myself honestly. the answer, to my surprise, was that all that time spent on the sidewalk corner, weaving the streets, breathless, wandering, gliding slipping sliding my way across the city – was time I actually enjoyed.

“oui.”

that was my answer. it translates to yes, which you probably knew.

the long-running joke was “until 2024.” “eight more years” he would say, meaning, the big O games. with each repetition of this jokey phrase, my belief in its possibility grew.

for the next three years or so, I lived with this principle governing my life. I asked myself, “Julia, where do you want to be? who do you want to be? how will you get there?” and I made a vow to myself, that I would do everything and anything in my power to get closer to that goal.

every decision that I faced, I would ask myself, “will this help me achieve the goal?” if the answer was “no,” I would not do that thing, ever. if the answer was “yes,” I forced myself to do that thing. it was that easy. I had no option. because the decision had already been made long ago.

the direction of my teenage life was shaped by these automated, momentary decisions. if it meant an extra mile, longer workouts, freezing ice baths, seven minutes of abs a day, foam rolling, superstitious rituals, less calories, meditative long runs, mountain long runs, tempo long runs, double, heck – triple runs, lunch, morning, and afternoon runs – I was going to do it.

and I did. as I look back on the trail, I remember the countless steps I took as part of the Vow. the Vow shaped my everything. the Vow, admittedly, made me a beast. once I had solidified the reason why I was doing all that I was, I was unstoppable. I used my vow to train myself past exhaustion, to win races, to set personal records, state records, region records, and to beat my opponents. I was indestructible. or so I thought.

I eventually came to a point where my body could not handle what my Vow was putting it through.

my mind was in gear, but my body not quite yet. my body mass index was strikingly low, leading my bone density also to be low for my age, and I had several stress fractures because my bones were too brittle. I was 17, a dancing queen with the bone age of a menopausal middle-aged woman. my vow kept me from ever having a period.

the things my Vow had led me to think were goal-achieving, were, in reality, destructive.

yes, my Vow allowed me to run through a fracture in my tibia. my vow had helped me ignore the warning signs my body was trying so hard to tell me. my Vow had helped me silence those voices, like my Vow had always silenced the voices of tired legs or oxygen depravity. how could something I held so close do such a thing?

first came the anger. then, the denial. I knew I had to break my Vow, but I also secretly held it by my chest. my body could not run a step, but my Vow made me get up at quarter to 5am, jump in the morning pool session, do quick core routine, go to school, and jump back on the elliptical in the afternoon. on the outside, I was breaking my Vow. I stopped running. I was “healing.”

but on the inside, my Vow was kept closer than ever. if I wasn’t working out twice a day, restricting my meals, and doing core daily – I was breaking my Vow. I was failing.

my Vow had been there with me through the dark cold mornings at the YMCA, and it was there with me when I took my ghost fitness broke-down body to a state championship and new personal record in the mile. stronger than ever, I believed in my Vow. perhaps more than I believed in myself.

there was no way I was letting go of my Vow anytime soon. not on my watch, at least.

until the time came to choose between my Vow and my ability to run.

my Vow had taken me through a grueling season of getting back into running shape and after the final cross country race, I can’t walk. my body’s failed me. something is terribly wrong, and it is my femur. it’s most definitely broken. I put a smile on my face and hobble up to the stage to receive my award.

there was the radiating pain from my leg, eyes going in and out of blackness to stars to bright white light- there was the pounding, a pain so present and painful in my head- exacerbated by the bone chilling cold, and the dizziness, but there was also the sadness- the demise of the high school star. a year ago winning this race and today, on her home course, giving it away. the weight of the last heaving breaths of my Vow carrying me to hold off two competitors in the last muddy straightaway. the sadness of my last high school race. the sadness of the inevitability of what was to come.

there was also relief – relief that the season was over. that pushing through this pain was over. but also the relief that it’s time was up. the Vow was to be broken.

next, came the disillusionment. everything I’d lived by for the last few years had been counterproductive. the lens through which I was living and seeing my life had proven to be destructive to my body. the very funnel upon which I used to guide my daily decisions and through which I had seen myself become a valuable, capable, important person – was lethal to my body. with this, I questioned everything I had been choosing to do.

“breaking the Vow” felt like giving up on a dream. in so many ways, my aspirations, goals and my personhood were entangled with this vow. my Vow gave me a place in my high school, a way to get to college, an athletic validation I’d craved my whole childhood but never got as the “runt” of the family. uncoordinated, small, apathetic. that’s how I saw myself before the Vow.

it’s also how I saw myself after breaking my Vow.

in a way, breaking my Vow felt like I was giving up on a dream. in some ways, it felt like freeing myself from the cage that I had kept myself in for years, except losing the cage meant losing that dream.

I had to learn to move forward without this lease. but without the Vow I felt lost, a flying kite in the wind. I lost trust in myself and my ability to make decisions. for a while I just negated everything I had done before: don’t do this extra mile, don’t do extra core, don’t push yourself past what you need to because you need to treat your body right. but this was not ideal for me – I need to feel like an athlete with a purpose and I simply did not.

but maybe the Vow doesn’t have to be broken, I wondered. in choosing to truly heal, aren’t I choosing the option that might one day lead me to pursue my long-term goals? I thought this was a conscious choice, but maybe this decision is just like the countless others I’ve made in the name of the Vow.

I needed to proceed forward with a balance. found through a new lens – one that isn’t confounded with obsessive compulsions and tied up in doctors appointments and walking boots.

a new why is what I needed.

it feels like starting over, but maybe I’m not that far from where I left off.

for a second, I forget it’s dark. cars can’t see me as they did before. I take the right of way and cordially thank them, like I’ve always done on these roads.

I started on this walk because I wanted to. not because I wanted a result promised to myself in some long ago stated vow. I’m quite happy I did.