Ammi Midstokke: The right to identify as a runner

I used to be a runner. But that was like three weeks ago.

I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on an identity, though based on the huffing and heaving and groaning of this week’s attempt to revive the runner in me, it’s about one holiday, one too many eggnogs, or one brief bout of the plague long.

One day, we’re in fine form and going about our usual business of being-who-we-think-we-are. We introduce ourselves as the thing – tele-skier, runner, baker, husband, woman, vegetarian – and form a kind of self-opinion and representation of the thing. The thing has some additional assumptions that go along with it. Such as, we all know vegetarians probably feel a little hungry in their soul most of the time, even if they can point their finger at the rest of us for global warming.

Once, I was sitting in a hotel bar far too late at night and I told another patron I needed to go to bed; I would run early in the morning because I was a marathoner and had a race soon. The man looked at me and stated simply, “You’re too heavy to be a runner.”

Hungover as I was the next day, I got up and ran in the rain, then took my sweaty, soggy self to continental breakfast just to make a point, though mostly to my offended ego. I smugly looked at him eating his beans on toast and wondering if he identified as a jerk. I’m not sure if our identities in themselves are such a problem, or if our (mis)conceptions about others’ identities that can lead to judgment.

I asked my teenager (who functions as the resident educator for issues of relevance to youth) about the myriad labels being assigned to different groups these days. This idea of “identifying as” seems a loaded concept, but it turns out we’ve all been identifying as things for quite some time. Wise as this youth is, the response was, “It helps people feel less alone in their experience. It helps us find our community.”

What if our myriad identities were community-builders rather than dividers?

We cannot identify as merely one thing. Even an amoeba has multiple identities (single-cell organism, invertebrate, parasite). If we meet someone with an identity that we struggle to relate to, it is only a matter of being curious about them before one finds another identity they can relate to.

While I slogged up the trail this week reminiscing about when I belonged to running groups with all our reflective gear and gel-based nutrition, I wondered what identity I could share with the stoic, stationary tree. We are both creatures of the wood, for example.

Slowing on an incline, I thought of the people on the trail who identify as hikers or bikers or birders. The qualities of our identities overlap in so many ways, I began to assume they were all generally good people I could befriend. What an eclectic group of humans we would know if we collected those who identify as things different than us! Maybe our only shared identity is Wool Sock Lover, but suddenly we are comrades because of this!

I don’t know when “identifying as” became so elitist. And I suspect there are runners who want to differentiate themselves from joggers. As far as I can tell, the only difference is one group has less childhood trauma and better GPS watches. But we wouldn’t know unless we asked instead of assumed.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll keep calling myself a runner, even if it one day becomes a thing of the past. Much of who we are seems to reside in our hearts, which I hope will continue to beat long after our running shoes wear out.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com