The forefoot runner’s guide to sobriety
Thump, thump. Ding! Thump. Ding! Thump, thump. Ding! Ding! Every time my foot landed too hard on the treadmill, the sensors attached to my ankles emitted a chime. As if hearing it wasn’t enough, I was also forced to watch my galumphing stride articulated on a monitor to the right of the machine, jagged vertical spikes representing my footfalls breaking the horizontal no-go line and prompting an electronic bell. I leaned forward and tried to land closer to my toes. The monitor kept spiking and chiming. Straight ahead, my unsteady reflection bounced awkwardly in a wall-length mirror. Failure everywhere. I could see it, hear it, feel it, enveloping me completely.
But I didn’t have time to wallow, because my physical therapist Lindsay was issuing instructions: “toe out,” “lean forward,” “level your hips,” “swing your arms.” I tried to obey. The chime frequency started to give. Then she pulled the mirror curtain close and I vanished. I was on my own now. Did I mention I was doing all this in a surgical mask? Ding! Ding! Ding!
After 17 years running injury free, I suffered a pelvic stress fracture in 2019, three weeks before Boston. I was sidelined for four months, and when I finally resumed my routine, I was met with a cascade of lesser but equally frustrating injuries along with new pain in my knee. Gait retraining was a last-ditch effort to salvage the center of my physical practice and a psychological and spiritual cornerstone of my sobriety, a place where at six-and-a-half miles an hour, I can find and lose myself at the same time.
By shifting to the front of the feet and dampening the jarring force from a heel strike, I was told you could reduce the load on parts of your body by more than 50 percent, which meant lessening the risk for injuries by half, as well. In addition to the stress fracture, I’d been diagnosed with osteoporosis, unusually early for a male and a runner. I was now an old lady. So in the fall of 2021, I signed up for a 4-month gait retraining program at the National Running Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
First, there was a month-and-a-half of strength work — lunges, planks, doming, single-leg hops, pistol squats, balancing on small balls, calf raises, foam rolling, toe yoga. Countless exercises, in-clinic and take-home. When I finally got on the treadmill in shoes as insubstantial as ballet slippers, feeling every nubble of the belt beneath my feet, progress was incremental and halted by more injuries — ankle strain, pulled calf, posterior tib strain. Things were taking much longer than expected and I didn’t always understand what I was doing or how to correct my mistakes. On several occasions, I was ready to ef it all and return to my old ways, just run until the heels fell off. There was always swimming.
Yet, somehow this struggle felt familiar.
And it struck me. I was back in the tumult of early sobriety, emotions flushed out like bats from a cave. Confusion, teetering faith, vanishing confidence, pain, impatience, self loathing, one eye on the exit. But there was a path forward, a new way to move through the world. Plenty of others had made the transition. With help, I could get there. I just had to let go of my old self, excavate the well-worn grooves in my mind and reroute them, and trust that a new, more authentic me (in minimalist footwear) was waiting.
Below are a few thoughts on sobriety that bubbled up as I learned how to overhaul my running behavior. Some I embraced when I quit drinking, and others I wished I had.
Learning to feel again
“The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground,” Buddha.
One of the first things Lindsay had me do was walk barefoot as much as possible, to work all the muscles in my foot. I felt vulnerable and tentative and moved like an oversized toddler. For years, the only time I went without shoes was to and from the shower or on the beach. I lived in my Doc Martins and Fryes, from morning until bedtime. For added height, for protection, for confidence. I needed the leather and hard toe boxes — walls between me and the world, a space blocking out who I actually was. That was certainly my m.o. as a drinker (though on more than one occasion, I woke up wearing just one shoe). And remained the case as I got sober. I was a snail without its shell, still trailing slime. But clamped in narrow boxes all day, you don’t realize how weak and unfeeling your very foundation becomes, just a pair of shock absorbers with laces.
With time, I grew more comfortable barefoot, gaining strength and dexterity. In fact, I came to love the sensation of the earth beneath my feet, the grass between my toes, the sun-warmed patio stones, even the gravel path. My self-deceptions began to crumble. I was standing at my actual height, a new vantage point, in authentic alignment with the world. This is who I was. Who I needed to be.
Walking barefoot also connected to my boyhood. Running through the grass with airplane arms, sprinting with friends across a field, blades for hands slicing the humid summer air, digging my toes into the sand. Soles buzzing like fireflies at the end of the day. Shame had yet to burrow. I hadn’t learned how to hate myself. For decades, I had blocked that boy out, forgot about him, shunted him away. Now, he was coming back into focus, with his big ears and plastic sheets and being mistaken for a girl, reemerging like a print in a developer’s tray. I could grab his hand, give him a piggyback ride, toss him to the sky. Nothing wrong with that kid at all.
Humility
As a longtime marathoner with a handful of ultras under my belt, who knocked off 100 pushups a day and bike-commuted, it was devastating to have my weaknesses pointed out, especially in my lower body. Despite the dad paunch, I thought I was pretty much the fittest. But my balance sucked, my glutes asleep at the wheel, I could hardly spread my toes, and I ran like a pigeon. Lindsay made adjustments constantly and assigned new exercises. I had to learn not to take them as criticisms or blows to my self esteem, but as opportunities to listen, to get stronger, springboards to change. That was the point after all. No one said it would be comfortable, the ego adheres like Gorilla Glue.
Pain and discomfort are cues to make adjustments. Staying the course only leads to more pain. When the edge of my foot begins wincing and my knee whines, I know I need to land more squarely between by big toe and pinky toe. “One and five” I repeat like a mantra. The same could be said of emotional and psychological pain. Trauma can become an intimate, a comfort in a perverse way, something to cling to. When suffering is the main character of your personal narrative, you keep playing out the same story line (guilty!) and growth is hard to come by. But once you recognize the pain and the causes behind it, you can make plans to lessen the effects. It’s like tuning into a radio frequency on an old car radio. I make tiny little adjustments until the signal feels clear and I hear what I need to find. “One and five, one and five, one and five.”
Change is an orchestra
Remember the injuries and lawsuits surrounding Vibrams, the rubber five-toed shoes that mimicked barefoot running? Heads swooning with Born To Run fever and promises of a more natural injury-free stride, people went straight for the big switch and ended up sidelined with torn calves, ankle sprains, and plantar fasciitis. As I mentioned earlier, before Lindsay would let me climb on the treadmill, I had to prep all the muscles and joints (including toes) that would be called upon to help carry the load. And it wasn’t only about strengthening but getting them to activate in harmony. Change isn’t always about altering one big aspect, but multiple small ones — even sharpening my arm swing produced an incremental shift — that add up to the desired result. You can’t master them all at once, either. Faith and patience are variables, too.
Mind over mind
Aside from leaning forward and lifting my knees, Lindsay wanted me to push the ground back and away after my forefoot came down. “Imagine you’re ice skating.” Of course, I ran on immovable concrete not a frozen pond or airport walkway. But through repetition, visualization, and a mimicking of that movement, my mind began to create the sensation of an ice-skate push-off. My stride felt lighter, smoother. A reminder that the mind is not static, grooves can be changed. You can move the earth.
Ease off the brakes
Lindsay advised me to lean forward when I ran and slightly upward. “Think Buzz Lightyear,” she said. The Toy Story character became a visual mantra. When you lean, she said, you are harnessing momentum to assist, almost like you’re falling forward. Heel strikers tend to lean back and it’s like a stopping motion when you first connect with the ground. Forefoot running produces a smoother, more fluid motion. As I go through life, I try and lean into what I’m doing and not ride the brakes so much.
Accept your strengths
When I put all the pieces together — the lean, the skating motion, the shorter steps, the arm swing, the level hips — I realized I’d become faster, without even trying. I figured my sub-nine days were in the rear view. But lo and behold, an unexpected gift. Sobriety is full of them. In AA they call this “the promises.” I call them “sober linings.” In other words, reaping the sometimes surprising rewards of what you’ve sown over time. Keep sowing.
And before gait retraining, I was used to working hard to maintain my new pace. Now, when I see the numbers on my watch, my brain tells me I should tire soon, that I have a distinct history of not keeping up this speed. You can’t always believe the stories you tell yourself, especially if they tend toward the negative or the weak. I was used to abandoning myself, turning my voice over. For years, I let alcohol and drugs speak for me, like a poorly dubbed movie. Instead of saying I love you, I need you, help me, the words that came out were: fuck you, fuck the world, fuck me. But power dynamics shift, voices change. Just as you accept your faults, you need to accept your strengths.
Move taller and lighter through this world
In my old ways, my longer runs (and some shorter ones) resembled that old “evolution of man” chart, but in reverse. I’d start out strong, but before too long was hunched over, eyes stuck on the ground, arms dragging, feet shuffling, devolving into a boneless creature about to slide into the Charles. That’s no way to run, nor go through life. Running on my forefeet forces me to move taller, which means I can see more of what’s ahead of me and what lies beyond. My steps are shorter and lighter, less intrusive. I’m more aligned with the horizon. How you carry yourself in this world matters, for your dignity, for others, to reinforce that you belong here, that you matter. I’m not always successful, but I’m better at catching myself slouching and recoiling and dropping my eyes, on the road and in daily life. Running tall is a reminder that I can always reach further and take in more of what’s around me.
