After a Violent Sexual Assault, Running Gave Me My Life Back
Stepping out onto the paved drive in front of our quiet house, my three sons and husband still sleeping peacefully inside, I inhale the crisp early morning air. Darkness still shrouds the neighborhood, casting shadows that seem to follow me. It’s the only time the world is quiet.
Since my very first run, six years ago when I was 27, pre-dawn has always been my favorite time of day. Even if it meant dragging myself from a warm bed, I embraced the darkness. I'd find my stride just as the sun came up and painted the pavement with its orange and pink hues.
That was until, a little over a year ago when I was violently sexually assaulted.
My assault did not happen while I was running, but the deep trauma I was left with was so visceral it formed an invisible anchor around my feet. An anchor which for months afterwards, made it physically impossible to go out into the world. Let alone run through the darkness.
I started running because I was in desperate need of some quiet. Three kids, one of which at the time was a newborn, had my body and mind working overtime. I started with a handful of 5Ks, moving on to a 10K just under a year after my first race. I never shied away from a challenge. Balancing home, a career and running five days a week earned me the nickname “pit bull” by family and friends. I was stubborn, strong, and when I wanted something, nothing could stop me from getting it.
My first big goal was to complete a half marathon before I turned thirty. Sundays went from hang-out-in-pajamas day to long run day, logging anywhere from 9 to 10 miles. My route would wind through the tree-lined streets of our subdivision, down to the farmers market and back around the harbor. Every mile marker took me further from my problems, replaced with that euphoric feeling where your whole body aches, your feet burn, and your heart might beat out of your chest, but you cannot wait to do it again. You feel powerful. Invincible even.
After achieving my half marathon goal, the natural progression was to sign up for the full 26.2. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t get that chance.
My husband and I have been together for twelve years, four of which we have been polyamorous. Which in layman's terms means we allow each other the opportunity to form non-monogamous relationships with other people. We know it’s not a traditional lifestyle, but since adopting polyamory we have never been happier or closer as a couple. After chatting with the man I had met on a dating website for polyamorous people for well over a week, I safely assumed he was just a regular joe.
But from the moment we sat down across from each other in the restaurant, I had a bad vibe. Bad enough that I chose to politely decline his constant offers to buy me anything other than a soda. Eventually I came up with a believable excuse, that my babysitter needed to leave for the night, and attempted to end the date. I thanked him for the evening and started toward my car, parked nearby. He followed me outside. I needed to walk past his car to get to the parking lot that held mine and he used this opportunity.
Cornering me between his car and the next, he insisted it was too dark and too late to let a “pretty girl” like myself walk alone. Grabbing my arm so tightly I would later have fingerprint shaped bruises, he shoved me into the front seat of his vehicle.
This was the moment every young girl is warned about and all I could think of was the sage advice passed down by generation after generation of women. Don’t be rude, it’ll only make him angry. If you want to say no, make it clear you mean no. But none of that mattered because within seconds of getting in the driver's side, he had locked the doors, hopped over the console, and flattened his body on top of mine. No amount of “NO” could stop all six-feet, 200 pounds of predator from getting what he wanted.
I was sexually violated in most every way you could think of. I was slapped, bitten, threatened, and punched. I was told if I even thought about screaming, he would kill me. He told me I “belonged to him” and if I told anyone, he would find me. And I believed him.
After what felt like an eternity, he released me from his car and sent me on my way. As if we had just been two kids making out at the drive-in. That night I went home with chunks of my hair ripped out, scratches and bruises on my face and blood in my jeans. Broken.
I became housebound. Unless I needed to go to work or pickup my sons from school, I did not leave. And even then, I begged my husband to escort me everywhere, especially after dark. I was no longer the pit bull I had been before. I was timid, skittish, easily frightened. I was a wreck.
Several weeks of hiding from my own shadow later, I finally saw a therapist who diagnosed the PTSD that I had been unknowingly suffering from. It explained why I would wake in the middle of the night, hyperventilating and shaking in fear. Why the scent of certain colognes would send a chill down my spine. Why the dark terrified me.
I was put on medication and started seeing my therapist once a week. And that helped for a while. But I knew it wasn’t enough, I knew I needed something more. Something more instinctual to help me release the pent-up anger and resentment I was keeping neatly tucked away. I needed to run.
When I decided to reclaim the early morning, it took five attempts to work up the courage to open the front door. It took five more to step outside. It took nearly fifty more attempts to walk to the bottom of my driveway. None resulted in running, and all ended in fear, guilt, and disappointment.
“So why not just run during the day, when it’s light out?” my husband suggested. It is safer, sure. Daylight gives you the ability to see anyone approaching, whether they’re a little old lady walking her dog or a big bad guy who wants to drag you into the bushes. Which now had become a legitimate fear of mine. I can’t say I didn’t try. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I set out to attempt a short jog around the block. I made it nearly 100-yards before the heavy footfalls of another runner, a man nearly twice my size sent me high tailing it for home.
Another day, I drove out to one of my favorite running trails. I had been out and back on these trails nearly a hundred times. I knew every stick, tree, and fern that shouldered its route. And yet standing at the mouth of the trail, looking into the suddenly nefarious forest, I was completely unable to move my feet any deeper into the woods.
Fears trailed behind me, weighing me down every time I attempted to run. But the biggest thing that held me back was my fear of what I couldn’t see and what I couldn’t control. I knew if I ever wanted to run again, I had to conquer my fear of the dark, which meant I had to conquer my 5 a.m. run.
So against all my logical mind’s better judgement, one morning I took a literal leap of faith. I stepped out into the darkness and put one foot in front of the other. At first it wasn’t running, so much as fleeing, chased by all the bad things that had happened and could happen. Every shadow sent my mind racing. Every rustle in the grass beyond my vision had my steps slowing. I felt like an animal being hunted. And then, without knowing it, I hit a stride. My feet fell into a rhythm, an easy cadence against the pavement. Fear still in my heart, I tried to focus on the familiar. Even when another early bird passed with a polite nod, and I had to fight the urge to turn on my heels and head home, I pushed forward, faster. Before I knew it, I was closing in on 3 miles and decided to circle back.
I had never felt as powerful before or after as I did during the final stretch of that run. Seeing my house up ahead, bathed in the glow of the sun rising, I could feel the exhaustion reaching every inch of my body. And yet I could feel my muscles aching for more-just one more step, one more mile. Leaving the road and jogging to a stop in my driveway, all I could think about was my next run. And as I stood there panting, hands on my knees, feeling empowered and renewed, a neighbor somewhere nearby slammed their car door and my heart rocketed into my throat. One run couldn’t take away the deeply rooted trauma, but it was a start.
Even though I don’t run at 5 a.m. every day-maybe only two or three times a week now-it is once again and still my favorite time to run. It’s encouraged me to revive my goal of achieving my first full marathon by 35, giving me a reason to keep moving. The quiet has forced me to focus on my form, stride, and splits instead of the crushing weight of trauma. The dark has made me see that bravery comes in many forms.
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