I can run like the wind blows

Here in Ukraine, especially in the fall/winter/spring, I am not often taken for a foreigner. I’ve stopped leaving the house with wet hair, and I know better than to sit on the ground or any other cold surface. I put on makeup to leave the apartment just to go to the grocery store and can scowl and grumble with the masses when people are shoving on the bus. I get asked for directions/time/information a lot, and have long lost my habit of instinctively smiling at things I like (such as children, kittens, and children with kittens). All of this, this not being noticed as a foreigner, goes out the window when I go running.

In general, Ukraine is not a country of casual athleticism, especially outdoor casual athleticism. Just about every boy under 18 plays football (soccer) and a lot of them on teams. There are lots of sport clubs. But the concept of regular people just running and jogging about isn’t one that is popular and widespread.

That said, peoples’ reactions to seeing me running are varied. When I first got to Donestk last year, it was January. I would run in my Yaktrax and I pretty much blew the minds of anyone I saw. They would call out:

“Aren’t you cold? Put on more clothes! You’re going to die very soon!”

I once had a woman tell me she was glad she wasn’t my mother, because she wouldn’t have to kill me and put me out of the misery I would suffer from the illness I was about to catch, while running in the snow.

The citizens of Donetsk eventually got used to the sight of me running. The people in my building tell me about how they used to be athletes when they were young, how they have sons and daughters who are also sportsmen. When walking by the police station after a long run, a man once told me “Keep running, girl! You can do it! Let’s go!”

(I do occasionally get negative comments like “Miss, just eat less and you won’t have to run” or “How are you going to lose weight if you don’t run longer?” But those aren’t amusing and funny.)

This winter I bought a killer pair of boots to rock around town and although I looked stylish, the pain they brought left me icing my Achilles tendons daily. Coupled with general need to hibernate during the cold season, that pain kept me indoors through mid-March. My first week of running this spring brought these comments from passerby:

“There she goes! Running again. Why didn’t you run in the winter?”

“It was cold.”

“Last year was colder and you still ran. You must try harder for your sport!”

I appreciate the notion that in their eyes I am an athlete, a sportsman, as they say it. I spent the majority of my life so far being a fiercely competitive swimmer. I devoted multiple hours of every day of every year for 11 years to sport and athleticism. I lived to go fast in water. Nowadays, I run because I need something else. It’s discouraging to feel that I have lost the part of me that was once an athlete. I am still not yet a runner. Thus, the other day when a woman stopped in her tracks, smiled and said “Oh-ho! Sportsman on the road,” I couldn’t help but smile and briefly embrace her ideas about athletes.

Although they consider me an athlete, this doesn’t excuse or mask my inappropriate foreign tendencies. I don’t go to the track and run. I run on the streets. That would be fine, if I did like the masses and walked and ran on the right side of the street. However, I was scolded so many times as a child about making sure to walk against traffic so that cars can see me, that I am made physically uneasy by running with traffic. I wear short shorts and old t-shirts and my shoes are often muddy. Ukrainians tend to be impeccably dressed in public so my sweaty, disheveled, smudgy appearance probably makes them uncomfortable.

I’ve grown accustomed to the comments and stares of the people in the neighborhood. While average people out of my district might not realize that I’m not Ukrainian, it is possible they will soon- whether it’s when they see me running in ugly clothes, when I open I mouth to speak, or when hot weather comes to stay and I refuse to put on shoes other than flip flops, I’m not sure. Since I’m going to be found out anyway, I’ve decided to re-adopt and modify a habit that will put a spotlight on my American status:

While running, I am going to smile at every kitten and baby that I see.

Babies haven’t figured out that smiling at strangers is not part of the cultural norm in Ukraine. I am going to take advantage of that by relishing in the happiness that is passed from one joyful face to another by a simple smile. As for the kittens, I just like them a lot.