It was the late 1970s, and like everyone else, we ran.

We were teenaged girls and we ran cross country and track.

We ran for fun, we ran to escape.

We ran to get in shape, sometimes even to compete.

Mostly we ran to simply adjust to our changing bodies, to feel proud of our muscled thighs and chiseled calves.

We ran to give the finger to the boy’s gaze, to their judging comments and sexist jokes.

My sister could stay up with the boys pack. In fact, she often beat them, she won medals in the track and field distance events.

She ran the mile, that uniquely rigorous feat that proved both physical and mental strength. She ran the brutal 400, the event that required an explosive speed.

She was a faster runner, but still I ran too.

I ran from the fat jokes, the insecurity, the fear that I would never be good enough, thin enough, that I’d never be seen for who I was – for my brain, my sense of humor, my kindness.

Junior year, my sister placed second in the West Virginia State championships. What can I say but that she was simply amazing.

But after that she gave up running. Running took her to a dangerous place. Things happened and she lost her running for a while.

Flash forward to the 1980s. She and I were pregnant with our firstborn, and still we ran.

We ran to take a break from the household, get a chance to recalibrate, to put the pieces of our selves back together.

We were still young and resilient. We felt instinctually that our bodies were made for this, we ran while weaning babies and chasing toddlers.

And then the children grew up. And we ran with an urgency, a striving need to reclaim the strong thighs and hard abs gone soft.

We both struggled with depression, eating disorders and marital problems. She divorced and moved to another town. We both did lots of therapy.

And many years later, I still ran slow miles on the trail in my neighborhood.

I ran to bolster my midlife self esteem. I ran to keep my moods in check.

And sometimes I would think back to our long runs from high school, the way my sister and I would talk and make sense of what we thought were the big problems.

And we thought we knew what those were.

Still we thought we were smarter and stronger than the men in trucks yelling crude obscenities at us. Smarter than the leering assholes who scanned our legs and breasts. Smarter than the boys pressuring us to have sex.

But still we owned this: the gentle pounding of our shoes and our syncopated breath. Our shoulders grazing, lungs puffing – there was an honesty that only the running together could give us.

And we thought we could somehow outrun the cultural messages all around us.

But still we owned this: the gentle pounding of our shoes and our syncopated breath. Our shoulders grazing, lungs puffing, there was an honesty that only the running together could give us.

Those days there was no #MeToo movement, there was just a lot of girls running to stay ahead of the sexism.

In reality, every girl I ever knew faced down some kind of sexual harassment. It came with the territory of being a girl.

All we wanted was a real coach, not a driver’s ed teacher. And we also wanted our own uniforms.

All we wanted was a real coach, not a driver’s ed teacher. And we wanted new uniforms.

And finally the #MeToo Movement was the oxygen that brought our memory back.

I think it allowed us a chance to revisit the toxic running culture we carried with us.

It’s funny how you can be so incredibly strong but so vulnerable at the same time.

Because our pride, our guts on the running track, kind of gave us a misplaced idea of power. We fell into a catch-22 of eating disorders and distorted body image.

And our vulnerability, our sex, was never protected by the insensitive coach or the groping boyfriend.

The boys never had to go through this, they owned their bodies, they were free to use and abuse their autonomy.

Looking back, I think we believed that equality would come with time. That we would outgrow the insecurity, like bell bottom jeans and big hair.

That things were moving forward.

But really the remembering is the only path back to healing, the acknowledging of the shame housed in those long ago locker rooms.

I think I can finally understand, not just cognitively, but on some physical level, that we were never to blame.

We just ran. We didn’t ask for the harassment.

To heal is to expose, to laser-cut the pain, and to hold it up to our families, to our communities. To call out and lay bare our shame.

And today I see that years ago we ran for so many complicated reasons.

We ran in fear, we ran confused.

We ran with and against the abusive climate of the times. We ran, all the while fighting against our own selves when we didn’t even know it.

And we ran to escape the systemic truths we were never built to understand at that tender age.

We ran because on some level we thought our bodies could withstand the abuses of men.

We thought that the world was changing, that the world was finally made for us.

But our endurance gave us the false belief that our running would protect us.

And now I recognize how critical it is to know what we know– to put the pieces of memory back together. So that my sister and I, now almost 60, can finally let go.

Because the trauma from the past is buried in our bodies, muscle memory. The beautiful runs, the jagged pain. All of it, is still with us.

And until we stop pushing it down, and tell our stories, that hurt will never completely heal.

But my sister and I are doing the work and we are healing. We’re in this together, like when we slogged through those killer 10 milers along the Kanawha River.

Those runs were so tough, but just when one of us would want to quit, the other would push.

We were, and are, stronger together.

And finally, the truth was this; we are women and we run, and that is enough.