Untamed: We Can Do Hard Things
What Running (and Glennon Doyle) Taught Me About the Untamed Life
Think of yourself in outline. What fills the space inside? Is it who you are, or who others decided you should be? Parents, friends, society—they draw the box. Being untamed means stepping outside of it.
Glennon Doyle writes about this in Untamed. On the surface, she had the perfect life: thin, married, successful. Underneath, she was suffocating. Her truth was elsewhere—loving a woman, reshaping her faith, reclaiming herself. She asks:
What do I love? What makes me come alive? Who is the soul beneath all of these roles?
That’s the work of living untamed. Returning to what feels most like you.
For me, that’s running. Not the tidy narrative—college, retirement, “real life.” Not the pro contract. Something in between. Competitive still, because I can’t let go. Because this is who I am at my core.
Running, like being untamed, demands honesty. The willingness to keep showing up as yourself, even when it’s hard, even when the world expects you to turn away.
“Here’s to The Untamed; May we know them. May we raise them. May we love them. May we read them. May we elect them. May we be them.” ~ Glennon Doyle
Dirt roads of my city
6 mile hill run on dirt back roads
A few reminders I carry from Untamed that I outlined in my own copy of the book:
You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah.
Ten is when children begin to hide who they are in order to become what the world expects them to be.
I say to myself every few minutes: This is hard. We can do hard things. And then I do them.
Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model. Own your wanting. Eat the apple. Let it burn.
You need to make sure the eyes in the mirror are the eyes of a woman you respect.
This is what it means to be untamed. To keep running toward yourself. You Are Untamed. In all the best ways possible.
Post-run Polariods
