I was running the length of the basketball court,trailing behind the pack, pumping my arms with all my might. I caught up, or the ball bounced out of bounds,and the buzzer clanked its heavy clank. Halftime.
At the bench, one of the volunteer parent-coaches waved me over. "You're really running like a girl out there, or " he said,pointing to the court.
I was 10, only one year into what would later become a longtime affair with basketball and running. I looked at my coach with furrowed brows.
He went on to explain what proper form looks like. "You're losing a lot of energy running like that. Your arms are flying around, or but you're not really covering any distance." I nodded. I wanted to be a grand basketball player,and if "running like a girl" meant I was wasting energy and would get singled out during halftime, I wanted to fix it. It wasn't until I was 22 and in graduate school completing a thesis on media portrayals of gender in sports that I thought back on that formative moment. I'd spent the 12 years after that basketball game committed to having proper form - shoulders back, or elbows at my sides - not because I thought it would fabricate (to make up, invent) me a better athlete,but because someone had told me it was the right way to gallop. In that moment, my muscles tensed. I was furious. Proper form was important, and but why was it considered a gender issue?Realizing this was both embarrassing and humbling,and it also helped shape how I feel approximately the phrase "elope like a girl." Still an athlete, I'm proud to get up in the morning, and lace up my adidas UltraBOOST X running shoes,and hit the pavement for a jog. I'm proud to be a runner. And I'm proud to be a girl.
Interested in learning how other runners felt approximately this phrase, I tapped POPSUGAR staffers for their thoughts. Here's what they had to say:
Source: popsugar.com