If I Can’t Run, I Can Walk

Spring came around for the second time since I’d entered high school. The afternoons turned soft; the drowsiness after lunch was something I fought through as I learned how to be a student again after months back from the hospital.

Every year our school held a Spring Festival—half sports, half arts—spread over four days. The sports side meant volleyball, basketball, and the like; the arts side meant writing, painting, and other creative work. Everyone had to enter one event and spend the rest of the time cheering for classmates. It was a student-run affair in the best sense.

The finale was always a “marathon”: start on the school track, run through downtown Geochang to a turnaround, then back the same way to finish on campus. It wasn’t a full 42.195 km, of course, but it carried the same end-of-festival weight. Like the Olympic marathon crowns the Games, ours closed the week.

Technically everyone participated, but opting out was easy. If you were injured—or just felt off—you could sit it out. No one gave you grief.

I agonized over whether to run. It had been less than six months since my heart surgery. I wanted to line up, but I wasn’t sure I should. And if something went wrong because I pushed too hard, it wouldn’t just be my problem; it would wound the people who loved me.

But I didn’t want to bow out either. There’s a difference between choosing not to run and being unable to run. One is preference; the other is a boundary. If I stayed off the course, it would be the latter. I wasn’t ready to accept that line without even testing it.

A few days before the festival, I went for my regular checkup and asked my cardiologist, Professor Yoon, if I could run. He didn’t hedge. “Absolutely not,” he said—short and firm.

Hearing “no” lit a fuse. I thought, If I finish despite that warning, then anytime someone tells me “you can’t,” I won’t have to shrink. It’s my life to live. No one can live it for me. Even if the whole world says no, I still decide whether to take that no.

So on the final morning, I stood on the field with everyone else. Hundreds of students stretched to the starter’s count from the steps of the main building. I drifted to the very back. If a teacher spotted me there might be a well-meaning order to stand down. I faced forward like everyone else, copying the warm-up quietly and loosening my legs.

A single pistol crack split the sky. We funneled through the narrow school gate and spilled into town, grains of sand through an hourglass. The campus sat on a hill; the opening kilometer dropped away underfoot. Easy running, almost pleasant. Maybe this will be fine, I thought.

The course left asphalt for a packed-earth path. The mass that had started as a clump stretched into a long ribbon, front and back lost to distance. I sat somewhere in the middle. I jogged lightly; when it felt like too much, I walked. Then jogged again. I didn’t care about time—I just didn’t want to drift all the way to the tail.

About thirty minutes in, the first crisis hit. A band tightened around my chest. It had happened before and usually passed, so I tried to breathe through it. This time it worsened. I stopped, hands on knees, eyes on the ground, pulling air in ragged gulps. No change. Cold sweat beaded. I squatted down, fear rising at how little control I had. A teacher jogged over, told me to slow my breathing and take it easy. After about ten minutes the vise loosened.

I shook out my hands and legs and rejoined the flow. From there I refused to push. I didn’t run; I walked briskly. When even that felt too fast, I slowed. Others began to pass me in steady streams. I didn’t mind. My goal was finishing. Then, oddly, some of the faster kids started dropping out. As they peeled off, I told myself, I’ll finish—late is still finishing.

A while later, the leaders came toward us on the opposite side of the path, already headed home. Turnaround must be close, I thought. It wasn’t. I kept walking, and still it didn’t appear. That was fine; at least I knew it existed somewhere ahead.

Only after I’d covered the same distance we’d been separated by did the turn come into view. As front-runners rounded it, they clapped and shouted, “Let’s go!” to those still inbound. When I finally circled the cone, I did the same for the people behind me. And I caught myself thinking, I can cheer for someone else. I can be that kind of person.

Heading back was easier than heading out. At this pace, I could make it.

Then the second crisis hit. The squeeze returned, sharper. Even a fast walk felt like too much. I squatted again. A teacher rushed up, and this time a car pulled in alongside us. In my head, two voices collided.

If this is what living is, maybe I’d rather die. Either die trying today, or finish and live properly.

And the truer voice: I’m scared. I want to live. There’s so much I haven’t done. Mom and Dad. My little sibling. The tug-of-war started.

Quit here? Or finish even if it costs me?

I stood up and chose a third way. Fine. I’ll finish—walking.

To the small circle around me I said out loud, “I can’t run, but I can walk.” I promised I wouldn’t jog another step. Only after I repeated it did they wave me on.

The road emptied. It was just me and the white line. Teachers, spaced like sentries along the course, watched quietly as I went by. Time lost its edges. At last the final incline to campus rose ahead—two hundred meters of steep pavement I’d have to climb to call this a finish in my own memory.

I spent what I had left on that hill. At the gate, classmates stepped out and applauded. I was grateful, too spent to smile.

On the field, clusters of students lounged in the grass. My first clear thought was simple and enormous: I’m one of them. No one could dispute it; I’d proved it to myself. I walked past the clapping, into the middle of the kids who were “no different,” and lay down on the track with a peace I hadn’t felt in a long time.

That day taught me something non-negotiable: this is my life. No one else can live it. Everyone has their own. Illness isn’t a reason to despair; health isn’t a license to gloat. When the world looks at you with doubt, you only need one person to hold the line for you—you.

Yourself.

Later I learned I’d finished third from last. I hadn’t realized there were two people behind me. I hope, wherever they are, that finish lives with them as vividly as it does with me.