Running Through Grief During a Pandemic
by PaFoua Hang
Content warning: Some readers may find this article distressing or triggering. Topics mentioned include COVID-19, death, racism, mental health and grief.
Disclaimer: The views of the author are those of her own and do not reflect the views of Prospect Park Track Club.
Photo of Zoe Mungin (she/her) captured by PaFoua Hang (she/her).
Zoe and I attended Wellesley College together. With similar family backgrounds, we were drawn to each other and the company of strong women at Wellesley. She was the type of friend who was everyone else’s best friend. She had a way with words and wore her heart on her sleeve –– vulnerable, yet fierce and resilient. She was the friend whose shoulder you could cry on, knowing that no topics were off limits and everything you said to her would stay with her. She was the friend who bought you flowers even when she was mad at you. By making herself do something nice for you when she was most upset with you, it reminded her that you were more important to her than whatever small disagreement had happened.
PaFoua (second to right) and Zoe (far right) with former Wellesley classmates in Central Park.
Zoe and I often talked about all the things we would do together someday. How we would someday visit Japan so she can finally use her Japanese. How we would someday hang out more often because she lived less than two miles from me. In fact, we always laughed at how close we lived to each other and yet didn't make it a priority to see each other more frequently. The sad thing about living so close to the people you love and care about is that you take for granted their presence. There is no rush to do anything together today when you will always have tomorrow.
Tamar, PaFoua, Lauren, and Zoe after playing a game of Escape in Chinatown, Manhattan.
In late March 2020, Zoe was diagnosed with COVID-19. She was a Brooklyn teacher, beloved by her students. After a month of fighting COVID-19, Zoe passed away at the young age of 30 in late April 2020. She died alone, but the country was grieving for her. Her story was shared on news and media outlets across the country, highlighting how COVID-19 was exposing and exacerbating the health disparities endured by communities of color. Her story had reached so far that people who didn’t even know her, mourned for her loss. I felt hollowed, shocked, angry, and sad. After a month of grieving and coming to terms with the reality that I would never see her again, I finally started to process our last moments together. During an evening of acrylic painting and wine, we talked about our “someday” bucket list.
“The sad thing about living so close to the people you love and care about is that you take for granted their presence. There is no rush to do anything together today when you will always have tomorrow. ”
After what felt like a long hiatus from running after Zoe’s death, I resumed running again in July 2020 to improve my mental health. My absence from running had taken a toll on my fitness and I was barely able to maintain a 13-minute mile pace in the heat of the summer.
No matter what happened in my life, running was a constant. However, I don’t invest in it as much as I should. I don’t do enough “pre-hab” to make sure I stay healthy for long enough to get the most out of myself. I don’t run consistently enough to ever really feel like a “real” runner. Running was relegated into the back of my subconscious as one of the foundational pillars of my sense of self, yet not strong enough to take meaningful shape in my life. It was just enough to propel me to sign up for a few races once in a while to see if I could still finish a distance on as little training as possible. I have always preferred to run on a whim and only whenever I “feel” like it. I rarely felt like running.
I have avoided training plans because everything else in my life already feels overly structured. However, in an effort to run more consistently and improve my 13-minute pace, I surrendered to the part of me that prefers to structure and control everything. She is the part of me that has guided me from being a refugee in Thailand to the investment banking divisions of Wall Street. She is the part of me I call upon whenever I care enough about anything to do something about it like climbing my first 5.12 within six months of learning how to rock climb and boulder. She is not carefree or fun. I don’t like her much mainly because I fear other people won’t like her intensity, but part of growing up is learning to love and accept the parts of you that feel unlovable. Zoe was a big advocate of never minimizing oneself so other people can feel bigger, and it’s still something I am working on.
With the other part of me controlling the rudder, my more structured running life consisted of six days of running (whether or not I felt like it), two days of speed work, and one long run per week. The predictable schedule was grueling and left me weary beyond comprehension, but in some twisted way, the routine also freed me from the pandemic’s iron grip of hopelessness.
“Zoe has shown me that if you are not willing to stand up for anything, you stand for nothing.”
I am usually reticent about expressing my political views publicly, but Zoe has shown me that if you are not willing to stand up for anything, you stand for nothing. Many of my workouts were filled with rage and disappointment about the political climate that has dragged our country onto the edge of a precipice, weighed down further by the pandemic.
One of my best workouts during the summer was after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. After despairing about the precarious future of women’s, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights, the environment and climate, healthcare, voting and accepting the inevitable fate that Justice Ginsburg’s seat would be replaced before the new election, I finally dragged my hollow shell of a body to Red Hook and ran one of my strongest base mileage workouts. I felt empty, light and numb.
Red Hook interval workout on the day after Justice Ginsburg’s passing.
Most of my non-workout runs felt pretty numb. There wasn’t joy in running during this period. I was either feeling incredibly sad or didn’t feel anything at all. When you’re so used to feeling sad, sometimes not feeling anything is a welcome reprieve. I would use the time on my feet to process what was in my head and in my heart.
During my slow runs, I often thought about Zoe and racism in the medical and healthcare industry –– how she tried to get tested for COVID-19 three times but was denied until her condition worsened that she required intubation. The medical staff assumed that she was just a Black woman being overly dramatic about her health. I thought about Ahmaud Arbery and the idea that the sight of a Black man running could look so threatening and suspicious to someone that they felt driven to execute him in broad daylight. I thought about how my stepdad, who is a Black man, had to intervene and convince teachers who doubted my younger brothers’ high math and reading levels. Because in the suburbs of Minnesota, Blasian (Black and Asian) kids who seemed shy and quiet couldn’t possibly be consistently scoring way above their grade levels, especially with a Hmong immigrant mother who shied away from PTA meetings.
During long tempo runs when I start to fade or get bored, I find myself thinking of Zoe and how lucky I am to just be able to run. Upset with my own ingratitude for life, privilege and opportunities that Zoe never had and will never have, I either surge to snap my whiny self awake to speed up or just enough to hang on until the finish.
Hanging on during a tempo paced by Sean.
After six months of running mostly alone, I finally asked Pam, Alison, Rachael, and Sara to join me on long runs. I was intimidated and worried they were going to tell me I was too slow to run with them, but they all said yes. And now our Saturday long runs have become the rice dish of my training. I look forward to seeing these strong women every week and I am so grateful for their friendship.
Long run group selfie with PaFoua, Rachael, Pam, Sara, and Alison (L⇒R).
In February this year, I went to Georgia to run an in-person half marathon with strict COVID protocols (everyone was expected to be self-supported with no water stations). I have been training really hard and was hoping for a PR, but the conditions were the polar opposite of what I was used to. While I trained through one of the coldest and snowiest winters in NYC, race day was ~70 degrees Fahrenheit with 100% humidity.
When I told my airbnb host that the race had been moved from Atlanta to Hampton to allow more room for social distancing, he cautioned that I should be careful because it was a Red county. He was afraid I would stick out for being a small Asian woman traveling alone. I thought about Ahmaud Arbery and the ongoing hate crimes against Asians, and tried not to let it get to me, but I have to admit, I was more anxious than usual. I even thought about how I could look less Asian with my long straight black hair. After getting heat exhaustion from the Vermont 100 Miler two summers ago, I know I’m heat-sensitive, so the idea of potentially being hospitalized in a MAGA county while alone was at the front of my mind.
Running in Georgia reminded me of Zoe and the racial inequities in healthcare and in the national and global vaccination efforts. It reminded me of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis, and their battles for civil rights that we’ve been fighting for in this country for over 400 years. I thought about Stacey Abrams and Georgia’s Black voters who fought to stay in long lines to vote for a democracy that has continued to fail them. I thought again about Ahmaud Arbery, who was gunned down in Georgia just a year ago for doing exactly what I was doing.
Photos PaFoua took during shake out runs in Atlanta.
It has been eight months since I started running again during this pandemic. COVID-19 is still here, and there is still so much uncertainty about the future. I still think about Zoe and the long road ahead for racial equality. But if there is anything I have gained from this period of pandemic running and grieving, it’s that I just have to take one step in front of the other, regardless of how I feel or how many more miles I have to go. A new day will come.
An Instagram post by Zoe from March 2019, exactly one year before she contracted COVID-19.
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Text by PaFoua Hang (she/her)
Edited by Linda Chan (she/her)
Photos provided by PaFoua Hang
Produced by Rachael DePalma (she/her)