I was never a natural athlete. Ask anyone who knew me growing up and they will tell you I write the truth; I was more of a natural librarian than a jock in my younger days. I have vivid memories of my grandmother power walking (or bicycling, depending on the time of day) around the parking lot that stretched between the manse and the church, yelling to me as I sat reading on the front porch: "That wasn't what I meant by 'Get some fresh air!'" She would relentlessly pester me until I put my book down and joined her. Meanwhile, my brother was running everywhere, whether he was at track practice or not. We came from the same parents but for some reason his body always wanted move and my body always wanted a nap.
I was relentlessly mocked by the boys (and some of the girls) in gym class. I was awkward personified as a teenager, ducking whenever a ball came my way to jeers of "Linda! Hit the ball! It won't HURT you!" (A small aside; I beg to differ, class jocks. Many years later, as the wife of a seasoned Little League Umpire, I'd like to testify that the ball does indeed hurt you. The proof is on my husband's body every season as pitches go wild and hit him in the chest, the foot, the thigh and other rogue spots not covered by padding. Black and blue speaks a language all its own.) I'd much rather have skipped gym to read my book.
Fast forward a few (cough) years and you will find me now at 32 years old....a runner. (sound of needle jumping the record.)
Running was something I always *wanted* to excel at but never seemed to be able to get started with. I began attempting to become a runner in college, trying once again to figure out how two children who came from the same parents could be so completely disparate in their abilties. My brother runs like a gazelle; fast and graceful, long legs churning up the miles like a really tan Eric Estrada. I run like Frankenstein, gasping and gallumphing, feet slapping the pavement so loud you can hear me a block away. I look like I'm about to die every single time I run. College Me would try to run as long as she could, which was not very long. College Me was also extremely thin (though I didn't think so at the time) so I gave up and continued just walking everywhere in high heels as my only form of exercise. Then I got married and got heavier. Younger, Wifely Me tried the same running program as College Me, desparate to get my college figure back. I wound up feeling like my chest was going to explode as black spots danced before my eyes, so I gave up. Again. Some people are just not runners, I told myself.
But I was frustrated. I wanted to be good at running and it seemed like the most basic sport you could try. How can you fail at running? What would I do if a predator randomly got loose in my development? I would be the fodder that kept that predator busy while other, fitter people sprinted to safety. I hoped they'd have a nice memorial for me. Closed-casket, of course.
This is about the time I started reading
Doctor Mama's maggot posts. I wanted to be a maggot really badly but time and time again, I'd tried running, purchased nice shoes and clothing only to fail and feel even worse for the money I'd wasted. I did not want to fail again. Another friend, Pru, who was a plebe just like me started using a program called Couch to 5k, designed to help people who want to be runners but don't know how to train. So I decided to spring for the 99 cent app and use the worn shoes I already had, hybridizing Doctor Mama's advice with the program that had given Pru such success. And I also decided not to tell too many people about it since I was pretty sure another failure was around the corner.
I started last summer in the middle of the heatwave, jogging after work at night, when it was merely 95 degrees and 88% humidity instead of 105 at 95%. I quickly discovered I loved jogging in the heat. I loved wearing minimal clothing, I loved the way the sweat poured off my body in rivers and I loved how loose and free my muscles felt with the heat of the atmosphere reaching the nearly the same heat as my body. But what I loved even more was the program I was using. For the first time I was training smart, interspersing walking intervals with running, slowly building up the time I could spend continuously running. For the first time in my life, I felt like a real, bonafide athlete.
I started reading Runner's World and devoured the book
Born to Run by Christopher MacDougall. (The librarian in me was still alive and well, with the need to research everything.) I wondered about
barefoot running and
Vibram FiveFingers (backordered until Ragnarok, in case you're thinking of getting a pair.) I started eating differently, not wanting to waste my runs on Big Macs and cheese binges. I felt incredible, invincible.
Then I had to press pause because an ultrasound revealed that my uterus was once again full of dangerous polyps and that I'd need some abdominal surgery as well. Recovery was complicated, as it usually is with me, and by the time I was ready to hit the road again it was colder, schedules were more complicated and we expected that I'd become pregnant soon. And indeed I did, only to miscarry soon after, the baby not strong enough to hold on to my newly refurbished insides.
And that's how it happened that I started running again, as though Id' never left it, as though there has been an athlete inside me all along. Sure, my body has backtracked. I'm heavier than I was in the summer and my cardiovascular system lets me know every time I run that I should have returned soon after surgery instead of pressing pause for pregnancy. My lungs feel shredded at the end of runs I used to rock. But I still go, cold wind whipping down my ear canals, because I know now what other runners have known all along: how to leave my sorrow and anger on the pavement, how pushing through to the end of an interval is nowhere near as painful as some of the other things I've been through recently. How at the end of the run, when the cooldown is over and I'm red and blotchy at my kitchen table gulping water, I feel cleansed. Better.
So if you're driving down my street one day and you see Frankenstein lurching alongside of you, gasping, sweating and mumbling to herself, don't be alarmed. It's only me, your local neighborhood athlete.
