Almost a month ago, Trisha Pendill started a Facebook group called "Marathon Before School." In a nutshell, participants would record his/her mileage until the first day of school; the challenge was to accumulate enough mileage to have run a marathon (26.2 miles). Since I was running anyway, I decided to join.
Since July 27, I have tallied 45.6 miles, almost two marathons. Prior to July 27, I had been averaging about 13 miles a week, but I hadn't officially been keeping track either. Today, as I was completing my last mile toward home, I started to do some informal math in my head. The long and short of it is that by the end of the summer, I will have basically run to Minneapolis and back.
Holy crap. Not bad for a recovering fat girl.
Ok, now I have to explain.
In elementary school, I was the fat kid in my class. No, thanks; really, I'm ok. No need to pass the Kleenex box or crank up the sad, after-school-special soundtrack music. It is what it is, and it was what it was. Every class has one, and mine happened to have me.
From the second grade on, I was the one elected to tackle the guys during the ridiculous yet wildly popular (and nowadays, absolutely politically incorrect) game that we called "Girls Catch the Boys and Kiss Them" because, well, I was the biggest girl who could take them down. I was also unofficially given the nickname, Tank, by a particular red-headed classmate *.
During my 5th grade year, I cleverly avoided the playground at recess by volunteering to stay in to correct papers for Mr. Jasper. It was a win-win for both of us.
All fat kids, including me, share a common enemy, however. And that is the dreaded, annual Presidential fitness award requirements. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. . .the chin-up, sit-up, run-a-mile torture tests that kids have to endure just to acquire a circular piece of fabric, aka a patch, that says Presidential Fitness Award **.
The tests themselves, while unpleasant, were an annual torment, but they were nothing compared to the humiliation of having to do them in front of your peers. This degradation was compounded even more by the fact that the tests were done in alphabetical order (more than likely to accommodate the tester and his/her clipboard checklist).
To explain, my second cousin always preceded me in these tests. Where I was fat and infatuated with sedentary activities such as watching TV ***, reading, and doing puzzles, Darice was lithe and athletic and breezed through the tests without breaking a sweat.
On one particular occasion, I remember that we all had to line up by the monkey bars on the playground. Each took a turn (while the others watched, of course) at walking toward the gallows (fine, that' s a little dramatic, I agree) and assuming the chin-up position and hanging there ****.
Check. Check. Check. We were clipping along through the list of my classmates, and then, it was Darice's (second cousin) turn, and of course, as you can probably guess, she set the class record for hanging there the longest at well over a minute.
Neato.
Now, it was my turn.
I made it exactly four seconds. Fail. Hey, cut me some slack. I was fighting more gravity than she did.
Anyway, I lost a bit of chub in junior high, and once I joined volleyball in 10th grade*****, the weight just fell off. For the first time, I was looking good and wanted to stay that way.
Once sports were over, though, I discovered that the pounds would creep on quickly if I didn't stay active, so a stationary bike and I became good friends******, and that's how I stayed relatively (for me) slim throughout high school.
College, however, was a different animal. High carb was life, and I found I had to work relentlessly to keep the weight at bay. This is when I delved into the underworld of eating disorders, which majorly screwed up the next five years of my life (but that's a subject for a different day).
Shortly after we married, I began two love affairs - one with my husband and the other with my cooking*******. I packed on a lot of weight in the first year of our marriage, and after being horrified by a Christmas picture in which a double-chin was a prominent feature on my face, I was on the move again.
Throughout the twenty+ years of marriage, child-raising, and career, walking has been my most effective fitness technique. As an early riser, my early morning walks helped me to clear my head, pray, and keep fit. When the kids were little, we three would bike a lot while Daddy was at work, and in recent years, I have decided to challenge myself by running.
In 2010, when I turned 40, I cranked it up a notch. I decided to complete the Minnewaska Triathlon, which is a 400 yard swim, 11 mile bike ride, and 2.5 mile run. Naturally, on the day of the Tri, it was thundering, lightning, raining, and cold. I was just about crying because I felt so out of my league with all the hard bodies around me. But, my die-hard cheerleader was there (Mike), and he was snapping 8,000 pictures, encouraging me to just go. In the end, it was just the right challenge for me, and I successfully completed the course. I can remember tearing up during the bike ride because I thought to myself, "You are really doing this, and you're not dying!"
So that brings me to today.
I am 43 years old. By the end of the summer, my running shoes will have covered somewhere between 175 and 200 miles of pavement and gravel. This former fat girl is completely recovered. You know how I know? My first concern is no longer weight; I haven't stepped on a scale all summer. I am strong. I am healthy. I love to push my body and see what it can do, and isn't that what fitness is all about?
*Funny story. . .years later, I had said red-headed boy's daughter in class. Somehow she learned of the connection between me and her dad, and she seriously thought I was going to fail her because of it. I am so not making that up. Wow.
** Look at this face. Do I LOOK as though I covet said patch? Do I really care if the president thinks I am fit? No, no I do not. Back away with the clipboard, and no one gets hurt.
***Mork and Mindy, Happy Days, Dukes of Hazzard. . .I will totally ROCK you at 80s trivia.
**** Seriously. How is hanging in the chin-up position a test of fitness? How many basketball players do you see hanging on the rim after stuffing the ball? How many volleyball players hang on the net for an indeterminate amount of time? It might be a useful skill if you are Indiana Jones and are hanging on for dear life so that you don't plummet into a rocky cavern below, but yeah, not sure, Mr. President, how you reasoned that one out.
***** Don't judge. Late bloomer. Let's just say I was a rock star setter. . .on the C team. . .where most of my teammates were at least two years younger than me. Don't judge.
******We became BFFs with my old pal, the TV (Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Falcon Crest - see ***)
*******My cooking was not very good. at all. But I think I ate all the leftovers to try to convince myself and Mike that my cooking was good. I think he lost weight that year.
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