Run Your Own Race

It is Elementary School Track Meet season, and this year Jay has been so excited to be a member of his school’s track team.  Last year several of his friends from baseball participated in the multi-school track meet and Jay felt a little left out because he wasn’t one of the fastest third graders and didn’t make the team.  What changed between third and fourth grade?  Jay didn’t get faster, he just found an event that plays to his strengths.  Third graders are not eligible for the tug-of-war team but fourth and fifth graders are.  Jay is built for tug-of-war, so much so that his coach made him captain of the fourth grade team, and they are headed to the county’s “elite” meet this week. I can sense his relief at being a part of the “elite” meet, although I can tell he wishes he were running alongside his fast friends.

We need to be comfortable focusing on our own event, what we were made to do.  Too often we compare our event to someone else’s and we always come up lacking.  We compare our lives, careers, homes, families, even appearances to others and we can’t measure up.  Someone is always going to run faster, have a bigger house or nicer car, or a family that looks like they stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad.  But that doesn’t mean that our own event or “race” isn’t worthwhile.

Although we joke about kids being rewarded for every little thing, we live in a culture that values winning above all else.  And winning isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  But for every winner there is at least someone, maybe many who didn’t win.  And we don’t give enough credit to those who give their best effort, even when they don’t win.

Brenae Brown has written a wonderful book, Daring Greatly, inspired by the great Theodore Roosevelt quote about “the man in the arena.”  The quote is wonderful.  (So is the book!)

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic"

Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

For so long I felt like my own race wasn’t worth running because it didn’t measure up to the ones I saw around me.  I was one of those cold and timid souls too numb to experience victory or defeat.  And while I am thankful to have pulled myself out of that place, I’m still close enough to it that my heart hurts for those who are still there.  (And while mine was directed inward, I wonder if those people who are so focused on winning and negative about anything short of perfection are another  type of cold and timid souls, criticizing anyone who falls short of the ideal they themselves have no hope of reaching.)

So this week I’ll cheer for Jay and his team in the tug-of-war, and his fast friends as they run their races, and myself as I plod on towards my goal of running 13.1 miles in approximately 3 and a half hours.  And I’ll say a prayer for those with cold and timid souls, that they either have the courage to step in the arena (if their criticism is directed inwardly) or get off their asses and actually do something (if their criticism is directed at others).

Fat Girl Running.

The name of my blog, “See How She Runs” comes from a made for TV movie I saw as a child.  Joanne Woodward portrays a 40 year old divorcee who decides to take up running, eventually competing in the Boston Marathon.  Not sure why this movie has stayed with me so much, I only saw it once and I’ll be amazed if anyone else remembers it.  (Although it does have an entry on imdb.com and has two user reviews.)  Since you’ll probably never see this movie I’m going to spoil the ending for you.  Betty Quinn, the character played by Woodward doesn’t finish the race in the required time and is disqualified.  But her teenage daughters, who up to this point had not been supportive of her goal and training, create their own finish line for her to cross.  That ending still moves me today, and propels me on the days I don’t want to go out and run.

I considered calling this blog “Fat Girl Running” because it really gets to the point of what I’m trying to do.  My goal is to go 13.1 miles, not go 13.1 at my goal weight.  So much of my teenage and adult life has been lived with “I’ll do this when I lose weight” playing on a continuous loop in my head, all while going from heavier end of normal to clinically obese.  The “when I lose weight” demon didn’t steal all of my joy, I married an incredibly wonderful and supportive man, had two generally lovely children, travelled,  appeared in public in a swimsuit several summers in a row, hosted some pretty awesome parties and went to a few as well. 

Those events were very welcome highlights on my personal timeline, but they are just brief respites from the “life would be so much better for you if you lost weight” voice and his slightly more sarcastic twin sister, “you’re just not good enough.”  And I probably would have let these two live out their days, voicing their negativity, until I noticed that they seem to be trying to take up residence in my children’s minds as well.  What I want for my precious boys, more that good grades or athletic success or attractiveness, is emotional resilience.  But my teaching them emotional resilience would be about as effective as my teaching them Greek.

The first step in developing my own emotional resiliency was making peace with the word “fat.”  A small word, only three letters, can stop you dead in your tracks and ruin your day, ruin all your days.   But that word only has power if you let it.  I’ll never forget when a small child, maybe four years old, asked me why I was fat.  There was no judgment in his voice, it was a completely honest and non-emotionally loaded inquiry that kids have mastered so brilliantly and it just came out of the blue.

It was like the voice of God.  I don’t know that I’d ever thought about why I was fat without attaching ideas of unworthiness or failure.  It was so illuminating to be able to say “Well, I haven’t always made the healthiest choices when it comes to eating and exercise” and move on with what we were doing rather than marinate in my cesspool of self-loathing. 

This little event didn’t magically solve everything, it happened seven or eight years ago and I’m not much smaller now than I was then.  But it did open up a door in my mind that allowed me to look at my situation differently and to learn to think of myself in a more positive light.  “Life would be so much better for you if you lost weight” and “you’re just not good enough” still pop into my head more often than not, but now I can look at them with a critical eye and question why they are there.

And my family is having some interesting and productive conversations about that small word, those three letters.  About how that small word, those three letters, can have a lasting impact when used to shame others.  But also about how that small word, those three letters, can be diffused of their emotional charge when they've been used to describe us.

So I'm making my peace with "fat."  But things aren't so peaceful that I wouldn't unleash a torrent of curses and profanities (at the very least in my mind but quite possibly out of my mouth) if that small word, those three letters, are used in an effort to shame someone I love.  Including myself.

"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."  - Isaiah 40:31

Run and not grow weary for 13.1 miles was the goal I set for myself in the early hours of 2013.  And I've never really been a runner, or much of an athlete.  My only experience in "running" was in a race that took place the night before the 4th of July at the turn of the millennium.  My best friend and I decided to give it a try and promised ourselves that if we didn't come in last place we would stop at Krispy Kreme on the way home to celebrate our first race.  We didn’t stop.  (Also, mental note to self:  rethink strategy for rewards related to athletic achievements.)

In February 2012 we decided to surprise our boys with a birthday trip to Disney World.  While we were there, the seeds for this 13.1 mile goal were planted.  Each winter, usually the weekend after President's Day, Disney World hosts the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  While the race is open to anybody, most participants are female and most dress up as their favorite Disney princess or just as a princess in general.  Lots of tutus and tiaras.  The course even takes you through Cinderella's castle.

The 13.1 mile seeds were fertilized by two books I read in 2012, R.A. Dickey's Wherever I Wind Up and Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken.  If you're wondering why a girl who wants to run a race in a tiara and tutu is reading a baseball player's autobiography, I'm always on the lookout for admirable sports heroes for the ball players in my family and R. A. Dickey's story is one I want my boys to know.  Plus he's a Tennessee Volunteer and was an Academic All-American while at UT.  (I like to push the academically and athletically gifted sports heroes.)  

Dickey talks about how he struggled as a pitcher and a human being until he began living more “authentically.”  A lot of other people talk about living “authentically” as well (see Oprah, Brene Brown, Glennon Melton of Momastery) and this concept really got under my skin.  Perhaps because it challenged my concept of living “authentically:” Real Housewives marathons and Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate ice cream.  Living “authentically” usually involves putting yourself out there and challenging yourself which is (insert whiney voice here) hard.

Louis Zamperini's story in Unbroken helped me understand that my definition of (insert whiney voice here) hard was inexcusable.  I’ve always joked that we’re a whole lot “softer” than our grandparents were and this book made me realize just how true that is, at least in my case.  Zamperini was a promising Olympic athlete whose plane crashed in the Pacific during World War II.  He and another man survived forty seven days (a third man died after 33) on a rubber life raft with very little food or water, all while being shot at by Japanese bombers and followed by sharks.  Once they finally made landfall they were captured by the Japanese Army and held as POWs for over three years.  As I read Hillenbrand’s account of Zamperini’s story I wondered just how long I would last in similar circumstances.  And it woke me up to just how tough and resilient the human body really is. 

I’ve run thousands of miles in my mind, not nearly as many in reality.  Something always seemed to slow me down.  Shin splints, plantar fasciitis, allergies, laziness.  Reading about the hard labor Zamperini endured in the POW camps, all while being fed inedible food and having difficulty even keeping that in his system really put my “aches and pains” associated with exercising into perspective.  (Not knocking people with real injuries that slow them down, but mine usually amounted to a little bit of soreness.)

Now the 13.1 seeds are being nurtured by the Couch to 5K training program and my sweet husband and boys.  When I told them about my goal of running 13.1 miles in February 2014 Jay and Will were so excited for me, and this was before we told them that we would stay the week at Disney after the half-marathon.  I’ve spent so much time watching them play different sports, they surprised me with their genuine enthusiasm in watching me in an athletic pursuit.  And I think it will be good for them to see their mom stick with something that doesn’t come easy for her. 

So you may see me in my neighborhood or on a greenway in Knoxville huffing and puffing and generally going slower than I’d like, but faster and farther than I’ve ever been before.  I’m getting closer to running and not growing weary and walking without being faint.  And sharing my journey is an exercise in living authentically.

Here we go!