I am a very slow runner. I believe that I have covered this before, but I will state it again: I am a very slow runner.
My first memory of this realization is from first grade. I attended a public elementary school in Lubbock, Texas, and we were taken outside for recess. By "outside", I mean a wide couple of acres of hardened, packed-down, brown dirt with a view that stretched for miles. We were lined up at a starting line and told to race to the playground equipment. Even at this young age, I appreciated the fact that I could beat most of my classmates at anything....I could do this "inside", that is. Any competitions of mental ability or endurance were my bag. Naturally, this would extend to the "outside" also, right? Wrong-o.
When the teacher said, "GO!", I was off. I felt like I was running like a cheetah, bedecked in some flouncy dress my mother had put me in for the day, complete with white tights, and black patent leather Mary Janes. I felt like I could move as fast as the wind, and living in West Texas, that meant something. Unbelievably, everybody started moving ahead of me. I pumped my arms faster and pushed myself as hard as I could, but to no avail. In my class of 30 kids, I came in dead last, and you better believe that the boys didn't let me forget it. I was teased mercilessly for being so slow.
It wasn't until I was absent one day from gym class in tenth grade that I realized that slow isn't such a bad thing. We were required to run a mile and a half sometime during the semester, and because I had missed the class when that happened, my gym teacher took me and two other girls out another day. I'm not even sure if I owned a respectable pair of running shoes. We lined up around the track, and he started the timer. Six laps around the track. After two, the other two girls stopped running, and just walked and talked the whole time. I kept going. In fact, I finished those six laps in 12 minutes (equaling out to an eight minute mile). I had to push myself, but it wasn't that difficult. In fact, my gym teacher, who up to this point had dismissed me as any kind of athlete, took notice of me. He actually asked me afterwards if I played some kind of wind instrument, because he couldn't believe that I could keep going. (Knowing now the stereotypes attributed to wind players (and rightly so), it's funny to think how he saw me.)
That was the first time that I thought that maybe I had an ounce or two of athleticism in me.
For the next years of high school, I took up cycling, and of all things, dog-sled mushing. Both crazy difficult things to do that didn't require speed, but that did require endurance. And I could do them for hours at a time.
When I started my freshman year of college, I also started gaining the notorious Freshman Fifteen. I didn't know what else to do but start running. So I did. Every couple of nights, I would drag my roommate, Jane, to the indoor track, and she would walk the track while I would run (and when I say "run", it's really a jog, but I refuse to use a word that brings to mind velvet track suits).
I ran in the few months between the end of freshman year and when I married John. I was housesitting for a family in Ann Arbor, and they lived on the edge of farmland. I remember coming home from work and running through the corn fields, feeling motivated to go faster as my imagination went wild, thinking of things that would come OUT of the corn fields and attack me.
It wasn't until John was nearing the end of medical school in Kalamazoo that he started running too. That's right, folks--John began running because I encouraged him to do it. Crazy, huh? He entered his first 5K, and the rest is history.
Running has been a saving grace for me through the years. It has helped me lose weight countless times, and it has also helped me through some very low points in my life. I can get caught up in the bad things that people do and say to me, and nothing clears the mind like a good run.
One of the hardest times in my life was when I had two back surgeries followed by two ankle surgeries. The crazy thing is that the second back surgery might not have been necessary if I hadn't gone out and run a couple of miles only seven days after the first surgery! During all of these times, I was terribly depressed, unable to live life how I like to live life, and I couldn't run to work the kinks out of my head. It was really hard. It wasn't much easier after the two sinus surgeries, or the nine months of plantar fasciitis, or the bursitis that now afflicts my right hip.
Last summer, it seemed that my body might be giving me a break, and I started running once again. Not too fast. I just started with walking, and worked myself up to several miles. I ran my first 5K in a long time last summer at Interlochen, and then I walked/ran the 5 mile Dirty Kiln race over Easter weekend. Last weekend, I ran a 5K at the Salt Lake City marathon.
Let's be honest. It's a bit demoralizing to have a husband who is four years older than me, who didn't run as a youth, and who runs faster and farther than I can. The comments from other runners too don't make me feel any better. I remember one marathoner who said, "I don't understand how people can take so long to finish the race. I just want it to be over." Believe me, I did too, but the legs just won't move that fast. However, I have learned that I can't concentrate on my husband's beastly legs (as well as commitment to running), or the snarky, insensitive comments from other runners.
This is the lesson that I want to pass on to anyone who will ever read this: it doesn't matter how fast you are; it just matters that you finish.
As I look back over the almost thirty years of on-again, off-again running I've done, I'm glad that I've kept going. As I head to the gym each day to run my miles, I look around, and I don't see many (if any) women my age running. People constantly comment on the fact that John and I look too young to have the kids we do. I believe it's because we keep working at running. It hasn't been easy, and it's certainly not confidence inspiring to be slower than anyone else. However, we all get to the same place eventually, and I figure all that matters is that I'm actually there.
Whatever it is. School, work, your testimony, any weaknesses you may have. You may not get there as fast as someone else, but as long as you keep on pushing yourself to attain your goal, you are a success in my book. And hopefully you see yourself as a success in yours.
My first memory of this realization is from first grade. I attended a public elementary school in Lubbock, Texas, and we were taken outside for recess. By "outside", I mean a wide couple of acres of hardened, packed-down, brown dirt with a view that stretched for miles. We were lined up at a starting line and told to race to the playground equipment. Even at this young age, I appreciated the fact that I could beat most of my classmates at anything....I could do this "inside", that is. Any competitions of mental ability or endurance were my bag. Naturally, this would extend to the "outside" also, right? Wrong-o.
When the teacher said, "GO!", I was off. I felt like I was running like a cheetah, bedecked in some flouncy dress my mother had put me in for the day, complete with white tights, and black patent leather Mary Janes. I felt like I could move as fast as the wind, and living in West Texas, that meant something. Unbelievably, everybody started moving ahead of me. I pumped my arms faster and pushed myself as hard as I could, but to no avail. In my class of 30 kids, I came in dead last, and you better believe that the boys didn't let me forget it. I was teased mercilessly for being so slow.
It wasn't until I was absent one day from gym class in tenth grade that I realized that slow isn't such a bad thing. We were required to run a mile and a half sometime during the semester, and because I had missed the class when that happened, my gym teacher took me and two other girls out another day. I'm not even sure if I owned a respectable pair of running shoes. We lined up around the track, and he started the timer. Six laps around the track. After two, the other two girls stopped running, and just walked and talked the whole time. I kept going. In fact, I finished those six laps in 12 minutes (equaling out to an eight minute mile). I had to push myself, but it wasn't that difficult. In fact, my gym teacher, who up to this point had dismissed me as any kind of athlete, took notice of me. He actually asked me afterwards if I played some kind of wind instrument, because he couldn't believe that I could keep going. (Knowing now the stereotypes attributed to wind players (and rightly so), it's funny to think how he saw me.)
That was the first time that I thought that maybe I had an ounce or two of athleticism in me.
For the next years of high school, I took up cycling, and of all things, dog-sled mushing. Both crazy difficult things to do that didn't require speed, but that did require endurance. And I could do them for hours at a time.
When I started my freshman year of college, I also started gaining the notorious Freshman Fifteen. I didn't know what else to do but start running. So I did. Every couple of nights, I would drag my roommate, Jane, to the indoor track, and she would walk the track while I would run (and when I say "run", it's really a jog, but I refuse to use a word that brings to mind velvet track suits).
I ran in the few months between the end of freshman year and when I married John. I was housesitting for a family in Ann Arbor, and they lived on the edge of farmland. I remember coming home from work and running through the corn fields, feeling motivated to go faster as my imagination went wild, thinking of things that would come OUT of the corn fields and attack me.
It wasn't until John was nearing the end of medical school in Kalamazoo that he started running too. That's right, folks--John began running because I encouraged him to do it. Crazy, huh? He entered his first 5K, and the rest is history.
Running has been a saving grace for me through the years. It has helped me lose weight countless times, and it has also helped me through some very low points in my life. I can get caught up in the bad things that people do and say to me, and nothing clears the mind like a good run.
One of the hardest times in my life was when I had two back surgeries followed by two ankle surgeries. The crazy thing is that the second back surgery might not have been necessary if I hadn't gone out and run a couple of miles only seven days after the first surgery! During all of these times, I was terribly depressed, unable to live life how I like to live life, and I couldn't run to work the kinks out of my head. It was really hard. It wasn't much easier after the two sinus surgeries, or the nine months of plantar fasciitis, or the bursitis that now afflicts my right hip.
Last summer, it seemed that my body might be giving me a break, and I started running once again. Not too fast. I just started with walking, and worked myself up to several miles. I ran my first 5K in a long time last summer at Interlochen, and then I walked/ran the 5 mile Dirty Kiln race over Easter weekend. Last weekend, I ran a 5K at the Salt Lake City marathon.
Let's be honest. It's a bit demoralizing to have a husband who is four years older than me, who didn't run as a youth, and who runs faster and farther than I can. The comments from other runners too don't make me feel any better. I remember one marathoner who said, "I don't understand how people can take so long to finish the race. I just want it to be over." Believe me, I did too, but the legs just won't move that fast. However, I have learned that I can't concentrate on my husband's beastly legs (as well as commitment to running), or the snarky, insensitive comments from other runners.
As I look back over the almost thirty years of on-again, off-again running I've done, I'm glad that I've kept going. As I head to the gym each day to run my miles, I look around, and I don't see many (if any) women my age running. People constantly comment on the fact that John and I look too young to have the kids we do. I believe it's because we keep working at running. It hasn't been easy, and it's certainly not confidence inspiring to be slower than anyone else. However, we all get to the same place eventually, and I figure all that matters is that I'm actually there.
Whatever it is. School, work, your testimony, any weaknesses you may have. You may not get there as fast as someone else, but as long as you keep on pushing yourself to attain your goal, you are a success in my book. And hopefully you see yourself as a success in yours.
Beautiful post Mama! Unless your body is physically disabled, nothing will fix your problems like exercising, especially running. Something about the repetitive, laboring motions associated with cardiovascular exercise helps to smooth out whatever is troubling you, and helps you think clearer. It's painful at first, but when you get going, theres nothing better than to just run and run and run. Great post mama!
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