Shrinking Jill

This is the first in a series of posts about my experience with minimalist running.

Two months ago,  I bought a pair of Vibram Five Finger shoes:

They are crazy ugly and make my feet look like flippers…but after running in them for about six weeks I’m going farther and faster than ever before.  Yes, I get a lot of funny looks – once another runner on my favorite trail actually called them ‘knucklehead shoes’ – but they have changed my life for the better and opened up a whole new world to me – so I’m sticking by them!

It all started earlier this year when my friend Abby, one of the UnDieting Divas, started using them as a last-ditch effort to run without pain and found that many of her running-related complaints completely disappeared.  Intrigued, I started to consider whether they would work for me.  My left hip was always achy, even after a short run with lots of stretching, and I was beginning to wonder if running was not really my thing.  But would these shoes, with their complete lack of cushioning or support, be appropriate for someone carrying a lot of extra weight, or would they be a recipe for injury?

A few months went by, and I continued slowly building mileage in my favorite Brooks running shoes – but I kept thinking about Abby and her pain-free runs.  However, with the SheRox Triathlon rapidly approaching, it didn’t seem wise to change my routine so I decided to stay the course and perhaps give them a try later in the summer.

Meanwhile, I read Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. If you’re a runner, or someone who wants to start running, or just enjoy a good story, please give this book a read!  I can’t summarize the story nearly as well as the Amazon write-up, so I’m just going to quote it here:

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.

This book was so inspirational on so many levels – but the part I enjoyed most was the history of running in America, the evolution of the modern running shoe, and the reasons why a large sector of the running population is reverting to barefoot or minimalist running.  I completed the SheRox Triathlon and decided it was time to find out for myself whether this whole ‘barefoot running’ movement was just a passing fad, or whether it was something that could really work for me.

My first run in the Vibrams was very tentative.  I had my music on very low volume since it was early and still dark, and I wanted to be sure to hear any zombies that might be lurking behind the treeline.  Without heavy sneakers on, my footfalls sounded so quiet and stealthy, like a cat stalking prey.  It’s hard to explain the feeling of walking down the street in minimalist shoes – it’s almost like I’d just escaped from something, or that I was breaking the rules and getting away with it!  Anyway, it was a wonderful feeling and after a few minutes of walking, I broke into a trot and was delighted to find that it felt great!  I could really feel the surface of the road under my feet – not in a painful way, but more in a ‘hey, that’s a new sensation’ sort of way.  Again, it’s hard to describe but it was a delicious feeling.  My first workout consisted of a few 5-minute intervals of easy jogging interspersed with 2 minutes of walking.  A couple days later, I tried it again, and bumped up the intervals to 7 minutes.  I kept it there for a few more workouts, and slowly eliminated the walking bits until after a couple weeks I was easily doing 3 miles with no breaks!

So far, about 6 weeks in, I’ve had no pain or discomfort aside from the muscles in my feet and lower legs being very, very tired and a bit sore at times.  Think about it – your feet are normally clad in shoes that absorb impact and provide significant stabilization.  So the numerous muscles in your feet, which are there to help keep you upright, don’t have to do much work on a regular basis.  They become weak over time and need to be redeveloped to be able to manage the new demands of operating without assistance.  To help increase the strength of my feet, calves and ankles, I’ve actually started doing my weight training workouts with Rena in bare feet, which has made a noticeable difference.

Vibram Five Fingers shoes are just one example of the new minimalist/barefoot running trend. There are dozens of choices for minimalist shoes out there and quite a few resources to get started.  Two weeks ago, Ken and I met a legend in the barefoot running world…stay tuned for my next post about that experience!

I’m a little less freaked out and panicky today!  Yesterday was really an emotional rollercoaster but I did my best to just feel the feelings and recognize that reality and my brain are not always in alignment.  This morning I woke up feeling calmer and more rational about everything, and able to verbalize my concerns a bit more logically!  The thoughts that keep surfacing are worries that I might not be able to lose any more weight, and disappointment in myself for losing the control I had over my eating.  A few months ago it didn’t feel like I was following a strict program, it just felt easy and normal and truly effortless.  Now almost every food choice is a struggle.

I feel like a lot of the things I’d like to do with my life – becoming a group exercise instructor, or a weight loss counselor, or a health and fitness writer – are dependent upon completing this weight journey and reaching my goal.  Who’s going to take weight loss advice from someone that can’t take those last 60 pounds off?  So I feel like every minute I waste by eating things that don’t support my weight loss goals is a minute farther away from a career change.  Somehow I need to keep that thought in the forefront of my mind when faced with a food choice.

Another factor in this whole internal drama is that a lot of people have told me they’ve been inspired by watching the changes in my body over the past couple years.  You’d think this would be a good thing – and it truly is – but there’s a flip side (in my mind) to every compliment.  I feel like a fraud since I know that if they really saw how I’ve been eating for the past month or two they wouldn’t be so inspired anymore!  I know this is my own weird issue and I need to work through it, but it really weighs on my mind sometimes.  Of course, the easiest thing would be to get back to eating in a way that I feel is in alignment with my goals…but I guess that’s easier said than done.

I know it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, and I should just accept compliments gracefully and be thankful that I’ve had a positive impact on a few folks.  Everyone struggles and I hope that I can at least handle this rough patch in a way that lets other people know that we’re all human and that keeping quiet about the internal battles isn’t always the best way to get past them.  I’m definitely proud of the progress I’ve made so far and am happy that if nothing else I’ve been able to maintain my loss for the past few months while simultaneously increasing my fitness level.

So that’s where I’m at this evening, feeling a bit less dramatic and a lot more reasonable. I guess I just need to ride out this wave of emotion and try not to use it as an excuse to go completely off the rails and eat everything in sight.  I think I can do that.  I’m just going to concentrate on not gaining any weight back for the next few months while I try to work through some of these issues.  Rena gave me some great advice today:

don’t think.  instead, b r e a t h e….

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I was busy all day today, touring a contract manufacturing site (in high heels – WTF was I thinking?), taking in a lot of information and asking lots of questions, but somehow I still found time to feel anxious and a bit panicky about yesterday’s decision to renounce calorie counting.  I feel like tracking my food (or worrying about not tracking it because I’m straying from my plan) has been at the center of my world for so long…what will happen if I just stop doing it?  In theory, it sounds great to say I’m going to listen to my body and eat for nourishment instead of entertainment.  In reality, it’s very scary indeed. I toyed with intuitive eating last October, and gained back 10 pounds…which led me directly to Weight Watchers and back to the obsessive counting.  Forty pounds later I look and feel much better, but inside I’m still confused and struggling.  Why can’t I look at a menu and not feel deprived just considering having a salad for dinner?  I feel like every meal is a hurdle, an obstacle, a choice that I’m destined to make badly.

Obviously I’m not the only person who struggles with these issues – there are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of women who have the same problem.  Some of them are trying to lose the last 10 pounds, some of them have 200 pounds to lose.  But for every one of them, there is another woman out there that doesn’t struggle to make good choices, who doesn’t look at a menu and think ‘my life will end right now if I don’t order the gnocchi in vodka sauce’.  WHAT IS THEIR SECRET??????

I’m so sick and tired of thinking about my weight and hating how I look in the mirror.  It’s exhausting and unproductive.  And yet the voice keeps chattering in the back of my head…you eat too much, you’ll never get to your goal weight, you’re fat, you suck at your job…on and on and on.

Twenty-four hours after saying I’m done counting calories and I’m a quivering mess.  It would seem that the food tracking was more of a security blanket than I thought?

Has anyone out there successfully transitioned from tracking food to eating completely according to what their body needs?  Was it a difficult transition?  I would love to hear your experiences!

After walking around Boulder for several hours today, turning the words from my earlier post over and over in my mind, I came to a startling conclusion: I am not present in my own life.

On the surface, it would appear this isn’t true – I have lots of friends and activities, as well as a job that carries quite a bit of responsibility and allows me to travel all over the world – but when I’m not working out or directly interacting with someone (and let’s be honest, a lot of my social interactions are via Facebook, which imparts a certain amount of distance and not-present-ness), I’m just not all there.  My job is a continuous stream of teleconferences, so I have very few face-to-face encounters.  As a result, it’s easy to multitask during meetings – checking my email while someone else is talking, for example – and so I’m not all that present at work.  The very nature of electronic life, which ironically allows us so many new connections with people around the world, has at the same time allowed me to become very disconnected from my body and soul.  There is no need to physically show up, and thus it becomes very easy not to mentally show up either.

Mindless eating, shopping, playing Facebook games, watching TV – these are all examples of distractions & escapes from life.  But…so is meticulously counting calories and paying excessive attention to what I’m eating.  Focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all others is another form of escape.  There has to be a happy medium!

I’m 43 years old, and I feel like I’ve been sleep-walking through my life for quite awhile. I don’t want to live the next 43 in the same way – and that means making some changes to my lifestyle.  No more avoiding real life by obsessing over calories.  No more shopping to distract myself from eating.  No more spending hours with activities that don’t add value to my life.

Each day I have 24 hours to be the best I can be.  Do I want to look back on my life and realize I spent that time amassing over a trillion dollars in Mob Wars?  Do I want to be able to say I’ve seen every episode of a reality TV show that makes me feel superior just because I don’t have piles of garbage in my home?  Or do I want to be able to say I had a positive impact on those around me and that I’ll be remembered for the person I was and the lives I touched?  There’s nothing wrong with using social media to keep in touch with friends and family, or watching a little TV here and there.  But if these activities are routinely getting in the way of something more valuable – like working on my goals – that means I’m using them as a distraction and not living in the here and now.

I’m also think I’m going to stop meticulously counting calories – I believe that my body knows what it needs and if I choose high quality, nourishing, delicious foods that make my body sing, and eat with intention instead of as an escape, the rest will take care of itself.  Expecting to count calories for the rest of my life is unrealistic – I need to learn how to eat according to my body’s needs and the time to start is now!  I’ll check in with the scale periodically to make sure things are going in the right direction and correct as needed.  It’s really not about the food anyway – it’s about experiencing each moment and paying attention.

We get one body, one life and one chance to make it count – so from now on, I’m choosing to make the most of each moment – enjoying time with friends and family, meeting and connecting with new people, learning about things I’m interested in, reading the stack of books I never seem to have time for, continuing to improve my health and fitness, and work on building a second career.

I think I’ll be blogging a lot more in the future, both here and at the UnDieting Divas blog, as a way to keep myself present and accounted for.  And I’ll be putting a lot more effort into building up the support group and trying to help others be present in their own lives.

Life is short and precious, and I’m going to make the best use of mine that I possibly can!

Hiya!  I’m writing from my hotel room in Boulder, Colorado, with a gorgeous view of the (I’m not sure which) mountains in the distance:

I got here last night after spending a week in Seattle with my nephews (more about that in a minute).  The drive from the Denver airport was spectacular – as if someone had scheduled a glorious sunset to celebrate my arrival:

It was such a jaw-droppingly amazing sight that I actually had to pull the car over to let myself drink it all in.  These pictures don’t even come close to doing it justice, and the 40 mile drive to my hotel was over way too soon.  Being around so much natural beauty puts me in such a blissful, joyful, peaceful state of mind – I wasn’t even slightly upset when I accidentally drove through a toll without paying (note to self, I need to call those Go-Pass people and figure out what to do – and hope they don’t charge me a fine!).

This morning I went for a run along the Boulder Creek:

More gorgeous-ness.  Ahhhh.  I did find out that running at 5000+ feet altitude is much harder than running at sea level.  I was sucking wind after about a half mile and had to spend most of my 3.5 mile adventure doing walk/run intervals.

Unfortunately, today is my last day of holiday before getting back to work – I’m here on business and have a meeting at 7:30 tonight but there’s still a few hours left for fun today! So I’m going to make the most of this afternoon and walk around the shops of Boulder, check out an art festival down the street, and find a fabulous restaurant for a late lunch.

Last week my husband and I had the pleasure of spending a week in Seattle watching his sister’s children while she was out of town.  We stayed at their home in Capitol Hill and played parents for the week – getting them up and ready for school, making lunches, cooking dinner, doing laundry, signing permission slips, helping with homework, etc. Neither of us has ever been inclined to have kids, and this was a completely new experience for both of us.  To our delight, we had a great time hanging out with the boys (12 and 15) and were really sad when our week ended and it was time to go.

During our few free moments we managed to get some time to run in a couple different locations, and even met up with a local legend, Barefoot Ted (more about that in a different post).  Here’s one of my favorite runs around Green Lake:

It’s about 3 miles around and the views are spectacular.  There were lots of people out and about and with the nice cool weather that Seattle had last week it was a perfect workout.

But despite all the fun & excitement in my life lately, I’m still struggling with food.  I dropped out of WW thinking that the diet mentality was getting to me.  After a few weeks of adjusting, I managed to get myself back into a nice routine and got back down to my lowest WW weight of 209.  Unfortunately, for the past few weeks I’ve been having a hard time sticking to my guiding principles – lots of fruit & veg, portion control, only eating when hungry – and I have to say I’ve really been eating out of control.  I’m sure part of this is due to being away from home, but honestly I had no excuse last week.  We went shopping at Whole Foods and bought all my standard go-to foods, and only ate out a couple times.  But instead of making myself a smoothie every morning, I walked down to the local coffee shop and came back with pastries in addition to my coffee.  I also had a couple glasses of wine every evening (which is not part of my normal routine) and portion control went completely out the window.  My pants are starting to feel a little snug and I’m getting a little worried that I won’t be able to steer myself back on course!

In fact, to be totally honest, I’m really worried.  It seemed like the last 40 pounds just sort of fell away but now I’ve hit a plateau.  Not a physical plateau, where I’m eating in control but my weight has stalled, but more like a mental plateau.  I can’t seem to get back into my groove!  The choices I’m making are out of alignment with my goals but it seems like I’m compelled to eat ‘just one more treat before I get back on track’.  This is such a slippery slope and I have GOT to turn it around!

One thing I’ve noticed about myself lately is that although I have a lot of aspirations and goals, I have been spending very little time working on them, and a lot more time doing things that I consider time-wasters.  I constantly think about:

• Writing more on this blog and the UnDieting Divas blog
• Becoming certified as a group fitness instructor and teaching a weight lifting class
• Putting a lot more time into building up the UnDieting Divas support group
• Designing a proper website for the UnDieting Divas
• Quitting my job and starting a business as a personal trainer or weight loss counselor
• Becoming a part-time health and fitness writer
• Losing the next 60 pounds
• Running a half-marathon

Instead of doing these things, however, I:

• Spend a lot of time playing Facebook games
• Watch endless episodes of Hoarders and What Not To Wear
• Shop for things I really don’t need
• Eat when I’m bored, frustrated, sad, etc.

So there you have it.  My reality and my goals are not in alignment and I suspect if I spent more time working on my wish list and less time on the ‘time-waster’ list I would not only make progress towards achieving those goals, but also begin dropping weight again. The things on the second list add no value to my life and I’m not sure why I’m spending so much time on them when I truly want to do the things on the first.  Perhaps it’s because a lot of those goals are far in the distance and seem unattainable in the immediate future – and rather than take put in the effort towards achieving them I decide to ‘numb out’ by doing other things that require no effort at all.

Aside from running regularly, I’m not putting any effort into moving myself forward, and thus I’m stagnating right where I am.  That’s my ‘Aha’ moment right there.  I’m stagnating because it’s easier than moving forwards.

One thing I’ve learned from running over the past 6 months is that you have to start somewhere and every little bit gets you closer to your goal!  I started in March by running 0.5 km at a painfully slow pace, and over the past 6 months I’ve built up to running 5 km at a less painfully slow pace…and instead of thinking about how far I had to go, I just focused on completing each workout to the best of my ability.  Progress happened when I took things slowly and didn’t try to do everything at once – and it also happened because I was consistent in my efforts – I ran 3 times per week with no exceptions – I ran even when I didn’t feel like running – and it paid off.

There’s a real lesson for me there – I need to pick a couple of my goals and divide them up into smaller, manageable chunks, and then focus just on those pieces without worrying about the endpoint.  And I need to make sure I spend time each day working towards those goals instead of just saying ‘oh, I can do it tomorrow’.  While I’m wandering around Boulder today I’m going to give it some thought – and I’ll post my plan this evening!

What about you – what do you do when you feel like you’re doing the exact opposite of what you want to do?

For the past week I’ve made several food choices that really don’t support my health and fitness goals. Saturday morning I had a great run (3 amazing miles in my Vibram Five Fingers!) and after an impromptu shopping trip to get my husband a pair for himself, we decided to stop at a local restaurant.  Hungry from my tough morning workout, I ate waaaay too much pizza.  Instead of compensating by eating less over the next couple days, I found myself in the middle of a junk food extravaganza on Sunday – more pizza, cupcakes and ice cream.  Since then I’ve been struggling to get back into my routine and found myself eating an enormous lunch on Wednesday – so much food that I was still full 8 hours later.  To top it off, the supply of standard healthy fare in our house has dwindled due to an impending trip.  The result? Scavenging handfuls of peanuts from the pantry, lots of pasta, and very few fruits and veggies.  And of course a complete lack of energy and motivation.

This isn’t a confession – I know that I’ll succumb to this type of temptation from time to time and that I’ll always get back on track.  There’s no guilt, just acknowledgment that I’m human!

Here’s the good part – as I was trying to decide what to have for dinner tonight – a huge takeout order of Indian food from the place around the corner was silently calling my name – a commercial for McDonald’s came on TV.  Normally, this would make me think about eating a nice, juicy burger with some french fries on the side (but NOT from McDonald’s).  But this commercial was for one of the new McD’s smoothies and I was suddenly hit with a craving for blended fruit (again, NOT from McDonald’s – their smoothies are full of chemicals, ick!).  So instead of ordering Indian takeout I scavenged up all of the fresh and frozen fruit in the house and made a double portion smoothie. Yum!  And I was no longer interested in greasy takeout food.  I followed the smoothie with a piece of whole grain toast spread with cashew butter and dinner was complete.

What did I learn from this?  The power of suggestion is strong – but it works both ways.  I might experiment with this effect in the future – next time I’m jonesing for high calorie food, I’m going to look at pictures of clean, healthy food and see if I can turn the craving around!

…in redefining my impossible.

I ran across this video today and it truly inspired me – just had to share it!

The start of the SheRox Philly 2011 triathlon is less than 24 hours away and I’m ready. Hmm, let me rephrase that…I’m mentally ready.  My training has been haphazard this summer, and my bags aren’t packed, BUT my mind is in the right mental space for this event and although there are a few little butterflies in my tummy overall I’m excited for a fun workout tomorrow.

All week I’ve been carefully choosing foods intended to stoke the fire – lots of lean protein, fruits & veggies, very few refined carbs, no alcohol and NO cheese puffs.  There has been a small treat each day (like a few bites of pecan pie at book club on Thursday) and overall it’s been a great food week. Last night I decided to have whole wheat pasta with some veggies for dinner – it was a lot of calories but since I’m trying to fuel up I decided it was OK.  Believe me, I’ll work it off on Sunday!

After dinner I was pleasantly full and contemplating having a bite of chocolate to finish the meal, when my husband came home from the gym…with a HUGE DAIRY QUEEN BLIZZARD in his hand!  He had a coupon, and decided to surprise me.  I was stopped dead in my tracks.  An enormous Nutter Butter Blizzard (the flavor of the week!) had just come into my world…and like a deer caught in the headlights, I just didn’t know what to do.  He gave me an odd look and put it in the freezer, then left the room.

It’s been years since I’ve had a DQ Blizzard.  They have a million calories, and of course have a million chemicals.  And I’m not even sure if there’s any real dairy products in one. But last night, none of that mattered.  I tiptoed over to the freezer and peeked in.  He’d put a plastic bag over the top so I had to take it out of the freezer to get a better look.  I put it on the counter and next thing I knew there was a spoon in my hand and almost half of it was gone!  Yikes!  With each sweet, delicious, creamy bite I thought about what I was putting into my body but the flavor & texture triggered some sort of reaction in my brain and I. Just. Couldn’t. Stop.  It was THAT GOOD.  There were whole Nutter Butter cookies swirled around with peanut butter and vanilla ice cream…sigh…it was just me and the Blizzard, and nothing else existed in my world for about 90 seconds.  Fortunately, my husband walked in the room and said ‘mmm, I want a bite’. He took the spoon, had a small taste, handed it back to me and walked away.  The spell was broken.  I put away the remnants of the treat and said to him ‘Don’t ever bring one of those into this house again.’

I tossed and turned all night, waking up every couple hours feeling incredibly guilty about my lapse in judgment.  This morning, the guilt has faded, and my rational side has reasserted itself. But I’m still bothered about having such a primal reaction – I imagine it was very much like a crack addict feels in the throes of addiction, incapable of exerting their own will and walking away from the drug.  If my husband hadn’t appeared at that moment to break the spell, I have no doubt that I would have eaten the entire thing in a trance.

A few years ago I read a book by David Kessler called ‘The End of Overeating‘.  Dr. Kessler explains how humans are wired to crave sugar, salt and fat…and then explains how the food industry exploits this trait and creates flavor and texture combinations that trigger a nearly involuntary reaction and cause us to eat and eat, well past the point of fullness and satiety.  It makes a lot of sense to me, especially after last night’s experience. There are only a few foods that cause me to react this way, and ice cream is one of them – which is the reason we don’t keep anything but plain old vanilla in the house (for some reason I can leave a pint of Ben & Jerry’s alone for weeks on end if it’s vanilla – but any other flavor is usually gone in a matter of days…or hours).

After months of eating mindfully most of the time, my Blizzard experience was a great reminder of why I’ve chosen to keep that type of food out of the house and generally out of my life.  It’s not just the calories – I can work those off with a 3 mile run – it’s that I can’t stop eating after just one bite.  Seriously, I just can’t.  Cheesecake, pasta, even my beloved cheese puffs…I will definitely overeat these foods if given the chance…but they don’t affect me the way ice cream does.  I can stop after a serving (usually it’s two or three) but the point is, I can stop.  It might be because they require a bit more work to consume and don’t just slide down my gullet without any resistance, or it might be that those foods just don’t have the right combination of taste and texture to trigger me into a trance.  Dunno.  But if my husband ever brings another Blizzard into the house, I’m grabbing my purse and running out the front door until it is gone!

What about you?  Have you identified any trigger foods in your life, something that you just can’t stop eating once you’ve had that first bite?

I saw this posted on the internet today and it made me laugh right out loud.  You see, I’m a slow runner.  Really slow.  As in “most people can walk faster than I can run” slow.  My 5K time is close to 45 minutes and I have this sort of shuffling gait that uses the absolute minimum amount of energy to keep me technically running but not much more.  75-year old women and mothers pushing double strollers have passed me in races.  Yes, I’m that slow.  But I am undeniably faster than someone sitting on the couch!

As time passes, and my weight continues to drop, and my body gets more and more accustomed to running I know I’ll get faster.  But right now, I kinda like being a slowpoke.  There’s no pressure when you’re behind everyone else.  Nobody expects you to win or even place.  It’s always easy to beat your last time.  If you take a walk break, there’s nobody around to see you.   Most people don’t realize it because they are too busy trying to shave 30 seconds off their time, but the back of the pack is a great place to be.

There are so many reasons I love running.  For starters, it torches calories like you wouldn’t believe, and I always feel good afterwards.  But really, it’s the little things that keep me coming back over and over:

• The feeling I get when I’m in the car, listening to the radio, and one of my favorite running songs comes on…and suddenly I can’t wait to get home and go for a run.  That’s a great feeling.
• Early mornings, just after the sun rises and nobody else is up…that’s my favorite time of day in general and when I’m able to run at that time, well, I feel like the entire world was created just for me.
• The euphoria that washes over me when I’ve gotten my breathing and feet perfectly into sync and there’s a light breeze blowing and the perfect running song comes on my iPod…ahhhh, sheer perfection.
• Becoming so engrossed in my thoughts that I forget what I’m doing and end up running farther than I thought I could.
• Running outdoors, on a quiet day, without music and just listening to the sound of my feet and my breathing and giving thanks to the Universe for blessing me with a body that has taken a lot of abuse and is still able to bounce back and thrive.

This list has nothing to do with my speed or skill as a runner and everything to do with leaving the competition behind and enjoying running for exactly what it is, right in that moment.  Being a slow runner has forced me to think about running differently than other people.  For example, I aspire to run a 13 minute mile someday, which is painfully slow to most runners.  But it’s clear to me that my speed (or lack thereof) is actually a gift, one that has allowed me to truly experience the joy of running without the burden of competition.  If I choose to compete, it’s with myself and nobody else.  My performance is all my own and I’m on a completely level playing field. There’s no feeling like it in the world – once the expectations are removed, it’s unbelievably easy to just experience the joy of movement and the freedom to test your limits without fear of failure.  It’s almost decadent.

In the sport of running, race organizers love to put entrants into buckets.  There are buckets for pro, elite, age group, masters, and so on.  Some races line you up at the starting line according to your expected pace.  And then there are the races with categories for heavier men and women: Clydesdale and Athena.

I think the men got the short end of the stick here.  While a Clydesdale most certainly represents strength and power, it also evokes the picture of an enormous beast of burden clomping around on huge feet and dragging a wagon of beer.  But a Greek Goddess? Heck yeah!  A voluptuous woman in long flowing robes, wavy hair cascading down her back, a benevolent smile upon her face…that’s a nice image.  I would like to be insulted at the thought of being put in a separate athletic category because I weigh more than 150 pounds, but the goddess association kinda takes the sting out of it.

Athena runners aren’t all slow, and not all slow runners are Athenas.  I will probably always be both.  Athena was the goddess of many things, including Wisdom, Strategy and Strength.  Her best buddy was Nike, goddess of Victory.  I’m happy to be associated with either of these lovely ladies, I’m happy to be slow, and I’m happy to be a runner.

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