Christmas Flowers Part 1

This was all I got done yesterday, but I'm still happy with it. Today I got nothing done, not even running, again. I think life is going to be too chaotic until after the holidays to regularly run which is very disheartening because I've already lost a lot of the progress I had made from having so many visitors and going away for Thanksgiving. I'm totally doing a 10k in April so I need to get back to business after the New Year but for now it looks like I'm just going to have to take things in stride.

I ran in front of people...

and nothing bad happened!

I ran my first 5k this weekend. It was such a wonderful experience, I can't wait to do it again. I have never in my life run any significant length outdoors where everyone can see me and due to my unfortunate PE experience I was really anxious about that aspect of it. Also, I knew it was going to be cold and hilly which I don't have to deal with on the treadmill so I was concerned with how this would effect my performance.

The first hill appeared about half a mile in and when I saw it I immediately thought "I can't believe I'm going to crap out in the first mile." It was steep and winding and I have never been good at climbing. Even when I was spending four hours a day at the gym right before my wedding, and could carry my husband from the back of the Walmart parking lot to the door, an incline on a treadmill or 2 minutes on a stair climber would kill me. Those muscles just seem to be the last to respond to anything I do. For a moment I even considered stopping before I reached the hill in an effort to avoid the eventual disappointment/humiliation.

But I kept going and before I even knew it I was at the top high fiveing the boy scouts who were cheering us on at various points along the route (So cute!) and on my way down again. And that just kept happening, just up and over. It wasn't easy, but it was doable and sustainable, and I'm just crazy proud of that because I've never been able to achieve that before.

Oh yeah and I placed 3rd in division and got a friggin medal! So, yeah I'm hot stuff right now. I went to Kohl's and got a fancy running jacket and I'm going to try running outside once a week now in my neighborhood which has got some impressive hills in order to improve for next time. I'm hoping there will be something going on around my hometown in late December so my mom can come.

Sorry I'm not more articulate but it's late and I'm doing NaNoWriMo because I'm crazy so I'm at the end of my writing rope for the evening.

Cheers!

My Journey to Body Acceptance Part 2: Feeling at Home

I ran 4 miles last night.

I'm just going to let that stand on its own because I am SO proud of it. I don't really know why even. I feel like I did something really important though and I'm deciding to relish it.

However, I am simultaneously experiencing a rush of resentment towards my school PE teachers. You see, last night I met a goal that I never consciously set simply because I would have never believed I was capable of such a thing. I was just feeling pretty good when I got to the end of my third mile (I have a 5k coming up which is what I've been "training" for.) and so I decided to keep going and all of the sudden there it was. And I find myself thrilled, but very very angry.

I have been building up to this since April. If I remember right I could not even do a half mile then at a slower pace than I am running now. I've gotten here because I was patient with myself. If was hurting, tired, or injured I didn't run. I didn't go faster or longer until I was sure I was ready. And I was finally and honestly working out to do something for my health and for myself rather than pursuing the goal of making myself take up less space in the universe.

Running makes me feel great. It clears my head. I can tell that I've gained strength as well as speed. I have more energy during the day than I used to. Most importantly, I feel very at home in my body in a way I never really have before. (I plan to write more about this feeling.)

I'm just bitter mostly at a particular teacher, Coach J, for making me intentionally avoid running because I have found that I really really really enjoy it. Starting in elementary school Coach J would make us run a mile as a class. He clearly delineated what was a good time and made sure we knew anything less was unacceptable and was pretty effective at pushing the POV that anyone who could not achieve said time or better was somehow defective. There was no discussion of what running could do for your health, no starting benchmarks from which improvement could be made.Nothing. Just a whistle, a stopwatch, and an unnatural affinity for humiliating little kids. Among other bad behavior, Coach J allowed an ENTIRE 6th grade class to make fun of me for running slowly. I don't know what he was going for, but I didn't run again on purpose until my last year of grad school.

I guess our teaching philosophies differ. I think teachers are charged with providing safe spaces and opportunities for growth and learning. He thinks he should blow a whistle and be a jerk.

The sad thing is that I really believe that proper Phys Ed is important and can be a positive force in a kid's life. In a proper PE class I would have been TAUGHT to find and honor my physical comfort zone and provided with reasonable and appropriate opportunities to expand that zone rather than just being shamed and barked at.

Running has been so important to me. Meeting and exceeding these goals makes me feel so accomplished and confident. And like I said, my relationship with my body has improved dramatically as a direct result. I think this would be true as I progressed in any physical activity that I liked. Feeling like this would have been very useful growing up and him and others like him cheat kids out of that everyday. It's shameful and it really is putting a cloud of spite over my happy time.