Taking the plunge

My husband is this crazy marathon runner dude. I think the movie Run Fatboy Run summed it up best.

"He runs marathons."

"Why?"

It is very funny with the English accent, as all things are, you just have to trust me. I heard a para from England read Everybody Poops once. I could not maintain a professional demenor. It was the funniest shit I'd heard in a long time. Turns out, even teachers can laugh at poop.

Anyway, my hubs started with 5Ks and moved on to marathons. Then he decided he needed to run an ultra marathon, and picked out a 50 mile race. I was stressed, I took off work to go with him, ostensibly to celebrate, but really to be there when he fell over dead or just severely dehydrated. Neither of which happened, btw.

Since I lost weight, people have started asking me if I'm going to run a marathon. Or they've been saying about me, "She runs marathons." But I correct them, in strong language. Because 26.2 miles is a very, very long way. And I own a car. A rather posh one. So I don't really need to be running 26.2 miles.

And then...

We went to Boston in April. With 28 other marathon runners and spouses. On Saturday, we watched the fastest female marathoners in the US compete in the Olympic trials. Then, on Sunday, my husband and 28 other amigos ran the Boston marathon. And I have to tell you that watching all of those athletes (21,000+) who had worked and trained so hard, it was pretty inspiring. And that's when I got it. The Fever.

Mini marathon???

When I ran a half marathon in Louisville, KY a few months ago (that's 13.1 miles, for the uninitiated), at the turn around the volunteer shouted "Turn around here for the mini marathon!" And I almost dotted his eye. Because there's nothing mini about running 13.1 miles.

It was technically my first 1/2, I ran a 20K last March. It seemed pretty daunting, 12.1 miles, but then when I got there I had a shock. It was actually 12.5 miles (stop laughing, who the fuck knows what a K is?). I was pretty pissed, I wanted to run an extra 8 minutes and just call it a half marathon.

Anyway the 20K was a trail run, in Mississippi, up and down and tall trees and through creeks. I felt like primitive warrior woman. I had grandiose thoughts, the first few miles anyway, along these lines: This feels great! My body was made to do this! I am so powerful! A few miles later, when my left buttock was really angry, and I had to go to the bathroom really bad only I was in the woods and those don't go together like you might think, I was just trying to distract myself from the punishment.

So when I started the half in Louisville, I had no delusions. Or would that be illusions? I told myself very firmly, there on the starting line, You will be ready for the finish line before you can see it. You don't hurt now, but you will on down the road.

Coffee flavored Jelly Belly

Why? It bears repeating. Why?

My Success Story

I have always been heavy. I wore a women’s size 14 in the 6th grade. Going through school as a chubby girl was not fun, luckily stretch pants were in style! By the end of a stressful graduate program and my first year working in public schools, I wore a size 24. I groaned when I stood up, my knees popped and my body ached. I felt like an old lady, but I was only 27!


One day in June, I was getting ready for a wedding. I dug out a pair of khakis I hadn’t worn since school got out in May. The ice cream had finally taken its toll, they wouldn’t zip. I was frustrated, and disgusted with myself. I had gained a size in less than a month! I looked into my future, and saw myself getting bigger and bigger. It was unacceptable. My weight was getting in the way of my life.


My best friend lost weight with Weight Watchers, so I decided to give it a try. I hoped that the meetings would help me stay on track. Just walking through the door was very difficult. As the leader talked about the plan, I became very excited. It sounded like just what I needed, sensible lifestyle changes.

I must have been ready for a change, because the first few months were easy. Four weeks after joining, my husband and I went on a cruise. I watched my portions, did plenty of walking, and took the stairs instead of the elevator. I enjoyed dessert every night, but was down 6.8 pounds when I got home. We did a lot of walking, and it had never been so easy to keep up with my marathon-running husband!


Before joining WW, I had flirted with exercise, but never established a long term relationship. Afterword, I was much more active. One day, my husband and I were hiking, when I felt like breaking into a run. I could only run for about 30 seconds, but it was a start. Five months later, I ran my first 5K. I have finished a triathlon, half marathon, a 20K and many 5Ks since then. In high school, I couldn’t even run a mile!


I feel that Weight Watchers has given me a whole new life. I have boundless energy, I’m a vegetable eater, I have a whole new body! Most amazing to me of all, I’m an athlete.

To date, I've lost 127 pounds.

It's my way, or ... the highway?

Threw down a hard, hard 9 miles today. I did too much yesterday I think, my legs were tired when I woke up! But I created a running log on runningahead.com this week, and I'm addicted to watching my numbers go up. It's my nature.

While I was logging nearly an hour and forty minutes on the spinning belt, one of my neighbors was working a walk/run beginner plan. And I really wanted to lean over and give her some advice, but I think that would be weird. This isn't the first time I've had the urge, either. It strikes everytime I see a man on the step mill, hanging on for dear life, hunched over the rails. "Straighten up, yo!" But I don't tell him, because I don't know him.

A few days ago my husband asked if I ever evaluate myself and my character. He didn't really want to know, it was just a lead it to talk about his character, but I took it seriously. "I don't think I'm a very patient person," I told him. And then, later, "I think my way of doing things is the best way. Period." And I came to this realization because...

I was looking at a scrapbooking magazine, which made me think of my work and my mom's as well. She gets the same magazine, but never seems to use the advice or techniques she reads about. In fact, she is part of a group of ladies I scrap with that are still doing pretty much the same thing they've done with their books since 1999. My mom has cropped all of my baby pics into shapes, hexagons and hearts, which drives me apeshit. And I think I said as much, once, which makes me feel so small because she put a lot of time and effort into making these books and is proud of them. The truth is, I think I've been looking down on these ladies and feeling that my pages are superior (which is a laugh in itself), when really there is no right or wrong to scrapbooking. There shouldn't be, anyway. So go ahead and crop your pictures into stars and Easter eggs and mat them with neon. I've got to go apologize to my mum.

And maybe my hubs as well, it seems that there might have been some disrespecting of his parking skills, and also the finding of the parking spots. Yikes.