Endurance

I don't understand where you fit in genetically in your family.

What do you mean?

I mean, genetically.

I'm the spittin' image of my mom.

No. I mean, everyone else in your family is so . . . thin. 

-A Bennie

I am constantly amazed by the things people say to fat girls. 

I've got a collection of them. A Worst-Ever Greatest Hits of the things people have said to/shouted at me when I'm out for a run, when I'm not wearing much, when I'm crossing the street next to the library, when they meet me for the first time. It's become a hobby of mine, a little list I (unhealthily) keep in the back of my head.

And it's not just men either.

It would be easier if it were. Just chalk one more up to the patriarchy and move on. Hang out with your girlfriends. Have some wine and gripe about the asshole that you kicked out of your apartment the night before. Tell the story so many times that it becomes just another bad date story. 

I have never in my life been a small person. Never. A combination of stunning non-athleticism combined with a household where carbs were comfort and a shit metabolism, and I've just never been a small person. 

I don't know that I'll ever be.

That's not to say that I don't try. 

Huh. With as much as you talk about running, I just thought you'd be skinnier. 

-A First Date Who Did Not Get a Second

In the late fall of 2007, I started running. 

I was exceedingly bad at my job. I was (at best) uninterested in the relationship I was in. I was anxious and depressed without ever understanding why. I was at a creative and emotional standstill, feeling like my life was on pause, reasonably certain that if you put your hand on my chest, you wouldn't be able to feel my heart beat. 

Honestly, I don't know how I didn't give up. Running was hard. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I went from a sedentary lifestyle to one where I was running four days a week in a few short months. And some time during that long, snowy winter, I fell in love with running. I fell for long Sunday runs next to the Mississippi. I learned to appreciate a perfectly executed Farmer's Blow, the way other runners would nod their encouragement to my chubby self as I shuffled along. I became acquainted with the Runner's High, that blissful rush of serotonin and dopamine that comes along occasionally during a workout, the rush that leaves you dizzy and giddy and feeling like you're about to fall in love.

Have I mentioned that my idea of a great first date is running a 5K together?

Anyway, running became . . . not a hobby so much as an on-again/off-again relationship. A real love/hate relationship. I ran throughout graduate school. I ran every once and awhile while I was in Duluth. But more than falling in love with running, I fell in love with, well, for as corny as it sounds, measuring myself. Setting big, impossible seeming goals and striving for them. Setting plans and sticking to them. Running introduced me to other distance events, particularly cycling.

Falling for running changed my life. 

I fell in love with the simple idea of sheer, grinding endurance. That if you look deeply enough into yourself you'll find what you need to (in the poet's words) keep on keepin' on. 

I'd like to work out until my thighs don't touch anymore.

Yeah, that's absolutely doable. 

Really?!

Yeah, Kel. When are you going to have one of your legs amputated? 

That's a shitty thing to say.

That's a shitty, unhealthy goal to have. Your thighs are supposed to touch. Do I need to show you a pelvic bone diagram?

-A Conversation with My Running Partner. 

It's midday on Saturday. I'm on my bed with my leg in my running partner's lap. He's doing the Ottawa Test on my right ankle. I whiffed it down the (inside) steps the night before and sprained my ankle pretty badly. He's checking to make sure that I don't need to head to urgent care to have x-rays taken (seriously, PT's make excellent activity partners).

"Well," he says, moving off the bed. "The good news is that I don't think you have a fracture."

"What's the bad news?"

"You need to kiss that half marathon in March goodbye, because you won't be running for six weeks."

"What?! What about biking?"

"With the way you like to go? Absolutely not."

I try to bargain with him a little bit, but he's having none of it. It finally sinks in that he's serious, that while I planned 2014 to start off with a bang, to be the year of endurance, of challenges falling neatly before me, the whole damn year has now been moved six weeks back. I'll be starting training from scratch in February instead of building up from where I was before falling down the goddamn steps.

It takes about fifteen seconds for me to lose it entirely and burst into tears.

Jesus! What cup size are those? G?! H?!
-Most Paramours

I don't like my body.

I know that's not, you know, unusual for a lady, but I really, really, REALLY don't like my body. I've never felt like a particularly pretty person. I've never been a huge fan of mirrors or clothes shopping.

Yes, I know. Howling vortex of insecurity. Fuck off.

Even now, with 10% less of it than there used to be, with a cute haircut and better skin, and excellent clothing, I don't like my body. The only times I've ever liked it are when its carried me from start to finish lines. When, sick with a chest cold, my running partner and I ran my fastest mile times ever. When we crossed the finish line of a 150 mile bike ride. When I ran off of the Gary Bjorklund course to hug my mother, who was waiting for me.

I like my body when it's moving, when I can shout down that list of nasty things people have said to me with the reply "when was the last time you ran six miles? Or biked fifty in two hours? Or went hiking or walked five miles home from work just for the hell of it, because it's a lovely day outside?"

I like my body when it's helping me run away from something.

Hence the crying like an idiot when I was told I was benched for the next six weeks. Six weeks with nothing but pilates, modified yoga, and strength building exercises. Six weeks were I can't pull my hood over my head and run through the dark, leaving everything in the dust.

Six weeks of nothing but sheer, grinding endurance.