Friday, October 9, 2009

Why?

I am not a runner.  Runners, with their cool determination, their focus, their ability to pound the pavement, track and trail, alone or in groups, but always moving.... the ability to run a race, in front of people, and to cross the finish line with the knowledge that they have beaten a little bit of themselves that day, perhaps beaten down a bit of that part of them that tells them they can't- they can't go that far, they can't go that fast- beaten into submission by the crossing of a simple line on the ground.

I am not a runner, but I desperately want to be.  I want to beat back the part of me that screams FAT in my ears.  I want to beat back the part that screams CAN"T.  I want to somehow, even if only a small way, grasp what those confident masochists called runners have.

And so I have started my journey, and I invite you to read and run with me.  I am a newbie.  I am what they call a "prebeginner" which is really just a nice way to say lump on a couch.  A lot has changed since I was a child, when the way to run was to "keep moving till you puke, then get up and do it again."  There are dozens of programs designed to get me off the couch, out of my house, and onto the roads, and dare I say it, a race.  THey claim I can become a runner without puking, without running till I collapse or my lungs burn so bad I give up and use my running shoes to shop for groceries.  They claim I can ENJOY running.  I have to admit that the concept is so completely opposite to me that it makes me giggle- and yet it makes me hope.

To know why this is so important I suppose it's necessary to know something about me.  I am a mother of three and after the birth of my second child, and later my third, I suffered from adult onset anorexia.  The obsession with my weight has never gone away, even though nobody who didn't know would call me an anorexic, or even thin.... Every day I hate myself, and every day I know I'm not good enough.  I've been in therapy for three years now, and all the prodding, all the medication, all the talking in the world, has never brought me a genuine like for my body.

Four months ago I suffered, at the age of 29 from a pulmonary embolism.  I couldn't walk, let alone run.  I couldn't even sit myself up in bed without being racked with pain.  Yet even this did not make me appreciate my body, and as my pain diminished, day by day, the old doubts returned.  The sedentary life required by my condition did not do wonders for my waist line or my self esteem, but leeway is not in my vocabulary and I ended up feeling even more powerless about myself.

And then something happened.

My husband, who is crazy, ran a marathon.  As I cheered the competitors from the sideline- 99% of who were running against themselves, and not each other, I say people of every shape, size, and age.  They were all running.  There is a part of my brain that knows if you can run a marathon damn anybody who calls you fat.  In fact if you can run a 10k you can't be out of shape, because out of shape means your lungs burn when you jog down the block in that futile attempt to "get in shape"- being out of shape does not mean being able to jog 6 miles.  And I think, somehow, that maybe, just maybe if I'M able to run a 10k, or dare I say outloud a half marathon, then maybe I can get my brain to click over and learn to love this body for what it can do, and accept it for what it is.  There is no number that is thin enough, no size that is small enough, but PERHAPS there is a distance long enough that can make me say I'm ok.

This blog is about my journey, it's ups and downs.  I invite you to run along side of me.

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