Going back to work

The heat remained, but summer vacation ended and I was back to work. I was terrified that I’d have a repeat of the previous summer: lose some weight, go back to work, gain it all back plus dividends. I worried about this constantly, posted about my fears on Facebook, solicited advice. I found letting people on Facebook know what I was up to helped me stay committed to my health goals.

My first half marathon was scheduled for September 16, a month into the school semester. I was grateful to have a goal to work towards, something to keep me invested even as work got busier. But I still worried that I would complete the race and feel like I was done. Like I’d completed my health project and could go back to my old ways. I actually still worry about this with each goal that I reach. I never want my mind to get into the “done” mindset. There is no done. There is only the next challenge. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

The race

I was 190lbs on race day, still very much in the “over weight” column according to every doctors’ Body Mass Index(BMI) chart, and just a breath away from “obese,” where I had started. I hadn’t run a half marathon since 2003, when I was just 25 years old and hadn’t yet had a kid. I was still in grad school. I ran two of them that year and then didn’t run a single step for about a decade. So you can begin to see why I worry about that “done” idea.

Anyway, I had always held onto the memory of finishing those two half marathons, because 13 miles seemed so impossible even back then. But I didn’t train very well at the time, just kept running 2 and 3 mile training runs with the occasional 6 miler thrown in and then arrived at race day hoping for some kind of adrenaline fueled miracle. Instead I ended up having to walk a lot after about 8 miles. My first half marathon time was 3:15 and my second was 2:59...and like I said, that had been when I was 25 and weighed around 180lbs.

So here I was, ten years further along, almost 20lbs and a lifetime of difficult decisions heavier. But I knew I could do this distance, one way or another. I had completed 13 miles in training, going slow as a snail, but still. I was sure I could finish. Secretly, however, if I was honest with myself, I wanted to beat that 2:59 time. I had lost 30lbs already and I was feeling good about my progress. I believed I could do it. Maybe. I hoped I could do it.

Unfortunately, things did not get off to a good start. Driving to Philly the day before the race, I took the GPS route that looked most favorable, the one Diane specifically warned me against taking, and sure enough, I got us lost and then we hit snarled traffic and the trip took about an hour longer than it should have. Our daughter was in the back seat complaining of extreme hunger and thirst and boredom the whole way. By the time we got to the hotel, Diane was in a scowly, black mood.

I don’t remember much about the hotel, other than the fact that it was a mile from the race start and I was trying to imagine how, in addition to running 13.1 miles, I was going to walk a mile to the start and a mile back from the finish. Fifteen friggin’ miles. It just seemed like a lot.

That evening went to the fitness expo and picked up my race packet with my bib number. Things were starting to get real. While at the expo, Valentine and I managed to get separated from Diane and then get totally lost. When we all found one another again we were hot, angry and hungry. V had moved into clingy, screeching mode, what I think of as her Monkey Princess mode, and Diane had gone all the way in the other direction to Ice Queen. It was not good.

That night I lay awake listening to the snores of my beloved family members, hoping they’d wake in better moods and be able to cheer me along. Staring at the hotel room’s thick maroon, polyester drapes in the half-light, I admitted to myself that I had been kind of counting on their cheering to get me through.

I didn’t sleep much that night. I’d fall asleep for a few minutes only to dream of race catastrophes: showing up without my shoes on, falling down and slicing open my knees. At 6am I was grateful to rise, eat a Builder Bar, drink some water and put on my race outfit that I’d tried on the night before to ensure it would be just right. I was good to go. I slipped out of the room while my girls slept and began to feel a buzz of excitement as I saw a few people wearing race numbers as I went down in the elevator. Out on the street there were loose gaggles of sneakered individuals, racers in funny outfits having interesting conversations that I eavesdropped on. Here’s a picture of people moving into their corrals:

It was a pleasant morning, not too hot, though the gauzy sky made it clear heat was coming. I made my way through thousands of other runners to the second to last corral (number 23) to which I had been assigned (based on my predicted finish time which I set at 3 hours), and waited for nearly 19,000 other runners to start ahead of me.

My corral was beside the Art Museum steps made famous in the Rocky movies.

At exactly 8:33 I was off. I know because I turned on my phone GPS at the time, then plugged in my headphones and began listening to the playlist I had prepared for myself the night before. The timing chip on my shoe crossed the mat at the starting line and I was officially “racing.” I mean, I was racing in the sense that I was moving through space and I was headed toward something called a “finish line.”

I took it slow, one of my goals being to keep going, no matter what, and to try not to stop and walk except at the water stations, and then only for the length of the tables. I had decided to take on water at every station, no point in collapsing mid-run for lack of fluids.  

Diane had scoped out the spots where she and Valentine expected to see me at different points during the race. The course doubled back through certain parts of the city, so they had several possible vantage points. She texted me to tell me where I could expect to see them, and my heart rose in anticipation. I got a little extra spring in my step. But when I hit those streets, my girls were nowhere to be seen. I was crestfallen, but I told myself to keep on truckin’. Just get to the finish line and my family would be there.

Along the way I saw all kinds of runners. I was among the eccentric slow pokes. I ran next to a hobbled older black lady who was wearing a neon yellow shirt that said, “Does this shirt make my ass look fast?” I ran along side a “joggler” -- a guy juggling six red rubber balls while running. He kept dropping his balls and tripping me up, so I decided to try to speed up at least a tiny bit and see if I could get some distance from him.

The course was fast and flat, the first half running past many historic monuments and sites and the second half coiling around a beautiful park. But despite the flatness, at mile 11 we moved out of the shady park back onto open road and the heat got to me. My feet hurt. I could feel a few hot spots that might turn into blisters. I had to walk for most of a mile. But I pulled it back together for mile 13 and ran across the finish line, exhausted but elated. My elapsed time according to my phone’s GPS and to the official race timing that was posted online later that day: 2:51:05. Even with that walk at mile 11, I had busted my old race time by 8 minutes and earned myself a PR (personal record). All I needed now was a hug from my girls.

But they weren’t there.

I scanned the crowd again, but they really weren’t there. My legs were aching. My shoes felt fused to my feet. I asked a sulky looking teenage girl, whose face was full of piercings, to take my picture wearing my finisher’s medal. I didn’t notice that she took it with a row of port-o-potties behind me. Oh, well.

Holly finishes the Rock n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon, Sept. 16, 2012.

Coming in 13,794th place did not feel like a failure.

After a series of text messages, I finally caught up with Diane and Valentine who were sitting on a park bench near the hotel. Diane explained that Valentine refused to go further, that she had tried to get out to cheer me on but V wanted to stay in the hotel and watch Dora the Explorer on the TV (we don’t have TV at home). Both of them were still, clearly in bad moods.

Now I’ll admit it was a little disappointing not to be held up on their shoulders and cheered on like I just scored the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl, but on the other hand it reminded me that I was doing this for me and me alone. And I had done it.

I hear a lot of people say they have lost weight or gotten healthy for their kids or for their family. I don’t say that. Of course I want to be there for Valentine as she grows up, and I don’t want to be some sickly burden to her. And of course I want to set a good example for her by being a strong woman who respects her body and takes care of her health.

But Valentine would love me fat or thin, sick or healthy. She has family members who are crippled but she loves them all the same. Moreover, at five (now 6) she can barely pay attention to the signals of her own body to remember to use the bathroom at the right time, so it’s a stretch to ask her to grasp the issues of obesity or the challenges in changing my body. Why should she care?

As for Diane, let me be clear that she has been an unwavering supporter in all this and never once has she let me down. That race day she was overwhelmed with the childcare duties, and I have been in that position a million times myself. She tried her best to cheer for me, but it couldn’t be done. Moreover, I later realized she was wishing she was out running with me (especially since she has always been the more avid runner, but had never done a half marathon herself).

But I ran for me that day, and I’m cool with that. As my body has changed, I’ve begun to like it more, even begun to be a bit vain about it. Well, maybe not vain, really, but I like to feel good in my clothes and wear smaller things just because I can. I like feeling strong and powerful.