But before you're too impressed, let me explain that I attempted to train for a half marathon in Austin, Texas. Several years ago my enthusiastic friend, Cristiane, decided that we needed to join in the athletic fun and do the half marathon. I had always attempted to be a runner because I had this idea in my head that it was the key to getting rid of my tree trunk legs, but I had always hated it. I thought maybe having a go at it in a controlled environment, with a trainer and a bunch of other people suffering with me, I might experience that elusive "runner's high" that everyone always yammers on about. I would fall in love with running and become svelte and join the elite group of athletes who prance around the running trail.
One Saturday morning, early (note: I'm already hating it), Cristiane and I met downtown at the epicenter of running: RunTex, a shop for the runners in Austin. It was the first day of the official marathon training. Hundreds of people showed up. I was nervous and wanted to turn around and go get some pancakes. I was standing around in my dumpy shorts and baggy t-shirt when Cristiane finally showed up. Let me explain the force that is named Cristiane. She's about 5'9", milk chocolate complexion, Brazilian (really, need I say more?), electric smile, long dark hair that is always in perfect ringlets, very buxom, and has a presence that I doubt most super models possess. She cruised through the crowd of skinny-legged men and buff, sun cooked women holding a water bottle and looking around like, "let's get this show on the road, people". She had on tiny red shorts, a skin tight top that allowed a little bit of her brown belly to show, designer sunglasses, and a visor to hold back her mound of glorious hair. Men were paralyzed all around her. I really wanted those pancakes at that moment.
The huge crowd was given a motivational pep talk and then instructed to move down towards the hike and bike trail where we would be tested in order to be placed in groups. Whhhhhhat? Mild panic. For me anyway. Cristiane just grabbed me and said, "come on, my friend". Turns out we had to run a mile or a mile 1/2 so they could time us and tell us which group to train with. I made it, but just barely. I was told I would be in the orange group. Orange was the slowest group. Grandmas, disabled people, men who were recovering from heart attacks. Orange was also the group for people who wanted to walk the marathon. Each group was ranked from fastest to slowest and given a colored band to put on your running shoes announcing to the world which group you were in. After going through all this humiliation, we were informed that if we were only training for the half marathon, it didn't matter what color our band was, we would all be grouped together. Might they have told us that a little sooner? Say, before I stood for an awkward eternity with all the other orange group turtles?
Our trainer was wonderful, and his 2 assistants were a gorgeous, long-legged, upbeat woman and a hunky young man. I never felt pathetic around them, even though I knew I was. They were encouraging and optimistic the whole 2 months I trained. Each Saturday morning at 8am we met in the park to warm up and go for a group run. The group ran, I straggled behind with one of the assistants who usually tried hard not to make me think I was a lost cause. The half marathon group was made up of people who were of all sizes and ages. When I first saw them I thought, "okay, maybe I won't be so lame... I think I can out run her, and him, and surely that woman.". But I was wrong. I was shamed. It's not that I didn't work out, I took a pretty intense kick boxing class about 5 days a week, but running is very different. I was unbelievably bad. Every woman who looked like she spent her entire day parked in front of her computer eating potato chips was breezing past me. Every old man who looked like he had wandered away from the nursing home gleefully trotted past me.
After several Saturdays and much treadmill running during the week, I decided to try their "extra" training session on Tuesday night at a local high school track. Sounded harmless. A track-that's easy, if I start to die, I just walk across the grass and leave. I show up Tuesday night and the first thing we did was a "warm up run" around the neighborhood- for TWO miles. Two miles? That was my work out. Obviously I was the only one there adding on an extra training session because I needed it. The rest were there because they were in love with running. They shot past me during the warm up run and I was left behind in the dark neighborhood trying to figure out which street led me back to the high school. Back at the track we did sprints and relays around and around. Awful.
That was my one and only Tuesday night training.
Oh- I forgot to mention the Brazilian bombshell. She was great. She wasn't lightening fast, but she didn't have the troubles I had. Unfortunately she injured her shin and her doctor told her that if she continued to run, she would not be salsa dancing for long. Cristiane would have none of that. She dropped out and left me alone in my self-inflicted torture.
The last run I did was 8 miles, and it sucked. It was not 8 miles of running, it was run-walk-run-walk. No runner's high, no feeling of accomplishment, no desire to go on. I quit and decided that endurance sports are not for me. So now I do yoga. I can put my feet behind my head, I can do handstands and backbends and all sorts of crazy looking stuff- all of which is much much easier to me than running 2 miles.
nice computer pic, eh? You didn't think I would actually post without a photo, did you!? I was curious to see if I could do this in my computer chair with no prep. There was nearly a "help, I've fallen and I can't get up" moment, but I saved myself. My cat was sitting nearby looking at me like, "lady, have you lost your mind?". I've turned into a human pretzel. A pretzel who can't run if her pretzel life depended on it.
2 comments:
I feel your pain!
I've got a pretty athletic build so all my life people have expected me to be great at sports. But while I am able (well back in the day) do step aerobics for an hour 3 days a week I can only run about 30 feet before keeling over. I don't know what it is about running that's so different, but I can't do it!
Pfft we say to jogging!
oh good! I feel better... nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks running is hard. What I learned on that PBS show is that people usually have one of two types of muscles. One type is for doing things in strong bursts, the other is for endurance. Obviously I have the first!
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