Ann's Running Commentary

Every night before we eat dinner my family takes turns talking about what we are grateful for. My youngest calls this “saying our gratefuls.” Sometimes our gratefuls are predictable. My daughter will almost always be grateful for something soccer related. My oldest son says the same thing every night – “I am grateful that I am almost kind of sort of done with my homework.” And the littlest one is always grateful for a list of twenty or more things from his day. This past week though, my husband surprised me. After looking around the table for a minute, he said, “I am grateful for a fit and active family.”

As I sat there watching my beautiful family, I started thinking about how unusual our family truly is. I looked at my husband who is a Boston qualifying marathon runner and saw a man, who at forty looks better than many teenage boys. Over the past several years he has gone from a weekend athlete to putting in serious quality miles and his efforts definitely show. I looked at my son who is in his first year of varsity soccer at a highly competitive high school. Watching him I remembered the child who used to complain about walking a mile from the grocery store while carrying a bag of groceries. The same child who would hold my hand while walking so that I could actually pull him along our way. I looked at my daughter who had not had time to shower after her run and was sitting there with a face still red from exertion looking like the very picture of health. And finally, I looked at my four year old son who has not had the chance to become an athlete but will surely go that route.

Last Monday I was running late to pick my youngest son up from preschool. I had been out for a long ride through the hilly back roads and underestimated the amount of time available to me. I stood in the lobby embarrassed that I was still covered in bike grease and grime when my son came through the door. I thought I would rush him out the door before the other moms start complaining about the smell but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. He looked around at the other moms in the lobby and then back at me and asked, “Why didn’t those other mommies do their run?” My heart soared.

I am athletic for a hundred reasons but many of them involve my family. I want to be a healthy mom so I can be around for them for years to come. I want to be a happy mom so I use running to release the stress of mommyhood. And most importantly, I do it because I want to be a good example to them of living a healthy and active lifestyle. I have seen how the example set by my husband and myself has effected my older children but it was incredible to see that my youngest one is already noticing the difference between his mom and others.

I don’t know where this will lead because we never know what happens next in life, but I have to believe that our example will lead him to an a healthy and active life. And for that, I am grateful.

When someone tells me they are expecting their first child, there is a part of me that gets jealous. I remember bringing my son home from the hospital and spending a good part of the next year doing little more than staring at him, watching him grow and anticipating all of his firsts. I remember the amazement I felt that this child was mine and would some day become a grown man. It wasn’t just the first child though. These same feelings, this same amazement arose within me with each new child I brought home from the hospital and even now, four years after bringing my last one home, I find myself standing over his bed, staring at him in wonder as he sleeps.

It amazes me how much of myself is wrapped into his life. How much he means to me every single day. And even so, I wonder how I manage to leave him with my husband or one of my older children when I go workout. From the beginning, it would have been so much easier to make his needs the only thing I worried about. It would have been easier with all of my kids if I had just decided my workouts could wait until they were older. But that isn’t how it should be and somehow I was able to pull myself away when they were very young and take care of myself some as well.

At first this time away from my children seemed selfish. When I started to train for marathons and be gone for as much as three hours at a stretch for a long run, it began to feel almost decadent. I think it is this way for a lot of parents. When our children are born, they are so precious to us, so dependent on us, that we don’t feel like we have the right to do anything more than provide for them.

But, as they say in the safety message before every flight, we must put our masks on first and then help the ones around us. As a mom, I could spend all day every day taking care of my children and I would love almost every minute of it, but in the end, if I don’t take care of myself, what am I teaching them? If I don’t lead them to a life of health and fitness by example, then what is the alternative?

I have learned by watching my mother that there is no such thing as pushing someone into a life of health and fitness. When a friend or a reader calls or writes to me and tells me they are having a hard time making fitness a priority because they feel guilty leaving their child, I understand this so well. I have been there. I am still there. There are days when I am forced to miss something in their lives because I have chosen this path. Last year, I missed a whole day of soccer games because my marathon conflicted with their games. Sometimes, it is worse than that and my marathon or triathlon causes them to have to spend long hours standing on the side of the road hoping to catch a glimpse of mommy as she passes.

On these occasions, there is always a thin thread of guilt that runs through my event but I know that by making my fitness a priority, I am giving them a gift. I am leading by example. And while there will come a time when they don’t need my constant attention, there will also come a time in each of their lives when they look at their fit mom and are thankful not just for the things I have done for them each and every day but for the things I have done for myself.

I love the act of running – floating through the miles while drenched in sweat, my heart beating strongly, my mind wandering through subjects for the next week’s blog. I love runners. The ones I meet on Daily Mile. The ones I see on our local trails. The running moms I meet at my children’s schools. But even more than the people and the act of running, I love the inclusivity of this sport. I love that on any given weekend I can run a marathon or a 5-k with the “best of the best of the best, sir.” And I love that those best of the best of the best are so approachable. I love that runners like Ryan Hall and Paula Radcliffe who bring me to tears with their performances can admire the perseverance it takes for the back of the packers to be out there competing in the same sport.

My husband’s friend tells a story that I think is so indicative of this inclusivity. A few years back when he was studying at Oxford, he was invited to a banquet honoring several past graduates of the university. He had only just arrived at Oxford so he found himself at a table full of people he didn’t know. Sitting to his right was a gentleman who struck up a conversation. He asked our friend, “So, do you participate in any sport?” And my friend proceeded to tell him how he jogged a little and participated in some local road races. After he finished regaling this gentleman with stories of his favorite races, he asked in return, “And you, do you participate in any sport?” The gentleman, replied, “I jog a bit.” Maybe he would have expounded on the subject, but just then someone approached the podium and began to speak, eventually introducing the guest of honor that evening – Sir Roger Bannister. Sir Roger Bannister, who happened to be seated, you guessed it, right next to my friend.

I love this story because it is just one of dozens of stories like it. John Bingham tells one of sitting beside an elite athlete who had recently set the world record for the marathon. This marathoner asked how he had done in the same marathon and after Mr. Bingham told him how long it had taken him to complete the marathon, this world record holder was shocked. Not mortified but shocked and amazed that anybody could stay on their feet that long.

Over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting so many great runners – Jeff Galloway, Joe Henderson, Mark Allen, Bart Yasso – and without exception they were all so gracious. Unlike the pro athletes we find in other sports, they didn’t act like their presence was a gift to me. They acted like any other runner I have ever met. They asked about my races and related stories about theirs as though we were two of a kind. And though they are faster and stronger than I, they are right about that we are all runners. John Bingham said it well, “If you run, you are a runner. It doesn’t matter how fast or how far. It doesn’t matter if today is your first day or if you’ve been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run.”

I enjoy our local races. They are a great place try to compete for an age group spot. At these smaller races, I actually have the chance of this happening. But I love the bigger races, the ones with 10, 20, or even 30 thousand participants. I love seeing the diversity of our sport. While every large race has a couple of handfuls of elite athletes, you will also find people of every shape and size, first time racers and veterans of hundreds of races, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, nuns, priests, tattooed biker types, young guys still smelling of booze from a late Saturday night out with friends. Each seemingly so different from the next but on race morning they are all the same. They are all runners, experiencing the same jitters and anticipation, the same excitement or dread and ultimately the same sense of accomplishment for a race well run.

“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”
-John Bingham, running speaker and writer

I love John Bingham. I love that when I read one of columns I can always relate. I have only met him once, at the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon out in San Diego but I have followed his running life since his first piece appeared in Runner’s World back in the early 1990’s. I never saw him before he became the fit runner that he is today but I have the idea that his beginning was a lot like mine and that while he inspires people with his writing, he had inspired even more by his example.

When I first started running I was more than out of shape. I was over-weight, unhealthy and out of shape. But I took to running like a fish to water. It became my passion way back at the beginning of my marriage and it has stayed with me through almost twenty years. I don’t know when my running life started inspiring other people to run but I remember clearly the first time I noticed it had. I received a phone call from a dear friend who called me to ask if I would talk his wife into running her first marathon. In the conversation there was an unintentional slip on his part. He let it slip that he had told his wife, “If Ann can do it, so can you.” At first, my feelings were hurt. What did that mean? I trained for that race, I worked hard for that finish. But then I realized he was right. At five feet tall, I am not built to be a runner. But I do it and I do it with passion. If I can do it, then so can anybody.

I think that is part of John Bingham’s charm. It is part of why we middle and back of the packers can relate to him. At the front of the pack there are the rail-thin, long limbed runners who were born to float through the miles. These are the guys who post their mileage on an easy day at a 6:30 pace. These are the guys who are disappointed by every race, even the ones they win. But back here, we are of varied shapes and sizes. Some of us are short and wide. Some are tall and wide. And surprisingly, some of us look like we belong in the front of the pack. What we have in common is that we are the proof what we tell our kids. We are the proof that having the desire and putting in the work will get you there.

I love John Bingham because he reminds us that yes, we are runners. Yes we are racers. And yes we are having fun. But more importantly, he reminds us that through running and racing, not in spite of, but because of being middle and back of the packers, we have become something we never guessed we would be. We have become role models. Role models, not just for our children, but also for our friends and family and sometimes even strangers. He reminds us that though we didn’t grow up to be Ryan Hall or Paula Radcliffe, we are inspiring in our own way. We give people hope. After all, if we can do it, so can the next guy

When I was thirteen, I walked into my living room, sat down on the arm of my father’s Lazy Boy recliner and without warning, came to the full realization of who I wanted to be. Some people spend a

lifetime trying to discover themselves. For me, it took minutes. As I sat there with my father, I was mesmerized by the image of Julie Moss crawling across the finish line at the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. I knew immediately that that was what I wanted from my life. I wanted to push myself and watching Julie struggle on all fours, in the dark, toward that finish line, I knew how I would do it.

This doesn’t make me unique. There are thousands of runners who watched that video, either that day or years later and thought, “That is what I want to do.” It is either in you or it isn’t. You either watch it and think “Why the hell would somebody want to do that?” or you watch it and utter a breathless, “Cool” in amazement at her ability to keep going even in the face of pain.
Don’t get me wrong. I am no Julie Moss. I will never be fighting for first place in a race. Instead, I fight to beat myself. To better my last time. To push myself further than I thought I could. I battle against the barriers that pretend to be there.

When I started marathoning 12 years ago, it never occurred to me to think I couldn’t do it. It never occurs to me to think that anybody couldn’t do it. So, you’re 400 pounds and want to run a marathon? Sure. It might take you a couple of years to get in shape but sure, you can do that? You smoke 2 packs a day and want to run a marathon? Yep, get out there and become a runner. You have never run a mile in your life? It is just putting one foot in front of the other. It is doable. That isn’t to say it is easy. It isn’t. But if you want to do it, I mean really want to do it, you can push through the pain and it is in pushing through it that you will find the joy in the marathon.

I have crossed the marathon finish line 13 times. Each time, it feels a little like a miracle. Did I really just run 26.2 miles? Am I really done with the 16 weeks of training? And most amazingly, did I really just push through that pain at mile 22? The pain that caused me to start silently chanting “this is hard, this is hard, this is hard” over and over again?” The pain that had me crying and convinced it just wasn’t worth the effort? Did I really make it through that? Yes, and that is what makes it worth it. There have been marathons when I haven’t felt that pain, not many, but some. But it is the marathons in which I had to push, when I had to overcome, that I find the most joy.

I have heard it said that anything worth having worth working for and maybe that is why Julie Moss’s famous crawl to the finish resonated so strongly with me. Maybe it is why I saw my friend Michelle’s pictures of her marathon experience and understood her joy at the end. It is in the struggle that we find out what we are made of. It is in the marathon that we push beyond that struggle and become the person we know we can be.

Special Thanks to Michelle from Daily Mile for sharing her pictures and experience with me and inspiring me to write about this pain and joy of the marathon.

I am angry. Truth be told I am livid. For almost twenty years I have worked toward a healthy lifestyle. I run, bike swim, lift weights and basically stay active a good portion of each and every day. I don’t smoke, don’t drink and though I love food, I try not to over indulge. I do all of these things because I want to live to a ripe old age in the healthiest way possible. I don’t want to spend days on end in the hospital. I don’t want to cough and hack my way through my old age. I don’t want to suffer with diabetes or cancer or heart disease. And really, when it comes down to it, living a healthy lifestyle, though it is work, it is also fun. I enjoy my life.

Since I started blogging about my running life a couple of years back, I have been honored with emails from friends, family and even strangers who have told me I inspire them to get moving and to take better care of themselves. At first I thought this was just something people felt obligated to say but then I started watching. I started seeing signs of the influence one healthy life could have on another. I watched friends and family and strangers as they started working out, running and even entering races.

But every couple of months, I receive a call from my 60 year old mother, with another complaint about her health. After years of smoking, eating poorly, and getting very little exercise, her lifestyle has caught up with her. Her ailments run the gamut but ultimately ends in congestive heart failure. She has been told to stop smoking. She has been told that the heart issues would dissipate with a proper, low fat, low sodium diet. She has been told to exercise. But she doesn’t do it and no amount of cajoling from her doctors or her children makes a difference.

Last night I received a call from my sister. I could feel the steam emanating from her ears through the phone. My mother had just called her.

“I think I may be having a heart attack,” she said to my sister.

“Well, Mom, do you want me to call 911 or should I come and take you to the hospital myself?” My sister asked with as much patience as possible.

“No, I want you to go pick up a pizza from Dominoes. Then go to Subway and pick up a salad and bring that over to Aunt Joyce’s. I promised her we would have dinner with her. And then, we can go to the hospital.”

My sister may be the most patient person I know but this was too much. She insisted that they go to the hospital, my mother refused. My sister lost her temper but my mother wouldn’t budge. My sister cried and still my mother wouldn’t budge. In the end, she gave up and did what my mother asked.

When they finally reached the hospital, my mother was in full blown congestive heart failure. She had to be admitted. Her first question? You might think it would have something to do with her diagnosis or her treatment but, you would be wrong. No, she wanted to know where she could go to smoke. When the doctor told her there is no smoking on the premises at all she pitched a temper tantrum that would have put my two year old to shame.

As I sit here in my kitchen, seething because so much of this could have been avoided, she lies in a hospital room with dye running through her heart. While I sit here waiting to hear whether she will have to have surgery, whether her body can even handle surgery, she lies there waiting for her next cigarette. I sit here wondering how it is I can influence others to lead a healthy lifestyle, while my mother, who I love with all my heart takes nothing from my example and instead of lying in that hospital bed trying to plan out how to get better, she waits for someone to take care of it for her.

So, yes, I am angry but I am also sad, because though I can help my mom through this crisis, there is sure to be another and another down the road. I am sad because I can lead by example but she has to make a choice to follow and if her history is any indication of her future, I know the choice she will make.

This running life is not always fun. Looking back over my online running log and all of the times I have clicked the little happy face to say it was a “great run,” I am afraid that my new-to-running friends might be getting the wrong impression about my running life. I do enjoy the benefits of being fit. I enjoy the fact that while I watch other people have to sit and take breaks while walking around the National Zoo, it is just a stroll in the park for me. I enjoy the fact that on our vacation to Maine this summer we were able to bike into parts of Acadia Park that the average person might not get to see. I love the fact that my kids know I can keep up with their active lives.

I also know there are benefits to my healthy lifestyle that go beyond just enjoying myself. Earlier this summer, I started a new breast cancer screening program at our local Breast Center. The idea is to get a baseline sonogram of my breast tissue to use against future screenings. The first thing the doctor said to me was how nice it was that there was no fat to have to look through – how much easier it made it to get a good look. This isn’t the first time a doctor has pointed out a benefit to being fit for screening purposes.

Of course, there are hundreds of studies that tout the benefits of staying fit and living a healthy lifestyle. Fit people are less likely to have heart issues, diabetes, bad knees, strokes and the list goes on and on.

These are all things I am aware of, but when that alarm sounds at 6am and I know I need to get out of the bed and lace up my shoes, those things don’t seem all that important. On those mornings all I want to do is crawl back under the covers and enjoy another hour of sleep. Even on the mornings when I am ready to jump out of bed and go for those runs, it isn’t a guarantee that the run will be fun or even slightly enjoyable. Yes, I love running but, that is a general statement. I love running and biking and swimming. I love being active. But still, I don’t always love them. Not every run, swim or ride is inspiring. Many of them kick my butt. Some of them are down right horrible.

I hope that people who look at my training log or read my blog will see the good runs for what they are. They are a blessing that make me keep going back out there. They are the carrot for all the sticks I have to put up with on the bad ones. Being fit is fun and beneficial in a thousand ways. And while the workouts are almost always beneficial, they are not always fun. The trick, at least my trick, is to keep reaching for that carrot. Keep rolling out of the bed on those mornings when I want to sleep and heading out the door slogging my way through a not so fun run in search of that run that brightens the world around me, that ride that makes me feel like a ten year old girl again or that swim that washes away all the worries of my day.

I wasn’t bitten by a spider or dunked in radioactive waste. I am not from a far away galaxy. Still, I seem to have developed a super power. Okay, it might not be a real super power but it is a power that I never expected to find within myself.

For most of my life, when it comes to my goals, I have been Little Miss Rigidity. Even as a child I was single-minded when it came to meeting a goal. As an adult this rigidity has caused me more trouble than I care to mention and yet I still found myself pushing toward goals that I should have given up on. The biggest area of rigidity for me was in my running. I would schedule a marathon, come up with the training plan and run – no matter what. You might think I would have learned that this was not the way to go after I ran the Fort William Marathon in Scotland with a fractured tibia and had to take six months off of running because of the damage caused. But, no. You might think I would have learned after completing three months of training for the Baltimore Marathon with a stomach virus from hell. But, alas, no.

This year I ruptured my plantar fascia. This injury did not develop overnight. The plantar fascia had been hurting for 18 months and yet I ran. The morning it finally ruptured, I knew something was exponentially worse than it had been and I decided I would go to the doctor – right after my speedwork. So I hobbled to the gym and started the workout telling myself that I would stop after the warm up if it was still hurting. Of course, Little Miss Rigidity didn’t do that. I decided to see if the first set of sprints would make the pain go away. It was only a minute into the first set that I heard and felt the pop.

After weeks in a boot and months of physical therapy, I still signed up for two marathons this fall. I had a goal, dammit. I had to qualify for Boston. My single mindedness found me aiming at the goal no matter what the foot was saying. Until, somehow, I found I had been bitten by that spider or dunked in radioactive waste and suddenly I was Elastigirl. Suddenly I found myself enjoying the cross-training Coach Jeff had scheduled into my training plan to bring me back without injury. Suddenly, I found myself being honest about the pain in my foot. Suddenly, I found myself with a super power that allowed me to step back and be honest about my chances of qualifying for Boston in October.

In the past this decision would have been gutting. I would have spent weeks mourning the loss of the marathon, cursing my foot and crying into my Gatorade. But this time, I found a freedom in giving up the goal. Instead of looking at what I was losing, I was able to see the possibilities that it opened up. I could see the possibility of running pain free and not worrying about pushing through the pain that was already beginning to resurface, but more than that, I was able to see an opportunity I had missed in the past. This year instead of running sick or injured, I will be riding. I have the chance for the first time in 16 years to ride the Sea Gull Century in Salisbury, Maryland. It has been there all the time. It was a possibility so many times in the past but I chose to ignore it in pursuit of “the goal.”

So, no, I am not “faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” But I am able to bend and make choices beyond the goals I have set for myself. I am able to change things up a little and work towards something new. I am Elastigirl.

All winter long we have watched her expand. For months, a day hasn’t gone by when someone hasn’t remarked on how fat she has gotten. We have told her she is fat, yet she still spends her days sneaking food and lounging on the couch. It is unhealthy and all of us know it. All of us, that is, but her. She is a dog.

This leaves it to me to admit that I am the one responsible for her expanding waistline, for her lack of exercise. A little over a year ago, as I sat in the middle of the road covered in scrapes and bruises, I made a conscious decision not to run with her anymore. I blamed her. She was the one who had gotten so excited to run that she had knocked me over twice in one outing. She was the one who refused to run at a reasonable pace instead of break-neck speed. She was the problem. But that isn’t true. She is the dog. I am the owner. It was my responsibility to train her to run properly. It was my responsibility to ease her into running in a way that worked for her instead of trying to bring her along for my run, expecting her to do the pace and distance I wanted the first time out.

So, after a year of sitting on the couch and sneaking food, Misty is running again. But this time we started with training. This time we started with a walk to show her what was expected of her. We worked on stopping anytime she started to pull. We worked on rewarding her anytime she ignored the dog running toward her instead of lunging for it and pulling me along behind her. It didn’t take long for her to understand that she was able to spend more time moving if she behaved and we were able to move from walking to running.

As a long distance runner, I find it hard to run short distances and had always taken her on five to eight mile runs, expecting her to maintain a reasonable pace to do that. But this time I took a different approach. This time we started slow and short. We ran a long distance pace but only for a couple of miles at a time. It made a difference. She has learned to run beside me and let me set the pace. As we have increased the distance, she has maintained the pace. She has become the running dog I had hoped for.

She is still chubby, but I have noticed that even in the house she is more active. She is happier and she is thinning out a little every day. The mere mention of running and she waits by the door, not patiently but pacing from one side of the hall to the other while I search out the treats and leash. She is the dog and I am the owner and now that we have admitted that to each other, together, we are runners.
Originally published in DogLiving Magazine Spring 2010

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