Getting Started

Well, it was a great day -- full of outdoor activity which is what I love! My friend, Mae, once refered to me as "such a jock!" We got a good laugh out of it - because while I like to move and be active, I'm pretty much not great at most sports. So, I run, but I'm slow. I bike, but my butt gets tired. I yoga, but I barely touch my toes. I play tennis, but I never know where my serve is going. I ski, but I'm always in control. I golf, but I miss the ball.

What I do, though, is participate - even if it's not pretty (it just usually isn't). I live my life on this principle - participation - and it's how I raise my children.  Try, see if you like it, give it a good chance, and then, in the words of Joan Benoit Samuelson, "run your own race." Don't run the race of the guy next to you, run your race. Don't run the race of your classmates, run your race. Don't run the race that I set up for you, run your race. You get the point. There is so much pressure to be perfect and to conform to the idealistic norms that society sets. I get sick of all of the stress that we manufacture (and believe me, I manufacture plenty on my own). This is not to say don't try, or don't compete or don't care about winning - just own the pace and the race, let the guy next to you do the same.

Let me tell you about my first marathon (this is where my kids roll their eyes completely to the back of their heads), but it is a prime example of the "participate at all costs" principle.  Remember, I run, but slowly and not especially well, so stick with me!

It was the Chicago Marathon, known to be one of the flatest and thereby fastest marathons in the country.  30,000+ runners, 26.2 miles....finishing was a definate question for me.  But at the pasta dinner the night before the race, set in the enormous McCormick Place Convention Center, I sat with veteran runners, people who had run marathons in every state; one guy had run the Chicago Marathon for the past 26 years with his brothers.  The table was overflowing with stories of wonderful times on the marathon course, new friends made, memories to last a life time.  These people were pros, I tell you.  I was the baby, the pup...this is what I heard:

Ah, your first marathon, you'll love it.
Ah, your first marathon, the crowds will carry you through.
Ah, your first marathon, the best race you'll ever run.

And I was convinced.  It's a trait of mine, to believe the good things people say, even if they're not true, even if they couldn't possibly be true.  I want things to be good and, OK, easy.  But Joan got up as the last speaker, almost as we were leaving, trying to reason with us as we high-fived each other over our water glasses:

There are going to be more than 30,000 runners out there, she reminded us.  Don't run this race for anyone but you.  Not your running partner or your friends back home, or (she should have said) the new friends you are making as I speak.  Run for yourself.  Because, at the end of tomorrow, each of you will have your own time and your own experience.

Hummmm, she did put a teensy bit of fear in me, but I prefered to listen to my new friends.  I slept well that night.

Round about mile, say 21, I was cursing the man from Chicago who told me the crowds would carry me away.  Nope, it was my own tired legs moving step by miserable step doing all of the work.  And what about the euphoria of my "first?"  Wasn't feeling that, either. Then, in what I now think was a compromised state rendered by dehydration and exhaustion, it came to me.   I remembered what Joan said.  And she was right on.  This IS hard, and I am all on my own. 

I did cross the line - THERE was the euphoria I was waiting for, along side of the fainting and vomiting.  But I did it, I participated, and my new friends were well on their way home by the time I came to.  I've quoted Joan ever since.  Her reason in the face of unbriddle excitement brings me back again and again.

So, get out there, people!  Run your own race, play a game, start a blog - PARTICIPATE!