Let me start off by saying-I am not athletic by nature. My foray into running and triathlons happened by accident (though, how someone wakes up one day and accidentally decides to run a marathon is beyond me). In fact, if you had the pleasure of knowing me in elementary, middle, or high school, you’d probably be pretty surprised by my fairly recent transformation into runner/triathlete (I’m just beginning to call myself a “runner”, and also feel like I’m telling a little white lie when I do).
I had the typical “nonathlete” childhood. I sat indoors for hours and read the Babysitter Club books over and over again. I was picked last in gym class, tried (unsuccessfully) to twist my ankle before the mile-run day, and ate more than my share of Hostess food products. Basically, I was your average book-loving, art-making, overweight child. I wasn’t lazy, perse, I tried to play all of your typical team sports-soccer, basketball, softball—it was just very apparent to me early on that I wasn’t very good, and since I don’t like to do things I am not naturally good at I never lasted in any sport too long. By the time I reached high school I had found my niche in music and theatre, and left the ball playing to others.
What did happen, however, was I befriended a group of girls my sophomore year of high school who WERE naturally athletic, and all ran on our school’s cross-country team. They convinced me to do “pre-season” cross country the summer before my junior year, which consisted of me waking up at 5:30 in the morning (I lived in Arizona, and if you didn’t start running then, you’d melt) and going for an hour run with the team. When I told my parents I was doing this they looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said I wouldn’t’ last the summer. Nothing like your parents telling you that you can’t do something to get a non-athlete’s ass into gear. I may not be athletic, but I’m stubborn, competitive, and tenacious (all traits that really do help with this sport). So I dragged my butt out of bed every morning and went for a run. At the beginning of the summer I couldn’t run 15 minutes without stopping…by the end of the summer, I was running 50 minutes.
I wish I could tell you that it was that simple. That I began on the cross country team that year, became a star athlete blowing people’s 5k times out of the water…In reality, I got in the school play and stopped running, except for the occasional jog around the block. However, running never stayed too far from my mind. I was not blessed with skinny genes…so I continued to run so that I could eat (because I was definitely born with the eating gene), and hopefully still fit into my skinny jeans. In college my roommate and I decided to run a half marathon (I don’t remember whose idea this was-I doubt it could have been mine!) and so began my transformation from non-athlete into self-made athlete.
Over the years I have had periods where I have trained and raced a lot, and then there have been periods of time when I’ve done nothing. I’ve learned some basics along the way, and while I’m no expert, feel I might have some pearls of wisdom to share with other non-athletes like myself. I have noticed as of late, that many people, particularly females my age, are starting to get into racing. That was the impetus for this site. I hope for this blog to be a collection of tales of my own running/racing history, like the one above, but also bits of advice and tips that I have garnered along the way. Hopefully it will motivate people to get outdoors and start running—or train for your first triathlon. Believe me, if I could turn myself into an “athlete”—anyone can!
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