That's sort of what got the ball rolling on this project in the first place, except now it has somehow snowballed into something much bigger than I could possibly have anticipated: ambitions to run a 26.2 mile race, i.e. marathon. In October.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, first, why the 10K? Why the running? And why are you telling me this?
I was fat as a child. Really fat. And as Peter Segal very eloquently explained in a recent Runner's World article, once a fat kid, always a fat kid, even once you've stop being fat and your nickname is Slim (or Flaca, in my case). Former fat kids live haunted by the idea that one misstep, one ice cream sundae, one steak dinner too many, one six pack of beer, one candy bar more, one box of extra butter popcorn smothered in cheese... and we'll be back to 200+ lbs and no one, not even our families, particularly not our families, will ever... love us... again.
Overdramatic? Yup. Irrational? Yes. But whatever will get me to the track, I guess.
I lost weight in high school, something like 60 lbs over the course of four years because the sports teams at Commonwealth High School were hurting for players so badly they would take anyone, even me. Also, I was tall, which is the world of high school sports is currency. So I played basketball, volleyball, soccer, and the only thing they all had in common-- aside from, you know, use of a ball-- was that we had to run. A lot. And while I was the slowest member of the team-- something my coaches liked to point out-- I realized quickly that I probably also had some of the best endurance.
While the skinny pretty girls would start walking and chatting and taking shortcuts as soon as the coach couldn't see them, I actually tried, and often succeeded, at finishing the course. Before I even knew about runner's mantras I already had one, courtesy of my basketball coach Jimmy, "Being tired is all in your head. You're not actually tired, you just think you are because you've been running for a long time, but you can keep going." This I distilled down to, "Its all in your head." Which can be applied to most things in life.
When I moved to New York for college, while I did go to the gym and I still had the ability to run down a bus for six blocks down 2nd Avenue at a sprint and not be out of breath when I caught it, walking, coffee, and cigarettes became my fitness regime. I'd come to New York to starve was my freshman motto.
At the time, I hated food. I was afraid of it, I felt guilt-ridden by it, all sorts of negative feelings existed for me around food, even though at the time I was the thinnest I'd ever been.
Spain took care of that (along with my short stint as a vegetarian). I did a semester abroad in Madrid which taught me three things: I love cooking , I love eating, and that's more than OK. Spanish culture is an eating culture. People have breakfast, coffee and a snack at noon, three course lunches with wine or beer at 2pm, another midafternoon snack that involves ham and beer or coffee and cookies (my favorite things!) around 6 or 7pm, and then they have dinner at 10pm. Spaniard eat all the time! This is awesome!
Back in New York I began cooking, mostly vegetarian fare, some baking, and I would exercise sometimes-- I could keep up a regime for a month at a time, if it wasn't winter, of course. But walking in New York is as much exercise as anybody needs. That's why everyone who lives there and doesn't own a car is beautiful.
Long story short: I took up food blogging, a course in Food Writing 101 at the Institute of Culinary Education, bought 15 lbs of kosher lamb and a 50 lb bag of flour, gained 10 lbs happily... and when I tried to run with my friend D, who is also a former fat kid and a complete gym rat, I could barely keep up for two minutes. It didn't help that my neighborhood was all hills. D was bored, I was dying. I was going to throw up. This sucked.
Cut to Austin, TX, where I moved with my now ex and where walking was replaced with a car. I started running some. We broke up, I moved back to Puerto Rico... why, hello pork, rice and beans, and no vegetables. Yes I'd love some wine every day. That was the first few months.
I knew something had to be done or I would become fat again and die. So I started running.
When you run, your thoughts wander. And mine began to wander towards a rather large bridge that I'd crossed many a time inside a vehicle and which once a year gets closed off to cars so runners and walkers can cross and recross, a distance of about, oh, 10 kilometers. I remembered crossing it as a child when it first opened, before the race was dubbed The World's Best 10K (which is a stupid name).
As I began to gain endurance again and running became something I had to do rather than something I had to get myself to do, the idea of crossing that bridge again became very attractive to me.
I ran a couple of 5Ks (more on that in later posts), and decided, Fuck it. Coughed up $30 plus fees and next Sunday, before the Oscars, I'm crossing that bridge. And I'm scared and the best remedy for fear is a bigger fear, so now I've decided I want to run a marathon. I'm dumb that way.
But I came up with an analogy I like: these races are my Ithaca, they're the end goal, the destination but what really counts, the bulk of the story, is the odyssey itself, the journey. Its what going to keep that fat kid locked up deep inside me and what's going to make it totally OK to drink beer and eat. Cheesy? Yup. Obsessive? Sure. But, you know, whatever gets me to the track.
Speaking of which. I should head out.
