introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i am not a runner. afterwards - 15 august 2014 "and i'll build a house inside of you. i'll go in through the mouth. i'll draw three figures on your heart: one of them will be me as a boy, one of them will be me, one of them will be me watching you run...watching you run into the high noon sun...watching you run farther than guns will go. you are a runner with a stolen voice and you are a runner...and I am my father's son."~wolf parade in the spring of last year, my friend steph and i started going to a crossfit box for the first time. i left work early that first day, fought to find parking on the south side of pittsburgh and walked to the little hidden gym for the first time. i quickly changed my clothes and joined the rest of the first-timers. "we're running as part of the warm-up so just follow everyone else out there," the extremely fit and intimidatingly beautiful coach told me, pointing out the door to the street. the street? yeah, you know, america..the street. as in outside. as in out there for everyone to see. in my head, i was screaming to just ditch the effort. it had been so long since i did much exercise that didn't involve my trusty bike and every body image issue i've ever had rose to the surface in a fraction of a second. running? me? what the fuck was i thinking? but i did it because i needed to do something. i was tired of feeling tired and fat and hating everything about myself. my transition to a paleo diet months beforehand was making me feel pretty terrific already but that had plateaued and i needed to add some good exercise in to keep making progress so...i was determined to push through all of the crap in my head (the most painful part of it) and the sore muscles to get...somewhere different....somewhere better. so while my fat ass took those first few jogging steps out onto the sidewalk, my head screamed that everyone was watching me. that there was bound to be some internet meme of me running on the streets of the city during rush hour traffic in one of the busiest parts of town before i even got home. that there was no way i was going to make it around that block and then still manage whatever else they had in store for me. every step was a fight against myself more than anything. halfway through, i stopped jogging and walked a little bit to catch my breath. i was sweating like crazy and freaking out that someone was going to hear how out of breath i was...because you know people give any shits about that, right? in the end, i made it back to the box and the rest of the night wasn't bad at all. they showed us how to lift safely and correctly with practice bars and i was surprised to find that i was pretty good at it. i might not run but i can squat like a champ and have pretty good posture. by the end of the hour, we did a mini-workout and all the garbage thoughts that had come with the running, while not gone completely, were quieted at least for a little bit. i won that night...even if winning meant i could barely move when i got home...and by barely, i mean not at all. taking strangebird's advice, i got out one of my rolling pins and rolled my muscles on the living room floor as i stretched them. it was the kind of pain that makes you know your body did something awesome but makes you think twice about doing it again. i felt the kind of good that i hadn't felt in so long. those crossfit days were strange for me mentally and physically. i was dragging myself out of bed for 6am WODs (learning the language was part of the process, i guess.) in the first few weeks, it was still cool and barely spring but as the weather got warmer, it got harder and harder to want to go. still, the sun was barely up when i started and most of the city was just waking up. it felt good to have completed a morning WOD before most people were even leaving for work. while i had participated in team sports here and there, i was always battling all the crap in my head from the time i was little. from those 'president's fitness challenges' in elementary school through high school where i felt embarrassed for not being able to manage a proper sit-up (i never learned how to do it right and had to report 0 when my name was called every year) to being laughed at in locker rooms to all the other crap that kids say to each other outside of gym class. nothing was a celebration of what i could do but rather a long list that seemed to get ever longer of things that i couldn't. all of it stuck with me and usually made me quit before i'd even start something new. by my high school years, i didn't even try to make those sit-ups happen. i just waited for that excruciating minute to be over so i could give them my '0' and get on with it. soccer was good and fun for me and i wasn't terrible at it but my parents didn't really ever come to games and it was a pain to get to practice given their schedules so i eventually dropped out of that. volleyball was awesome and i was pretty good at that, too...but i played primarily with a team at church and when my parents converted, i had to drop out of that, too. i tried on intramural sports a little in college for fun. it didn't matter to me that i had an awesome serve in volleyball or would defend a goal to the death...my brain wasn't going to focus on what i could do. instead, my brain screamed insults at me and reminded me that i am a fat girl and fat girls don't count for anything so why bother? because of me selling me short, team sports have never been for me...because it's hard to focus on being part of a team when you're stuck fighting yourself in your head. crossfit was different, though...it wasn't competing with everyone else there...it was competing against myself, my own times, and with the support of everyone around me. everyone...not just a coach...but everyone in that box wants you to succeed at getting better and everyone celebrates individual success. i've never experienced anything like that before. while i was getting going with crossfit, i was also visiting with my doctor for checkups (namely, trying to get off the antidepressants that i'd started taking over the winter which didn't seem to be helping anything.) it turned out that the running had caused a small fracture in my foot and, one night, while rowing like a champion, i'd pulled a muscle pretty badly inside my thigh. doing things correctly and with someone to supervise me also meant that i was using the right muscles to do things...which mean that some muscles had never gotten much play and weren't ready for me to stress them out. i was learning fast. the coach threw me an ice pack and sent me home for the night telling me to rest. the coaches and the other crossfitters were incredible, helping me modify things for my ability level and never making me feel badly for trying...which was huge for me. one of the guys who regularly joined the lightly-attended morning classes told me once that when he'd started, he couldn't even make it through the warmups and that i was doing great...which made me feel great. during one of the first nights, i went home and cried because i'd done the first sit-ups of my life...and not just one,either. i did more than 40 of them (few compared to everyone else there but i wasn't there to compare this time.) i'd reached muscle failure and that, my coach assured me, was the point i should strive for. i'd been successful at something i could never do before. everything was upbuilding and supportive and i was so thankful for that kind of environment. i learned a lot about myself in those months that i wish i'd learned so much sooner. i think it was only when i took my father's old bike to college one spring when i was maybe 20 that i found the sport that brought me the most joy and i've stuck with it since. there isn't much that makes me as happy as killing a tough hill only to ride down the other side (and there is always another side.) i've brought others along and have helped them find their bike-legs. i have learned some hard lessons about taking things apart if you don't know how to put them back together--giving my bike shop guy a good laugh when he had give me the bill for rebuilding my front wheel hub when i lost a few ball bearings just to paint my front rims neon pink. i got involved with bike pittsburgh and took bike maintenance classes at free ride. i rode the trails around the city and the trails in college. biking is something i'm glad to share with others and just as happy to do on my own. while my bike hasn't gotten too much play here in maine, i intend to start taking it out more as the weather cools. she just needs a little tuneup before i take her over to the forest...but that's part of it. i feel badly going to the forest without my dog and my dog can't keep up with me on the bike like he used to. maybe i'll take a slow ride with him and see how he does...because that's the thing. since we've come here, we're both so much healthier than we've been in a long time. maybe i'm underestimating him like i'd been underestimating myself. those crossfit days gave me a lot of courage and changed a lot about how i feel about myself. after a few weeks, i was managing pullups and lifting things that i never thought i could. i found that i'm a lot stronger than i was giving myself credit for. i found that those WODs were making me morning-drunk on endorphins and i was getting pretty addicted. but then i stopped...crossfitting isn't cheap and at just over 200$ a month, it wasn't something i could sustain for the single-income household i was living in. the crossfit gyms here aren't really much cheaper, either. i miss lifting things. my body wants to flip tires but my wallet wants to make sure i can afford to give this baby everything i can to not have the same self-esteem and body image issues that i have struggled with my whole life. so that's the thing...the whole point. i started walking those trails in the city forest this spring partly because i needed something to do and partly because i know that walking is one of the best things i can do for the baby and an easier time with giving birth. i used to hate walking a lot because walking meant that i wasn't biking. biking gets you anywhere faster and you get to be part of this very simple beautiful machine...walking is just...walking. you've been doing that since you learned how. but it was good for sammy and it was good for me so i started making a little game of it, tracking my times and increasing distance. but now that i've been doing that all summer, it's getting boring. i've gotten fast enough that i've wanted to just run but when i checked with the doctor's office, they told me no. no? why not? they just said that if i wasn't doing it before, i shouldn't start until after the baby is born. when i talked with the midwife (who seems to take all the data into account, thankfully) she gave me a green light. she knows i've been walking and she knows my eating habits and has a more complete picture of who i am and what i do and what i can handle than the doctor's office probably ever will. so i'm going with the midwife on this one because at this point, i've been walking so fast that i'm only a breath away from running anyway. so this morning, i pulled on my sauconys and my very excited dog and i headed to the car and drove the five or so miles over to the woods. i was nervous, half-tempted to just push it back until next time but i knew if i did that, i might not start. i remembered those crossfit days last spring and decided fuck it . just do it today. get it out of the way and give it a few days and see then. maybe i'd hate it and then i could at least say i tried it out...but maybe i wouldn't hate it. how could i know? i downloaded the couch-to-5k app last night and had it ready to go with my regular walk-mapping app. i was even more nervous when i arrived in the parking lot and found it more packed than it has been all summer. good thinking...start on a friday after days of rain when everyone would be out. good idea! i parked, leashed sam for the walk over to our regular trail, pressed 'start' on the app and...got started. sammy was off-leash and i think i confused the heck out of him when, after a 5 minute warm-up walk, i started jogging. i. it makes me laugh that i even did it. and it was way easier than i thought it would be but i know they set up the program to be like this. after 5 minutes of warming up, there is a cycle of 1 minute of jogging to 1.5 minutes of walking. the cycle continues like this for 8 sets and then ends with 5 more minutes of walking. i decided to take my usual route (about 2 miles on the weekdays) and then just end with walking the rest of the way back. i cringed inwardly when i saw other joggers coming my way but i kept going anyway reminding myself that at least i'm trying and hey, guys, today was the first day of my 28th week of pregnancy so i'm pretty sure that they should have been applauding me for doing it at all, right? if they weren't, i was. good for me. 30 minutes flew by quickly and i got about a mile and a half in when it was over. i walked the half mile back to the car. today was my best time for this usual route ever, even though i felt like i was walking more slowly somehow. i was sweating like crazy and my dog was confused by the jogging and walking cycles which amused me. he kept up just fine, though. so i did it. and i know it's not that big a deal. it's hardly running a 5k. but i'm getting started. i didn't hate it. i didn't die. and the first time out is always the hardest for me so i'm excited to get back out and do it again....faster. i came home and had a celebratory not-raw sushi lunch of unagi and california rolls. i feel so good and i know that i have those crossfit months to thank for it, truly. i've felt stronger and more beautiful this summer than i've felt in so so long and i'm feeling like there are less things that are going to hold me back from anything. i want this same thing for the baby, too--i want that little one to be able to try new things and not be afraid of all of those voices that say ''you can't do that.' don't get me wrong, those voices are still there and they're still telling me to quit and telling me i'm too big or too fat or too something to do [whatever]... that everyone is either watching me or laughing at me or both. but they're getting easier to ignore and less easy to believe because i'm doing what i want to and that's what matters to me now...and doing what i want feels good. do what you want, too, america...no matter what. xo, jones ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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