Yeah, I knew that would get you to read this. And I do. But not from the race. No, training is going well. I have been doing all of the things I should be doing to be ready. I am doing the work and also the extra work that my IT band requires. I have learned how to manage a flare up enough to keep myself running. We are 4 days away and I feel excited to get 'er done. Don't mistake my tone here for over-confidence or even confidence. I am still a mess of a runner. I am still unpleasantly incontinent. I am slow as a turtle. I argue with myself at every mile marker about quitting. But somehow, I am enjoying this experience. The sun has come out at last in Colorado and it is glorious to be outside.
But to quote a lovely Asian couple who decided against purchasing my parent's house, "I back out". I back out of the desperate pursuit of a certain weight. I am done. If you remember, I had hoped to lose ten pounds during my training. I tried to do Weight Watchers for the first two months. I failed repetitively in a demoralizing way. Since I have been training, I have been so hungry and have been unable to fight against legitimate hunger. If you had a pot of coffee on, I could sit down and tell you how this lifelong journey to lose weight has finally ended for me in the last two months. A few contributors to the death of the Michelle Patterson's Endless Pursuit of Skinniness Campaign have been...God, the book, "Women, Food and God" by Geneen Roth and my own sheer exhaustion. I will be blogging about it and even singing about it at www.michellealisonpatterson.com in the next few months. Here's precisely what I back out of: binging, purging, scale watching, restricting, mistrusting, hating and striving. I am happy to say that I have no idea what weight I am right now. My scale ran out of batteries at a divine moment and I never replaced them. Here's what I DO know, I can run up that giant hill in my neighborhood (in spurts). I can run/walk ten miles, so far. I can keep a commitment to myself to do a good thing for myself. I can make a long-term goal and work hard to meet it. Today, that's enough for me.
I have decided that whatever the outcome of this race, I would like to actually train to RUN something when I am finished. The run-walk routine has been imperative for me due to my previous lack of fitness. But after the race, I am going to try something new. I am going to start a running 5k training program from a place of fitness. What a concept, I know. I am going to try to keep running. Because I love it. And my friends will do it with me, which is another key to my success. :)
We leave Friday mid-day, Misty Movee & I and our sweet husbands. I will check in with my readers before and after the race as I know you will be on the edge of your seats to hear how we did. One area of concern for me today is my lower lip. I won a chubby bunny contest last night and woke up with my lower lip looking like a Madagascan slug. Pamela Anderson would be so jealous. Will I be able to run? Stay tuned....
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