My History of (non) Fitness

Or - how did I get here!

The world of committing to structured physical activity is one that is totally new to me. I have never ever in my life taken on events that demand that I train myself physically. And as I have begun that journey I have discovered that it is important to reflect on where I have come from. I have realized that I have essentially taken on creating a new "self", one that does not avoid physical activity, and has that aspect of my life be as important as many others.

Growing up I was a skinny little bookish kid who hated gym. I was always really healthy, and was active in the way that all kids growing up in the 60's and 70's were active - we ran around outside, walked to school, and had nice long recesses - but I never voluntarily did structured physical activity. Of course, the opportunities were a lot fewer for a girl at that time. There were no girls playing on my brother's little league team, there were no all-girl soccer teams or anything else that I knew about. I could have done gymnastics (I thought about it - I was very flexible), but classes were few and far between. There certainly were some athletic girls - I know because they picked on me in gym class! - but it was difficult for girls to find ways to participate in organized athletic activities.

Anyway, by the time I was in High School and College I identified myself as "non-athletic." I hated the feeling of "pushing" myself physically, I had no interest in participating in sports, and specifically looked for a college where I was not going to be required to do much P.E. I ended up going to the University of Chicago - which is a great school for skinny bookworms! The social life there revolves around the library for heavens sake! However, as a broke college student, living off campus without a car I still got lots of daily activity. I walked everywhere, and worked part time at an after-school Pre-Kindergarten program, which had me running around a lot. So I was able to stay thin and happy with my body without really taking it on.

A year after college I married my college sweetheart, Tom Gartner, and we settled into life in Philadelphia. We didn't have a car (in fact, for a while neither of us had a drivers license!) and walked, biked and took public transportation. Again, I maintained a fairly healthy lifestyle without having to think about it much. For a while I worked at a really stressful job and lost a ton of weight, but almost immediately after I left that job I got pregnant with my daughter Hannah. I was thrilled to be pregnant, and it totally changed my life and my lifestyle to be a Mom. We moved out of center city to the Northwest part of the city, got a car, and of course I put on some weight. I had three more wonderful children (Will, Annika & Ally), and suddenly I was in my early forties, tired, sedentary & heavier than I would like.

About 3 1/2 years ago I realized that I needed to something about this. My years of taking my body for granted were over - or at least they needed to be if I wanted to move into the second half of my life as healthy and happy as I was committed to. The realization really hit home when we were on vacation in Maine. Every summer we go for a couple of weeks to Southwest Harbor, on Mt. Desert Island where Acadia National Park is. When we are there we really like to take advantage of the all the beautiful hiking and biking there is to do there. Well, we were biking on the carriage trails and I could barely do it anymore! I was walking my bike up hills that had not been a problem for me in the past, I was easily winded - in short, I was seriously out of shape. And this was not OK with me!

For a couple of years I tried a number of different ways to deal with this. I joined Curves for a month or two, but didn't think it was really working for me. I joined my local gym, and was fairly consistent for about 3 months, but then that petered out also. Nothing seemed to be sticking.

Finally I thought I would try running. I really don't remember why this occurred as a good idea to me. I had always hated running my whole life; I basically thought of it as a form of punishment. I hated the stitch in my side I always got, the burning feeling in my legs - you get the picture (and if you are a runner you probably also know the mistakes I was making!). But my husband had been doing it off and on for years, and I was coming to realize that it satisfied some of the most important requirements I had: I could do it when it worked for me, it was an activity I could do anywhere, and it didn't take any special training.

So a little over a year ago, I started the Couch to 5K program. I did not get all the way through it, and was not reliable to keep it up consistently, but I did keep trying on and off all year long. In the process I discovered that, lo and behold, I did not hate running! In fact I kind of liked it - as long as I was taking it easy, doing a little at a time, and slowly increasing my mileage and effort. I figured out that I had been doing it wrong my whole life. Every time I had started to run, some competitive button got tripped in me and I would push myself incredibly hard. What ended up happening is that I got a stitch in my side, pain in my legs, and I hated the whole thing. But if I took it slowly, it was kind of enjoyable to push myself and watch myself slowly improving.

This past January, I was hanging out on the Disboards, reading trip reports, when I discovered that Disney World held a marathon and a half marathon. As a Disney fanatic, I realized that this would be the ultimate motivation - I would finally really take on running, and then reward myself with a race at Disney World!

So now I have registered for the Half Marathon in January 2009, and in addition I am doing the Philadelphia Distance Run (also a half marathon) in September 2008. I also have a number of shorter races scheduled in between. I have become a runner!

Next - how did being a runner go from an idea to a reality?