Marathon Season - The Anyone Can Do It Speech

I remember a time in my life when people could still remember distinctly what I used to look like. They would see me and ask how I lost so much weight, and I would answer "I started running and changed the way that I ate." No one really liked that answer. They wanted the quick fix. Let me just say, I did too.

I haven't always been heavy. I remember always feeling heavy. I have those memories that every person who struggles with their self-image has. My mother, grandmother and myself sitting in Holiday House (an old Austin hamburger institution) and my mom telling me that I ate like a pig and looked like one. Keep in mind, my mom loved me, but like lots of moms, had her own major issues. I am sure that she was doing it from a place of love, but I know distinctly that was the point that I began a life long pattern of self consciousness about my appearance. I am also the second granddaughter on my father's side (the baby on my mom's) my older cousin Tiffany is kind of a picture of beauty, and when I say that I don't just mean the standard way, she is and always has been just one of those women who has something striking and breathtaking about her and it's undefinable. As I got older I realized it's her spirit, but as a child. listening to people go on and on about her, I thought it was simply that she was beautiful. And then there is my Dad. He is the person in my life that has the highest value for thin. Let me just tell you, that I am a Johnson, and there will NEVER be a day in my life when someone is going to look at me and think I am thin. However, I am the only daughter of a man who really values thin. When he was married to my mom she could not have weighed more than 115 soaking wet. I did not get those genes, and if anyone knows about genetics, it's my Dad. He spent a lot of my childhood, in my perception, acting out of a gripping fear that his only daughter was going to be fat.

I am not going to lie, my child hood wasn't the worst, and it wasn't the best. I can only say in such a public venue that it was unideal in a lot of ways and then it was overwhelmingly magical in others. And such is life. However as a kid growing up in America with lots of emotional stress and often, not a lot of money, McDonalds, sloppy joes, tacos, deep fried and sugary were the meal order on most occasions. I don't know when I started gaining weight really, I know that I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't think I was fat. I definitely look back at pictures now and see that I wasn't big as a child at all, but I just didn't know. I definitely ate for comfort. I didn't exercise because I was clumsy, and very lazy, despite an obscene amount of energy. Like most of America, my obesity had a number of contributing factors.

When I say obesity I mean it. I am not sure what I was at my peak weight, but I can tell you that after Blake and Marci's wedding I was wearing a size 22 and I can remember being on the scale at one point and weighing 232. People frequently ask me what made me start the process toward health, and honestly I just don't know. When Claire was here I tried to remember when I started losing weight, and I honestly cannot remember. It wasn't an aha moment. It was a lot of gradual, small decisions that led to a SLOW shedding of pounds. To be really gut level honest, my view of myself today is still a MAJOR battle. The person that I see in the mirror is not the person that I really am, and I pray a lot that I can reconcile that discrepancy.

I do remember that I decided one day that I was going to start running. I don't know why. I do know that my Aunt and Uncle (who raised me after I left my mom's when I was 15... well after the Ballards, Scott and Mary Ann and my sweet Aunt Nana) run marathons. They have been runners as long as they have been married... I think. I don't even really know how they started running. Anyway, I of course knew that I would never be a marathon runner, but at 200 pounds, surely even a mile would help right?

So there is this trail that runs around the circumference of Baylor. It's called the Bear Trail, and during the day all the really pretty people at the University run around it. I always wanted to stop those people that ran in their tiny shorts and tank tops about 3 times a day and give them cheesecake. Eat something, for the love of Pete... you are wasting away, and while you are at it, STOP RUNNING, no one is chasing you! I never did, but I felt like I could have a real call to cheesecake ministry. Instead I would drive to Sonic, order a cherry lime slush, a cheeseburger with mayo and mustard, jalepeno poppers and a shake. But no running. Yuck. Running. I ran the Presidents Physical Fitness test in 19 minutes, one minute less than what is required to not fail. Immediately after the humiliation of passing so narrowly I retired from running for life. Until that one night.

I put on my baggiest exercise clothes (miracle that I had any - I HATE exercise) and decided that I would go out in the safety of the dark and run until I couldn't and then I would walk the rest of the way home. The BT is 2.25 miles and that is pretty much more distance than I put in in a month. So I did it. I did it a few times that week. And since slow and steady wins the race, with my mega slow pace, the VERY next week I "ran" it without walking. Then I set my sights on running it twice. Somewhere in there I decided that I wanted to run a marathon. I trained alone. I ran by myself. I prayed, I cried, I hated it, I sweat, I felt humiliated, I felt elated. I would drive to Austin to run my long runs with my Aunt. We would run and talk and I can honestly say that it has been the continued shared experience of her belief in my and patience to run those long runs with me over the years that has made her my best friend. If she and my uncle had not told me a million times that I could do it and sacrificed their own ambitions and schedules for the sake of being able to cheer for me I would have never done it or made it.

Seriously. I am not a finisher. I barely finished high school. I did not finish college. I normally quit something I knew I could do, rather than finish just to prove to someone I could. I did not care and I let that laziness and that lifestyle rule me. I knew that me finishing a marathon was an impossible task and that I could not do it, but I would try and when I didn't want to do it anymore I would quit. My aunt and uncle knew this about me and they were determined to create an environment for me where I didn't fall into that same trap of my own laziness. Can you imagine? What a gift. I loved my runs with my Aunt. I loved how proud they were of me when I had finished the longest run I had ever run. They would celebrate me like I was a 2 year old learning to walk, and it healed me. They were not celebrating my performance, my running or my determination - they were celebrating me and the person that they always knew that I was - who was finally finding her way out from under all that self-imposed rejection and exile.

Their love and support was contagious. I would be running the BT and friends would roll down their car windows and cheer for me. If I stayed in Waco for my long runs my friends would hop in and stand in the gap for my Aunt. Running with me in 5 mile increments until I had finished my 18, 20 and 23 mile runs. For three years Lee Anne met me at the nine mile mark of every long run with a power bar and gatorade. What a faithful friend.

The weekend of the marathon my friends from Austin, Waco and Dallas gathered in Austin, headed up by roommate and near sister Jordan. They found me in the chaos of the Austin Marathon, fighting traffic, impossible obstacles and other crazy fans so that I could see them holding signs, cheering for me and reminding me that I could do it. They told me where going to be so that in the miles in between I could remember, OK, if I can make it to mile 17 Stephen will be there with Shiner. I never ran to mile 26, I just ran to the next mile marker, and when I made that one I would run to the next one. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Confucius. One step, one step, one step.

My favorite part of a marathon besides the finish is mile 13. That's the part where my Aunt comes in with a power bar and a gatorade and she starts running with me. It's the part where you can start counting back and not up, I run to mile 13 and then I run to mile 12, 11, 1o, 9... My uncle hops in somewhere between 20 and 22 and they carry me the last 6 miles. They tell me I can do it, listen to me whine, enjoy my silence, give me the same tips that they give me EVERY time I run (like maybe I had forgotten them) "Walk through the water stops." is their favorite.

The first marathon though, as we got closer and closer to the finish we knew that we were on monumental ground. They left me at the Congress avenue bridge to run the last .2 miles by myself. My oldest friend from life Chris was ahead, in a Hawaiian shirt on the left, my friends running along the fence on the right and my Aunt and Uncle flanked my sides. They left me like two fighter jets parting in the sky so that they could greet me at the finish, and I ran the last .2 alone. I had been running for 6 hours and 20 minutes. It was no race, it was just a finish, and one of the most significant of my life, as it would become the first of many finishes for me. As I headed toward the line, a small sporty woman wearing her finishers medal appeared in my right peripheral vision. She was clapping and yelling, still, probably 2 and a half hours after her own finish and like a messenger sent from God she looked me in the eye and said with total peace and confidence, "you are a finisher." And I was, and I am.

That marathon was the first of many. Now it has become part of how people identify me. I run races so often that I get asked what my next race is as often as I get asked about living in Germany. Hear me, there was never a moment in my life where I EVER thought I was capable of this. Every race I hope I finish. Every run is a battle and a choice. I DO NOT LOVE RUNNING, I love finishing. I also want to say the loss of close to 100 pounds has not changed my life. It was not the answer to everything that was wrong with me internally or emotionally, if anything, not having the weight to blame has left me realizing that there are bigger issues at hand that are more exposed now that my scape goat is gone. I gave all the excuses that you will, my weight, not being in shape, bad knees, bad back, no time, don't want to do it alone, don't want to do it with people, impossible, don't want to, don't care...

Whether it is a marathon, a triathlon, healthier eating, walking, riding, rowing, aerobics, a 5K... you can do it. Really, if I can anyone can. I have not finished a marathon yet without someone who has never run one before running with me. I write something like this at least once a year to challenge people who have secretly wished or dreamed in their heart to do such a thing to GO FOR IT. IF I CAN DO IT ANYONE CAN! The Berlin Marathon is in September, I will be fresh back from Uganda and ready to run. There are a million 18 week training programs for beginners, intermediates and pros that will you get you trained and ready in plenty of time. The Austin Marathon is in February, the White Rock is in December (I think), the Chicago is in September also! I am including links to sights where you can download training programs or learn more. Just remember that you can do it! Even if you don't think that you can.

Finishing that marathon was a monumental moment in my life. I realized last night that in the most difficult moments of my life, emotionally, physically, spiritually I often go back in my mind to the hardest moment in my last race and remember that moment that I thought, "I cannot do this, I cannot finish, I want to quit." (and there is one - or twenty - every race) and then somehow I did it and in the end I forget the trauma of those moments of desperation (and often feel like I should have pushed a little harder than I did!!!!) There have been moments her in Berlin, or in my process of growing and becoming a more whole person that I have thought, I cannot do this, I am not this strong, I don't want to do this, I hate this... and I just remember mile 17 of a marathon where you've got just enough behind you that it would be dumb to quit and just enough in front of you that you really want to... and I remember how many times I have just focused on mile 18 - not 19 or 22 or the finish - and running one mile at a time I have made it home. It is not just about running a race, it is a lesson in perseverance and overcoming, and one that I think anyone would benefit from learning. I certainly have!

I believe in you guys! Go for it! Anyone want to come run Berlin in September????

http://www.halhigdon.com/#marathon
http://www.runnersworld.com/subtopic/0,7123,s6-238-244-255-0,00.html
http://www.active.com/running/Articles/How_to_Run_Your_First_Marathon.htm
http://running.about.com/od/firstmarathons/Preparing_For_Your_First_Marathon.htm

and for inspiration
http://www.marathonguide.com/features/firstmarathons.cfm