Tortoise American

Q: What did the snail say while riding on the tortoise's back? A: Wheeeeee!!!!! - 6th grade joke

"I get my exercise by acting as a pall-bearer for those of my friends who choose to exercise regularly."

- Winston Spencer Churchill

I have never been a runner. Or, more accurately, the last time I could really run without making excuses for myself was when I was about 11. Back then I was fleet of foot and could hold my own against most playground competition. But once the inertia of adolescence began to slow me down, running anywhere for any distance seemed as remote as ascending Everest on my knees or brachiating through a forest canopy. Running was a physical challenge of endurance beyond my comprehension. My non-running in adulthood was only interrupted once in a required college fitness class where the stated goal was to run a thirteen minute mile (stop laughing...it was HARD!). I made it, but it took an entire semester of training to get me there.

In my defense, I should say that I'm not an entirely sedentary person. While I'm no athlete, I'm not opposed to moving around and I like being outdoors walking and swimming. But as far as real aerobics go, well...I tend to regard my body as more of a recreational vehicle than a temple - it's the machinery that gets me from a comfy chair to a comfy couch to a comfy bed. My fitness program is more conceptual than actual - that is, I have a stack of workout DVDs that I enjoy watching while I knit or eat.

Given my aversion to effort, even the shortest and slowest of jogs always left me with burning calves, protesting knees and lungs screaming for oxygen. Whatever endorphins I manufactured, it was never enough to make running feel like anything less than torture in sneakers.

And I could have led a very pleasant existence without running altogether – after all, I've gotten this far without having to run away from wild animals, attackers or cyclones. It seemed the probability from injury or death was far higher from running than not running. But then, one day and about fifteen pounds ago, my metabolism went dormant. Now, I find that running is the unavoidable solution to a problem that is not going away by just watching Hula Cardio Abs & Buns (seriously).

First off, my doctor wagged her finger at me at my last annual check up. Since she's no kind of alarmist and a full-figured sort of a woman herself, I was surprised that she made mention of my weight. I'm not the svelte girl I once was, but I'm within the average for my age. My waist resembles that slump of snow that gathers on your roof just before gravity sends it avalanching over the eaves, but other than that rather common figure-flaw, I'm not waddling or anything.

My doctor and I have been together a long time now - about twenty-seven years. She knows me well and I respect her advice. Her concern is that I'm carrying the extra flabbage entirely in my mid-section, and according to current research, that particular pattern of fat distribution raises the odds of diabetes and heart disease. Apparently, if I'd been spreading out in the badonkadonk or the hips, the medical effects of a mid-life plumping would be less severe.

But the apple shape - rounded middle sitting on top of bird legs - is the harbinger of health problems to come if it isn't kept in tight check. It's also wicked hard to whittle down a stubborn midsection without taking forceful action. And, as I think I already mentioned, forceful action isn't really my thing.

I don't know why I thought I was going to get some sort of genetic dispensation. Just looking at photographs from the women on both sides of my family should have told me that I would have around 42 good years of being a thin woman on the tall side of short. After that, my peasant ancestry would begin to assert itself. Looking at the Old World photos of omas and tantes should have clued me in that my heritage was not represented by the compact and lean. My foremothers were hearty stock bred for endurance and work; they were not brittle women, they did not have female problems. Like me, they had folds under their arms resembling small spinnakers that could full in the slightest breeze. They had soft wattles and broad faces and they were famine-resistant.

They understood the necessity of storing calories in a girdling pouch against the next crop failure or barbarian invasion. I carry their legacy and to this day, I believe I could be lost at sea for six weeks and would be found thriving on my caloric reserves. Maybe I'd be a little thirsty, but I would not have suffered any from debilitating weight loss. Sadly, though, the body type that allowed them to survive deprivation and tolerate physical labor isn't ideal for an urbanite with a permanent impression of car keys in one hand and a deli take-out container in the other. My fat storage system has the potential to undermine my health down the road.

So, necessity and the unflattering shape of things to come made it imperative that I take on some form of activity that would lure my metabolism out of hibernation. Previously, I'd been walking two to three miles a day and swimming in between, so I had not been entirely sloth-ish. But I had noticed that among most friends my age, if you want to keep off the pounds, you can either stop taking any enjoyment from food and restrict yourself to pleasure-free eating or find some kind of aerobic activity that you can stand.

I considered my options.

Bikes have never been kind to me, and I dislike everything to do with cycling. It's uncomfortable, requires too much expensive equipment and the risk of getting flattened by someone who is texting and driving at the same time is just too high. I'm attracted to Nia and aerobic dance, but those require getting to special studios and putting down at least ten dollars per class according to a schedule convenient only for people who don't have anything to do or anywhere to be at 10:00 on a weekday morning. Given those obstacles, and since I was already walking around a track every morning anyway, running seemed the likely, albeit unappealing, solution. So, that's where I started with virtually no hope for any kind of success - knowing my insurmountable limitations, knowing that this was going to hurt.

The first, and perhaps most important act before one starts running is to acquire the right running outfit. I could have gone to the local Cult of Esoteric Running Sciences and sought the advice of the Masters there, but I resisted. I knew we would have a long discussion on supination v. pronation and I would be persuaded that I would do myself life-long harm if I were to leave with anything less than a $300 pair of shoes. Along with the shoes, I'd find myself compressed into a pair of non-chaffing running briefs made from fabric so technically advanced that any sweat that accumulates in the weave is distilled back into purified water that, then, rehydrates the runner through a permeable membrane in the waistband. Those would be about $200.

Then, because I am I, I would add special CoolMax® EcoTech® socks made from recycled plastic bottles and treated with Fresh FX® and silver ions to reduce foot odor. I couldn't run anywhere without a Polar FT40 heart rate monitor that stores 50 workout files and 16 weekly training summaries with multilingual interface. Nor could I take a single step without a CamelBak hydrator with the Dynamic Suspension® harness and the Air Director® back panel that helps ensure a comfortable, stable fit and includes both the air-mesh harness lined with soft Velvetex® microfleece and the Big Bite® valve ergonomically positioned for easy drinking.

Knowing how quickly I can fill a shopping bag with pricey gear, I did the sensible thing. I started off wearing what I already had. I knew that my almost certain collapse would seem less pathetic if I didn't look like I had any delusions about my ability. When the medics came to carry me off the track, it would be better if they saw me in a stained grey t-shirt and disreputable shoes than in a high-tech colorful ensemble designed for professional Kenyan cross-country sprinters. Shabby running shorts and mismatched socks would declare to the world that my aspirations were humble and that I had no pretensions whatsoever.

Having dispatched with the equipment/apparel aspect of running, I turned inward to the psychological. I admit to having a serious case of runner envy regarding the gazelle-like humans who appear to pull this off effortlessly. There they go, those smug runners with their hanky-sized shorts and lean muscle mass and vitality, bounding along and sweating, making running appear natural. They fly past me on the trail, insensitive to the challenges I face as a Tortoise American and how their arrogant behavior damages my self-esteem. Expletive-deletive-ing runners.

But, what they make look so easy is really just hard. A few people seem to have a physical predisposition that allows the least deserving of smokers, couch spuds and video game addicts to take up running with ease. They light a fresh one, grab a donut and drive to the sporting goods store to buy a new pair of Adidas. By the weekend, they have entered (and completed) their first 10K and survived with nary a hitch. However, even if you have been blessed by Mercury and have some sort of advantage over the slower members of your species, running is not effortless and is as much a test of your will as your stamina.

If you flip through Runners magazine, or any of its kin, two words leap out at you over and over - "endurance" and "pain." Nowhere do the magazines discuss the relative ease associated with running. Page after page is given over to recommendations for managing the pain (or, euphemistically, the "discomfort"). All of the articles indicate that you, the runner, are really involved in a battle between your body begging you by all that's holy to STOP, STOP, STOP and your head, which is providing a stream of absurd rationale why you should just keep on going.

The articles suggest that the secret to overcoming the urge to drop dead is to associate the pain (discomfort) with something pleasant. I cannot think what that would be for me other than stopping. Stopping would be VERY pleasant. But I think they mean that you should associate your "discomfort" with meeting your training goals. As in, "If I keep running. I will collapse and die. That's my goal because it means that my waistline will no longer be of any concern."

Since stopping is the anti-thesis of running, it's not an option. One is tempted to make some sort of a devil's bargain by agreeing to give up one slice of pizza instead of running the next eighth, but again, eating less does not improve your endurance or increase your muscle strength. The Nike slogan does not say "Just do the bare minimum" or "Just go do something else". Aerobic exercise makes you push yourself into an uncomfortable range. There isn't any getting around it or negotiating out of it…the only way through it is, really, just to do it. Slowly. Painfully. Refusing to surrender.

And so I began.

When I started out a couple of months ago, I already knew that the whole world moved along the trail at a faster clip than I. Mothers pushing strollers, elderly folks using walkers, even the homeless trundling their shopping carts all passed me as I struggled along. But I remembered something my friend, Ann, a professor of kinesiology and a runner herself, once told me: you empower yourself through fitness. Because you take charge of it and it doesn't just happen to you, you test yourself both psychologically and physically.

The race does not go, necessarily, to the swiftest or the strongest runner, but rather, to the most stubborn – the sort of person who will not give in but will keep going a little farther every day. You begin to regard yourself as not just a passive person who accepts whatever comes your way, but a proactive person who has the character to push back and push yourself beyond your comfort level. It's a new experience.

I won't go on about my actual progress – it's slow and would not inspire anyone. More advanced runners would think I was a nearly hopeless case. Suffice it to say that when I started, I couldn't run from the corner of the tennis court to the cottonwood without feeling like my legs were crumpling under me and my lungs were going to burst like over-inflated beach balls. Then, incrementally, I made it around the soccer goal and the doggy-clean up station to the oak tree. I extended that to the utility pole and the playscape. Eventually, I circled the quarter-mile track and then did it twice. Now, I'm running and walking and running and the gaps between the two are getting shorter. It's now clear to me that I'll keep going farther as my stamina builds. My body will naturally see to that and I don't have to analyze it beyond what it is.

What really intrigues me is the mind-game of running. There's a focus to it that is like nothing I've ever experienced – monastic, even. In the same way that monks simplify so that their consciousness is focused on meditation to the virtual exclusion of all other distractions, runners pare down to one step, one breath...following the next and following the next. There isn't anything else. It's very enlightening.

And a couple of external things have changed since I took up running. I often share the track with the physical education classes from the neighboring elementary school. When I was just walking, the gym teacher treated me with the disdain that I've always encountered with members of her profession. But now, even though her third graders lap me, she calls out, "Keep going! You're doing GREAT!" as I pass her.

The other changes are physical. There's a cord strung along the back of my thigh – the hamstring muscle. That's getting taut and ropey. And I am just noticing the very whisper of something happening under my ribs...an alien depression... I almost hesitate to call it this, but a definition, a dip that wasn't there before. I look at it often, admiring my new, almost invisible contour.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just going. I don't have a fixed distance or time in mind. Hopefully, the troublesome waistline will begin to melt. This seems to be a predictable consequence of intense aerobic exercise.

But taking one tortoise step at a time, it's bound to lead somewhere.

< Previous column

Next column >

Ingrid lives on San Juan Island.

While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." Besides a passion for Tiki Studies, Ingrid is borderline biblio-obsessive. She is an old-school Libran - i.e., she won't be leading the Revolution, but she'll work to make it an attractive affair and hire the musicians and caterers."

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

editor@sanjuanislander.com

About Us | Advertising Info | Contact Us | Privacy Policy