Yesterday, while participating in my first organized race since Track & Field Day in fifth grade, I found myself reflecting on my rather contentious history with physical activity. See, I was never athletic or even particularly active as a child. I was bookish and solitary, given to spending hours curled up in a chair with my current book, losing myself in imaginary adventures. When told to go outside and play, I would as often as not take my book with me and find a convenient tree to lean against.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was also overweight. This made gym class something of a torment, as I felt awkward and out of place in my own skin, something that only became worse as I went through puberty. Suddenly, in addition to having excess weight, I had these strange and embarrassing changes in my body to contend with. Running laps and playing soccer suddenly became very public exhibitions of my awkwardness and made the notion of being active something inherently distasteful.
Anyhow, as I was running my 5k, I found myself almost angry at the wasted time of my teens and twenties. Why, I wondered, had I missed out on so many years (and let's be honest, probably my prime years), sitting on the sidelines becoming fatter and less active with each one that passed? It's a hard question, and one that I have asked myself a number of times through this journey towards becoming, dare I say, an athlete. The answers are not easy to come by as it is, I think, a complicated mix of inherent tendencies and societal expectations.
One of the things that came to mind yesterday as I was running was the lack of knowledge of even the simplest of things that make an activity like running something other than torture. My mother was not active, I had no female relatives to take me under their wing and tell me the way of things. So instead, I endured countless laps around the gym and endless games of soccer and kickball and who knows what else as a large chested woman in a bra hardly worthy of the name. I played sports in clothes that bunched and chafed, wore whatever shoes I happened to have on hand. How much different would it have been, I wondered, if someone had taken the time to explain these things that I have learned later in life through research and the advise of friends.
It seems a little thing, and it is. But for an awkward teenager, already inclined to dislike physical activity, these little things left an enduring impression of discomfort and inferiority when thinking of things like running or playing sports. That feeling endured...even as recently as last year I thought that running was for other people, smaller women more coordinated and less awkward than myself. I'm glad I moved past it, but I can't help but regret the wasted time. It makes me wonder about the other girls and young women out there who are going through the same experiences, developing the same aversions. Is there a way, I wonder, to reach out to them and introduce them to a world of physical activity, of moving, that isn't tied to humiliation of gym class, but that introduces instead the joy and freedom that can be found in the midst of a good run or ride.
Workout: Did a couple loops of Lebanon with the boys. Autumn is the perfect time for mountain biking.
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