The Girl With the Broken Foot

First, let me say very quickly--I'm NOT the girl with the broken foot.

Side story...most of you know I have another blog Journey to the Hood which is about the Hood to Coast team I have the privilege of being a part of.  I'm not the only author for this blog, Carrie Wilson (a team mate/friend) is one as well.  The first (and as yet the only) post Carrie wrote, titled "Five Weeks Without Running!" was about the fact she had just been released from doctor's care from a stress fracture in her foot.  Now...when a post is written on that blog, I have it automatically sent to my Face Book page and the Dixie Daredevil page.  It is also emailed to anyone who has subscribed (including my mother).  Can you see where this is going??  My mother, along with several of my friends, believed I was the girl with the broken foot!!    ....and no, she is not the girl with the broken foot THIS story is about, I just thought it was ironic.

So, if it's not me, and it's not Carrie, maybe you're wondering who it is.  Or, maybe you're wondering why I'm writing about her.  Allow me to explain.

Several girls from Huntsville went over to Atlanta this weekend to participate in the Athleta Iron Girl Sprint Tri.  ANOTHER of my Dixie Daredevil teammates, Sarah Coleman, and I were among them.  Alas, Sarah is the girl.  About a week ago Sarah got the unfortunate news what she believed to have been plantar faciitis was a stress fracture.  She received this news only after it progressed into a full on broken bone.  You might think she opted out of the sold out race she registered for pre-injury.  You might think she went to cheer on her friends and collect her tshirt and swag bag.  You might even go so far to think she went ahead and participated in the 587 yard open water swim for practice.

You'd be right...but one thing led to another.  She decided the night before she would swim, and bike...and then walk the "run" in her fancy boot.  However, as I was leaving T2 I bumped into someone and realized immediately Sarah was not only NOT walking in her boot...she was BEATING ME by about 10 minutes (because she started about 10 minutes after me) and here we were running together!!

Fleeting hopes of her needing to slow down quickly vanished as I reminded myself just how competitive she really is...and as I started to fade myself.  As we neared the middle of the first hill I decided I "needed" a quick breather and walked a bit.  I told her she could keep going and to not let me slow her down.  She was gracious enough to tell me I was speeding her up, but seriously, the only reason she was even still on the course was that BROKEN FOOT of hers.

As we turned to go up the last hill that led to the finish line, I was about to walk (because I thought I just couldn't make it up that thing)...she grabbed my hand and told me to come on!!  When we got to the top of the hill, and the end was in sight, I showed my thanks by attempting to give her a race for the finish.  But...even with a BROKEN FOOT she held me stride for stride and we crossed over together.  I can't wait to see those finish line shots!

Sarah is a hardcore Rock Star.  I was mentally whimpering over some cramps...I can't imagine the pain she must have been in.  She kept saying she had never hurt that bad at the end of a race, and yet, she powered through it.  How embarrassing... beaten by the girl with the broken foot!!  It could have been worse, she could have been wearing her boot!! 

Thanks for stopping in; come again soon!  (Photos and a longer recap to come.)
:D

More of What's Good vs. Less of What's Bad

For most of my life my strategy for doing anything better has been to identify what I'm doing WRONG and DO IT RIGHT.  Sounds good, doesn't it.  After all...it's what's wrong that keeps someone from living up to their potential, right??  If I made a 95 on a test, then I would look at the questions I missed in order to figure out how to do them right "next time".

As I'm writing I'm remembering when I was a little girl.  My parents divorced; my mother remarried.  I used to think all the time about what I would do in my next life.  "The next time I get to be a little girl I'm going to keep living in my old town and keep going to my old school and keep taking dance classes."  Silly, right?  It took me several years to realize you only get this one life.  I think that's when I began to anticipate mistakes and agonize over decisions.  If I only had one chance to make a right decision, I better not make a mistake because there would be no "next time" to correct it.  My focus was not on making a good decision, it was on not making the wrong one.

When I met my (current) husband, slowly my mindset began to change.  He and I had (and still have) many discussions about this very thing.  I slowly released the agony I would have over making decisions (well, for the most part).

However, the natural tendency for my mind to gravitate toward the negative, toward what's wrong, remained.  This is the tendency that would cause me to mentally scream at myself on a run for slowing down, or GASP walking.  This is the tendency that's responsible for pointing out all the ways I failed to live up to a goal or expectations.  This is the tendency which will not allow me to be happy with any given outcome because there's always room for improvement--meaning there are always ways in which I failed at any given task...All under the guise of helping me do better "next time".

When I was married to my first husband, he was "between jobs" when I was working full time.  I asked him one day if he could clean the house while I was gone to work.  When I came home I found a little pile of dust/dirt on the front porch (we had all hard wood floors, this was obviously from him sweeping the house).  My first thought wasn't, "oh look, he must have swept the house!!"...it was, "why couldn't he have swept this off the porch??"  When I went in the front door he was standing proudly in the middle of the room holding a remote to a car he'd been playing with in our freshly cleaned house.  He quickly picked up the car and put it on a chair.  My first thought as I surveyed the "spotless" house was not, "WOW--he really did a great job cleaning the house!!" ...it was "why couldn't he have just put that car up??"  Worse than just thinking it...I looked at my proud husband who had worked hard to please me, doing the very thing I had asked him to do, and allowed my thoughts to spew out of my mouth like venom.  I vividly remember the air coming out of his sails.  At the time I thought I was being helpful!  I only wanted to show him how to do better "next time".

Imagine your best friend having a PR in a race and having your first thoughts (and words) to him/her be, "you know you could have shaved off a whole minute if you had only just....."  If you're like me, you would NEVER say that to, or probably even think that about, anyone else.  Do you have those thoughts about yourself??  I know I have.  It's like, "yeah, yeah, that was a PR, but it could have been even better if only..."

I'm not so much a glass half empty kind of gal, but I'm also not a glass half full thinker either.  I've been more of a "the glass could be/could have been FULL, if only THESE THINGS were changed/different."  (If you hadn't spilled it/drank it/stopped filling it/filled it too fast and let it overflow so fast you lost some of what you had; if the glass were smaller; if you would just add some filler-ice or golf balls work nicely....)

I have slowly been working on changing my thought pattern from identifying what's wrong and looking for ways to change to just working on doing what's right.  Doing more of what's right and working on doing those things better.  There's a very subtle difference.

Let me give you a scenario, one I've stolen from a dear friend's blog post, The Smoke Out of '98 (great story by the way, you should read it).  A little girl has been running around the neighborhood with the boys all her life, and can beat all the kids her age.  Her parents take her to a one mile race.  She runs as fast as her little legs will carry her but is passed by quite a few kids in the end.  As she runs across the finish line....

Old me as her mother:  WOW, you almost beat those kids.  They were older than you because I put you in the wrong race by accident, but you almost beat them!!  If you had just started out a little slower and build up speed instead of running so hard in the beginning--you could have BEAT those big kids!!  You're so good!!!

The me I'm trying to become wants to respond more like her own parents did:  "...my daddy grabbed me up and said, "Way to go get 'em, Tiger!!  Speedy Gonzales!!"  I'd never seen that cartoon; to my knowledge, it was his original name for me.  I was THE Speedy Gonzales.  I ran fast and made Dad proud of me, and Mom too, because she said, "Good job, honey!" ((her: "Those kids were so...fast!")) "We put you in the wrong race, honey."  

Can you see the difference??  They were proud of what she had done RIGHT, not telling her how she could have done better.  Again, it's a subtle difference, but I think it returns big dividends.

Thanks for stopping in; come again soon!  I fill up your glass with lemonade! :D

Swimming Without Shorts

I think I should have lived when swimwear looked like this! (The woman in front was a REBEL-look how much leg she's showing!!)

 

I have been swimming with swim shorts for YEARS. In fact, it's probably been over 10 years.....well, except one brief period of time between my last divorce and remarriage, when I got brave enough (okay, thin enough) to wear my bikini without them (far, far away from my home town where no one would see me!).  I have a permanent tan line several inches down my thigh as prove my upper legs haven't seen sun in many years.  (When I wore the bikini it was the beginning of the season and I tanned in a bed beforehand to even out my color.)

Wednesday, I took them off!!

I'd like to say I stripped the shorts thanks to newfound confidence or because I made some sense of peace with my body.  That would be a lie.  The truth is I forgot them when I went to the pool.  The only choice I had was to go home or swim without them.  I reasoned with myself, had a mini panic attack and decided to swim sans shorts.  My pep-talk included the belief there wouldn't be many people there because the power has been out for a week and it was the first day back to the pool...which was correct.

The thing is, I have no doubt I draw more attention to myself with them than without.  NO ONE wears swim shorts at the pool-even the guys (they wear little Speedos or super tight lycra).  The situation reminds me of when I was a teenager on vacation in France.  My French "sister" along with every other man, woman and child went topless at the pool, allowing the sun to kiss what God gave them.  Not me.  I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't stand the thought of exposing myself in that way.  My friend tried to reason with me that I would be the stand out if I didn't; I would cause more people to look at me if I didn't elect to fit in.  I didn't care, I just couldn't do it.  And now, I'm sure more people notice "that woman who wears the black swim shorts" than would ever give a second glance to my shorts-tanned, stretch-marked, fat-to-me thunder thighs while at the same time buttless midsection.

Even knowing all that, I've been wearing them since I started going to the pool back in July (wow...10 months).  I have believed I would feel more self conscious without them than I do with them.

Yesterday I went without them by accident...but today I made the choice to do it!!  I put my shorts in my bag, looked at them, took a deep breath, removed them and quickly ran out the door before I lost my nerve!!  In my haste I forgot my towel!!  While I may have become brave enough to swim without shorts, I'm still not going to prance around the locker room in all my naked glory.  My modesty (...okay, I'll call it what it is....the hatred I have for my body) cost me some time having to come home to shower, but I have to take one step at a time.  Going without my trunks feels like a giant leap...subjecting anyone other than my husband or my doctor to my nakedness will have to wait.  (...subjecting myself to the idea of subjecting anyone else is more like it...)

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Side note for anyone not acquainted with locker rooms...it's my understanding it's common practice for female athletes to confidently walk around as if in the privacy of their own home and there are more than a few ladies who are perfectly at home in their own skin that swim in the mornings.  The dressing rooms are on one side of the locker room, the showers on the other.  You're "supposed" to take your shower, dry off kind of in the middle area then dress on the other side.  I think this keeps the dressing areas dry.  Usually I will put my clothes in the shower area and do everything in that area.  It's a pain because it's not that big...but that's where I'm at.  On the days I don't shower at the pool (most days) I just dry off and change a dressing stall and mentally apologize to anyone who doesn't like that it's wet.  (Most likely the stall I use is dry before anyone else needs it, which is how I justify my "modesty".)  Maybe one of these days I won't care.  I think I'm a baby step closer swimming without my shorts.

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Thanks for stopping in, come again soon!!
:D