No Wonder I Was Fat; I Had Several Personalities To Feed!

I’d like to say that I’m a pretty average person.  I have a job, a home, a family.  I pay taxes, I have hobbies.  Same old, same old.  Except, every now and then I wonder exactly how many personalities are living inside my own body.

Let me explain.  As many of you know, I’m on the tail end of my injury, so I’m starting to ramp up my physical activity again.  I’ve fallen way behind on achieving the 9 races needed to qualify for the 2013 marathon, so I’m having to start cramming them in wherever they will fit.  On top of that, the calendar has caught up with me and I’m only two weeks away from my first multi-sport event, a duathlon on May 6^th.  This found me having to do a 10.5 mile training bike ride on Saturday, followed by a 4 mile race in Central Park on Sunday.

Usually I do bike training rides with my triathlon partner, Jeff.  Not only is he one of my oldest and dearest friends and I simply just enjoy his company, but it’s also just logical to have both of us riding the same route so if one gets a flat (or hit by a car) that the other can bike back to the car and get it to help the other one out (or at least be there to identify the body).  This weekend, though, Jeff was away so I was either going to have to ride by myself or get another week closer to that duathlon without yet riding the course and be as unprepared as I feel that I am.

So, early Saturday morning I drove up to Greenwich, Connecticut to train on the course we’ll ride again in a few weeks.  When I got there, day was just breaking; my thought had  been that if I was going to get hit by a car and die, I might as well get it over with early in the morning.  I was so nervous that I made a pressure cooker look calm. I’d barely ridden my bike since I had been injured.  What if I couldn’t do it?  Jeff and I did this race last year, so I knew the course.  There was a hill that was short but ridiculously steep.  What if I couldn’t make it up the hill?

When I got to the place where the race is going to be, I took my bike off my car, strapped on my helmet, and took a deep breath.  Here goes nothing. 

The ride started off fine, and I, as Fit Girl, started telling myself things like “See, I knew you could do it.  You’ll be fine!”  About 10 minutes into the ride, though, is when the course started to get challenging with long, rolling hills.  I huffed through them, realizing how much fitness I’d lost with my foot in a boot for 6 weeks.  “This sucks,” I thought, with “Fat Girl” doing the talking.  “I have no business being out here.  I can’t do this.”  But, Fit Girl seemed to be the one with her hands on the gears and handlebars, so I kept going.

When I got to the big hill, I thought my favorite mantra, “I got this.”  I pushed those pedals with everything I had.  The bike slowed so much that I briefly wondered how long it could stay upright at a dead stop.  Fat Girl reminded me of the big dinner I had the night before.  “Well, I guess you’re wishing you hadn’t eaten so much now, huh?”  Again, though, Fit Girl seemed to quiet her down, and I somehow managed to get myself up the hill.  After that, the rest of the ride was pretty manageable.  I finally got back to the parking lot where I started, and couldn’t believe I’d done it.  I did a training ride alone, without get a flat, lost or killed.  It was a good morning.

My high spirits lasted the rest of the day, but Saturday night a bad mood had rolled in when I remembered that I had my 4 mile race the next day.  How was I going to pull that off the day after a big ride?  I did that frequently last year, but I wasn’t coming off an injury then.  I couldn’t do this.  But, I had to.  I had to get these races in, and frankly I was tired of paying entry fees for races I couldn’t do.  I packed up my stuff and went to bed.

Sunday morning I woke up before my alarm.  I was more nervous than I had been at my very first race, which was almost 3 years and 40 races ago.  Fat Girl was wide awake inside my brain: “You can’t do this.  You’re going to get hurt.  Just forget it.  Make some pancakes for breakfast, eat them, and go back to bed.  You’re not an athlete.  You’re done.”

I really wanted to listen to Fat Girl, but knew I couldn’t.  My neighbor and friend, Mindi, was also running the race, and she had picked up my bib for me.  She was going to meet me at the Pelham train station, and she’d worry if I wasn’t there.  So, I went.

I met Mindi, and we went into New York City for the run at Central Park.  We parted company when we lined up for the race, and again my nerves were all over the place.  4 miles!  I couldn’t run that!  Then I happened to look down.  The race started on the East Drive of Central Park, the same section of the park where the last two miles of the New York City Marathon takes place.  They mark the marathon course with light blue paint marks that are mostly faded now, but not completely.  When I looked down, I saw a faint outline of one of the marks.  I was standing right where I had run 5 months ago, as I was about to complete a 26.2 mile run.  Fit Girl saw the blue line on the ground and I thought, “Yes, I can do this.”

Shortly after that, the race started.  For the first mile, I was very tentative and held back.  I kept checking in on my calf and my Achilles.  My Achilles was fine, my calf was tight.  I didn’t know what to do.  So, I just kept going.  At the one mile mark I looked at my watch: 10:05.  That was about a minute slower than my normal pace, but a lot faster that the last few runs I had done during the week.  “Hmm,” Fit Girl thought in my head. “I wonder if by the next mile we can drop our pace into the 9s,” and off I went.  I tore through the rest of that course, at least as best I could given that I’m probably only about 80% recovered.  At one point a woman pushed me – hard – as she yelled, “Excuse me!” She got in front of me, and all I thought was, “No, we need to beat her,” so I dug down and managed to find a little more extra steam.  I didn’t push her as I passed, but I did grin from ear to ear.  After that, I was the old Ali again, picking people off one by one as I passed them. 

At mile 3, I looked at my watch again: 29:42.  Still, not my old pace, but I was just under that 10 minute mile.  Cool.  I wanted to look up and enjoy the scenery of Central Park, but I couldn’t.  Fit Girl was running this race, and she had some personal goals she had to achieve here.  So, I focused on the road and the runners ahead of me who needed to become the runners behind me.  My lungs hurt a bit, my calf wasn’t happy.  And I kept going. 

With 1/4 of a mile left, we made a sharp left turn, and I could see the finish line in front of me.  I sprinted as best I could, crossed the finish line, and looked at my watch: 38:30, a pace of 9:37.  It wasn’t my best 4 mile pace, but I didn’t care. I was thrilled.

I walked over to the refreshment area, and a woman handed me a cup of water.  “Two, please” I said, and she handed me a second cup.  Both of my personalities had worked hard for the last two days; I figured each of them deserved a drink.