I’m back in Tucson. Reluctantly, but back all the same.
I think I’ve gone and fallen in love with Colorado. I’m fairly certain I want to move there next. In fact, the only way Mr. Shortpants was able to convince me to come home was because of the dogs. It is so hard to resist the cute-evil that is my dogs.
For all those who wondered where in Colorado we were, we flew into Durango, then we stayed in Pagosa Springs, and we snowboarded at Wolf Creek.
Last year, we went to Copper and I’m pleased that we went to WolfCreek this year. It is smaller and has a more hometown feeling to it. And let’s face it-you can’t beat a $19 bunny lift ticket. You just can’t.
I’ve really progressed snowboarding-wise since last year. I have got toeside down, finally, and have really started to transition between heelside and toeside. I’m starting to look somewhat like I’m carving snow.
Oddly, I felt that some of my progress has to do with running. I feet more aware of my body. Able to control it. In fact, I found myself saying, “There is not enough mountain for me to practice on on the bunny hill any longer.” The next trip we take, I’ve got to get off the bunny hill.
I think I’ve conquered my fear of the chair lift. In fact, I managed to negotiate off the chairlift in between two folks who had fallen off in the chair before mine! Without falling directly on top of them!
This is not to say that I effortlessly rode the life every time I got on it. Nope. I fell off twice. Once I fell so hard on my ass that it still hurts. But I’m learning to be less embarrassed when I do fall and realize that it is a part of life. Sometimes you fall-instead of letting it ruin a perfectly good snowboarding day, you’ve got to get up and get right back on the chairlift. It is the only way to learn. Advice I should listen to more often.
And speaking of listening to my own advice, running helped me in another area of snowboarding-listening to my body. I took a nasty spill on Thursday. A face forward spill.
Unfortunately, I tucked my arms into my body to avoid hurting my wrists, and instead I hit my head on the snow. Hitting your head on the snow at Wolf Creek feels a lot better than hitting it at Sunrise, because of all the soft, soft powder, but it still hurts pretty bad. I managed to wrench my neck pretty well in the process, bite my tongue, give myself a surprisingly big egg on my forehead, and bruise my thigh (still not sure how that happened).
I had to take Friday off, in fact, because I was afraid I might run the risk of further injury. And further injury to a neck does not sound exactly fun. But because I’ve started listening more closely to what my body is saying with running, I knew that I had to skip snowboarding on Friday. And, I could have predicted this would happen, I had the best snowboarding day ever on Saturday. Of course. You know why? Because rest and recovery are my friends. Duh, right? I suppose you are wondering about me and running, right?
I’ve not quit running, if you were wondering.
No way, no how.
But the tendonitis was so bad, I knew I had to take a break. So I decided to take at least until February 3rd off. Just shy of a month. Enough time to recover, right?
Then when I went up to Northern California to see my brother, we talked at great length about running, this last year, all the races I’ve done, and pacing. Oh, we also talked about the enormous elephant that has been following me everywhere I go.
252.6
No, it is not the number of straws that fell on the floor. No, it is not the number of times I’ve tied my shoes today. No, it is not the number of m&m’s I’ve eaten in one sitting.
252.6 is how much I currently weigh.
I think that is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to admit to. Ever. Live. In front of countless people, both known and unknown. It. Scares. The. Shit. Out. Of. Me. It feels like I’m saying, “I’ve failed. I’m not an inspiration. I was not able to do something.”
If you have been reading since the get-go, you know that I started this whole process off at 260. That means I’ve technically only lost 7.4 pounds since January 2007. Not exactly what you might acknowledge as progress.
Or would you?
I might have *only* lost 7.4 pounds, but I also quit smoking, ran a marathon, ran 2 half-marathons, ran four 5ks, ran a 5-mile trail race and am learning to manage my OCD. I’ve admitted that I have an eating disorder in the form of compulsive overeating and have begun to address it. I have stopped hiding in the shadows. I’m open and honest about my problems in the hopes that it will encourage others to not be afraid of *their* problems, whatever they may be. I’ve begun to challenge, address and sometimes downright intimidate all things that I have once considered the status quo, because I know that the status quo no longer works for me.
Sounds like a success if you ask me.
Here is the catch-because there is always a catch, right?
And now, if you will, imagine that we are going back in time.
Way far back in time to an entry dated 1/9/2008; written but never posted.
1/9/2008
I’ve been trying to follow a new philosophy for the last few months. I’ve decided to ban any and all diets from my life, forever. I know I’ve talked about doing this in the past. Several hundred times, likely.
This time is different. I’m determined to rid myself of diets.
I’ve stopped weighing myself for the most part. No foods are off-limits or forbidden. I’ve been trying to eat when I’m hungry rather than at the prescribed times. I’ve been trying to treat my body with respect and admiration instead of berating it. I’m trying to avoid all negative body-talk. I’m also trying to make a mental note of all negative body-talk and looking for the underlying and real reason for it.
For example, I was driving to the running shop this morning, and all of a sudden I thought to myself, “Geez, I’ve gained so much weight since the last time I was in the running shop-what will they think? They will think that I’m a terrible runner because I’M-SO-FAT.”
Woah.
Talk about needless berating.
Slow down, How Many Miles. What the hell is really going on?
Oh, yeah. I’ve been throwing this gigantic pity party for myself and the only person I invited was me.The theme of the party? Fear.
Fear about failure on the day of the race. Fear that has absolutely nothing to do with weight or food and more importantly, it had absolutely nothing to do with the people at the running shop.
So instead of acknowledging my fear and accepting my decision to save my poor strained tendons and run the half instead of the full, I needed to hide my fear in self-loathing and ridicule of my body.
It is quite surprising how often I practice the negative body-talk. I have been keeping track of it, so as to acknowledge the real reason I have been using negative body-talk as a crutch to avoid dealing with the real issues.
Anyways, this new way of approaching life, free from dieting, is not only liberating but it also has had some surprising results.
I have been to the movie theatre three times, and all three times I have not finished my candy. I rolled up the candy bag and stuck it in my purse, for later. I left a quart sized carton of ice cream in the freezer for four days.
I know this sounds like no big deal, but in my world, I eat for quantity not quality. You would think I was an abandoned puppy the way I eat. Option between a small and a large? I’ll take the large. You have three slices of cake left? I’ll take all three, please. Two cupcakes? One for me and the other for me.
I decided to be more conscious when it came to eating. What am I really hungry for? Why am I eating?
I decided to get rid of clothes that don’t fit me. Every time I opened my bottom drawer, the whole drawer was taunting me, filled with antsy size 12s and 14s, lord knows when those sizes even fit me for crying out loud. I bought some new pants that fit me.
No really, they really fit me.
And I didn’t have to lay down on a bed, squirming and squidging to stuff my body into a pair of pants that probably never fit me to begin with.
It’s tricky, though. After spending the last, oh, probably 16 or more years attempting to diet my way to happiness, changing this part of me is both a blessing and a curse.
Even though I re-read this entry that was never posted and still want to follow all of the things that are contained within the entry, I know that there is a conflict.
I want to accept my 252.6 pounds but I know, rationally, that I need to ditch some of it to be the kind of runner I want and need to be. I’m not saying that one couldn’t be a runner at 252.6 pounds, by the way. I’m just saying that for me, I need to be closer to 200 pounds.
The thing is -and this has come from my doctor, the folks at the running shop, and most importantly, the man who can run 100 miles in one shot, my brother- my tendonitis is caused by overuse. But it is not helped by my weight. The more weight I have to carry, the stress it places on my body.
I have to work on balance. Balance between losing weight and between loving myself. Losing weight for fitness, not for unrealistic things like fitting into a size zero, which, let’s face it, is never going to happen. Losing weight and gaining fitness in a healthy way that will last long term.
But -there is always a but- I have a plan.
Yes, a plan. Plans are good.
Here it is. The Plan.
1. I’m taking until 2/12 off of running. In the meantime, Mr. S and I started walking in the morning with the pups. Good for us, good for them.
2. On 2/12 I’ll start running again. However, I’m going to begin the plan I started last January with my running group again. I figure that this way, I’ll ease my tendons back into running and not dive in.
3. I’m going to buy a real bike, with gears and everything. Biking does not hurt my tendons, so I figure it is a good way to cross-train.
4. We have started to look into a gym, so that I can strength train. This way I can strengthen the muscles in my legs that are not my tendons. I do have a perfectly good membership to 24 hour fitness, but there are no locations in Tucson. Go fig.
5. I have returned to my whole foods approach of eating.
6. I’m taking 6 months off of racing. So no racing until June. I have to learn that running isn’t all about training for another race. It is about learning the value of pace. Not the pace of your mile or what-have-you, but instead the pace of being a runner.
7. My brother re-fit me for shoes while I was visiting his new shop. He recommended a new shoe and a new insert, which I’m sure will help as well.
So there you have it. The next few weeks may sound a bit like a repeat, I suppose, of last year. But that is just the thing isn’t it. Even if I fall off the chairlift, I’m going to have to get up, brush the powder off my pants and snowboard down the mountain. Not embarrassed. Not crying.
I’m just trying to focus on what I heard a ski instructor tell one of his 5 year old students who was bawling her eyes out when I fell off the ski lift last week.
“See, everyone falls off the chairlift at one point in their life. Even the adults! Everyone. So no crying, ok. Cause everyone falls at some point.”
Posted by howmanymiles 