I don’t run. Unless Zombies are chasing me. And they never are.
I used to be a sprinter, back in middle school and briefly in high school. But the jogging, running for miles and miles thing – never understood that.
And then, yesterday, I ran a 5K with my youngin.
She’s been training for it since September with a group called Girls on the Run (Can I just say – I don’t think they thought that name through. As a girl’s empowerment group, shouldn’t they be “Girls Running Into the Fray” or “Girls Run the World” or… I mean, aren’t girls sort of on the run already, and isn’t that what we’re trying to change…?) anyway, poor name choices aside, it’s a cool group and it has done good things for my kid.
Twice a week for two months she would stay late at school and train with two coaches and 16 other students – all female.
They stretched, ran and practiced positive self-talk and team building for an hour and a half twice a week.
Two weeks ago they ran their practice 5K around a lake by our house that I like to ride my bike around. When I signed the permission slip for her to go there was a box for people who wanted to run with their girls to check. I asked The Kid if she’d like me to come do it with her and she said yes, so without really thinking it through, I checked the box and committed myself to running 3.5 miles around a lake. (The practice run was longer than the actual run because… That’s just how big the lake is.)
On the designated day, we showed up at the lake, stretched, listened to a wee pep talk and started running. Then we stopped and walked a bit. Ran a bit, walked a bit. As we got to the last 1/4 of the route The Kid and I decided to sprint, walk, sprint, walk. That was silly and fun and made us both giggle. It took us about an hour to complete our lap around the lake.
We didn’t care – we’d had fun, that was what this was supposed to be about. It was a win in our book.
About a week before the official race day I got an email about The Race that said there would be about 5,000 people running. I told the youngin and asked if she’d like me to do the run with her. Again, not thinking this through all the way.
She said yes and I registered.
I announced on facebook that the apocalypse was imminent and that when future generations asked when it began, those who survived could say it all started on November 8th at The Great Candy Run in Denver, CO at around 10 in the morning.
I did not train. As I told one of my friends, training is for people who intend to repeat their mistakes.
Instead, I woke up Sunday morning, put on a tutu, spray painted my pigtails a matching green, borrowed my kid’s polka dot socks, ate breakfast and went to the race with my kiddo. I didn’t even wear running shoes because they didn’t match my outfit and I was going to be silly, and support my kid and remind her that this was for fun.
Tutu Momma and her “Panda Blur” aka The Panda Express getting ready to run.
I was not going as a runner. I don’t run.
The apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) did not start yesterday – but something else did.
My daughter and I ran together – the whole 5K, walking only once at the 1/2 way mark where they were handing out water. We slowed to a fast walk there and sipped a cup of water each and then started running again. When we made the final turn on the course, I looked at my youngin and said, “Do you have anything left?” She nodded. “Want to leave it on the track?” She nodded, and together we sprinted the last 100 or so yards, kicking into high gear, we ran all out, putting everything we had into every step and left it all on the track.
It felt great. Better than great. Doing something like that with my kiddo and finishing strong – together – was… awesome.
At the beginning of the race, the youngin told me that she wanted to finish in the top 3,000 because those people got medals. There were 6,000 participants. I figured even if we just walked fast we’d probably make it. But then we started running, and we kept running, and when her legs got tired and I asked her what she wanted to do and she said, “let’s go a little more.” and again when she pushed through sore knees and sore feet and kept running and kept running… I realized we were definitely going to make it.
She was going to make it. I was just being pulled along by her strength and her gravity.
Who Runs the World?
These girls!!
When the race results came in, I read them to her. She placed 400th in her class out of 2,300 participants. We placed 1220th over all, out of 6,000 participants.
We ran the 5K in 36 minutes.
Not bad for a first time.
And there it is – I said it – for a first time.
Because… We had fun. We worked hard, we struggled at times, it hurt like hell in places, but we pushed through and we had fun.
And this is how it starts.
You wake up one morning and run a 5K and have fun, so you start thinking – imagine what we could do if we actually trained? Imagine how much fun we could have training together?
And then you run another one. And it’s more fun and sucks less than the first one. And you start wondering, what would it be like to run a 10K or a half marathon. And then, before you know it – you’re a fucking runner.
It’s already happening. Last night I looked up the Spartan races – I’ve been thinking about them for a couple of months, but never thought I could do one, because I don’t run.
I don’t do endurance. I’m a sprinter.
But the Spartan races aren’t just running, they’re also obstacle courses. In the mud.
I like mud.
I discovered that there is a Spartan Sprint happening in my state right around Mother’s Day. A sprint being “only” 5 miles, instead of 10.
And my first thought wasn’t, “5 miles? Welp, guess I’m not doing that.” Nope, my first thought was, “I better get registered so the kid and I can have a training goal.”
I’ll say it again, the apocalypse is imminent.
That said, I learned a lot yesterday.
After years of wondering about runners and fully, firmly believing that they are mentally ill, I had a moment yesterday where I got it, because running with 6,000 strangers was fun. It was crazy and silly and ridiculous, but also oddly empowering to be out on a track with strangers cheering you on, and you cheering on strangers, all of you doing a thing together in a spirit of friendly, collaborative competition. Each pushing the others to do their individual best. Each giving a word of encouragement when we saw another runner struggling to keep going… It reminded me of why I used to run, and of why I quit when the competition started to be less collaborative and started getting serious.
Yesterday I remembered that everything is better when we work together and support each other to get everyone across the finish line.
Yesterday I learned that a tutu and polka dot socks can make ALL THE DIFFERENCE. My sister used to have an alter-ego, Tutu Girl. It was her super-hero persona. She would dress up in a tutu (she had many) and dash about town being kind to people, picking up trash, dancing in the street to make people laugh and generally being ridiculous. It was wonderful! For a while she had a photographer friend taking pictures to put into a book. I suddenly, desperately, hope that she still has them because I learned yesterday that the world needs Tutu Girl.
Tutu Girl all grown up is The Shit.
Attitude matters – and going in wearing silly socks and a tutu helped me remember this was about having fun and being silly and supportive and that it was Not To Be Taken Seriously. I think if I’d had to take it seriously, I would have hated it. I think if my daughter was running with someone who was taking it seriously, she would have been one of the kids crying and saying, “I can’t, I don’t want to, this sucks, can we PLEASE STOP.” Instead of, “Let’s try to make it a little farther before we stop. A little farther yet. Let’s keep running, we can do this, we’re so close, we’re really going to do this!”
If we were competing against others, instead of just doing our personal best – I don’t think we would have liked it. The tutu reminded us that we were there for ourselves, to have fun, and to help others have fun. It was not That Kind of Competition where only one person got to win – the goal was for everyone to win for themselves.
And this knowledge reminded me of the writer’s block I’ve been suffering from, and that I see many of my writer pals, and other artist pals suffering from lately, and I realized that the problem is – we’ve stopped writing and telling stories because it’s fun and we’ve started doing it to Get Published, or to Win a Book Contract or even To Get Readers/Fans…
We’ve gone from wearing tutus and being in fun runs to being fucking runners who take this shit seriously and compete against others. The friends of mine who aren’t struggling with artistic block are the ones who are making art because IT MAKES THEM HAPPY AND IS FUN.
And I think that’s the secret. To everything.
It has to make you happy, it has to be fun. (And I realize for some people being a fucking runner who takes this shit seriously IS FUN – good on ya. I’m not actually bashing you, I just still don’t quite get it. Yet. I think it’s coming though. I did obsessively refresh the race results yesterday even though I suspected we finished somewhere near 2,000th place.) And for some people, writing for a contract IS FUN, or trying to outsell some other writer, or whatever – for some people competition is fun and it’s what drives them and gets them out of bed to Do The Thing – and that is totally okay.
For myself, I think the fun has to come first.
I’m writing again because… I took a step back. I’m not worrying about getting published or winning an agent or selling my stories. I’m not worried about getting someone else’s approval or validation. I’m just having fun discovering the story, writing it down, meeting the characters, putting the pieces together. I’m having fun blogging and putting ideas together and connecting the dots I see in the world and sharing those connections.
Of course, I hope that this story will find readers, because art is meant to be shared – but I’m not worrying about how or when that will happen. I’m just waking up, putting on my metaphorical tutu and my silly socks and doing a thing that makes me smile.
I want to train for the Spartan Sprint not because I think I’ll win, or even want to win, but because I want to see how my tutu and my smile will hold up on a 5 mile mud track filled with barbed wire and fire.
I want to train with my kid, because I loved seeing her face light up as she pushed through another barrier and kept going, and the way she glowed when we sprinted across that finish line together and she got her medal. And because, honestly, without her… I would have quit. I would have walked. Hell, without her, I wouldn’t have even started.
And of course, I want to do it because after reading the latest Dresden novel, I just like having an excuse to yell PARKOUR! at random and not always appropriate moments, and training for a Spartan Race seems like it will be FULL of opportunities to yell PARKOUR!
And that’s it, that’s what I learned yesterday – find the fun, follow the fun, and when it stops being fun – turn and try something else.
Or, put on a tutu. Sometimes they can make all the difference in the world.
Also, it really, really helps to have a partner in crime.