Participation Medals or Place Medals, the Great Debate

I went to grade school in the late 70's and early 80's. Life was different then.  School PE consisted of much more competitive and at times, even a bit ruthless, forms of exercise.  There was bombardament, now known as dodge ball.  Clearly, you had not lived unless you had perfectly circular welts on your extremities left by a pink rubber ball thrown by someone who clearly had some sort of super human strength for a third grader.  Now to be fair, this would be refined, and go on to be a very respectable modern day adult sport as would most of our PE endeavors in those days.  There was floor hockey, where the plastic blades of the sticks left bruises on your shins, and no shin pads were not necessary in those days.  There were recess games of red rover where you were just lucky to survive without a shoulder dislocation rather than having that guy break through the line.  All of these things required teams. There were captains chosen by staff who took turns sizing up the other students and carefully selected their teams.  The biggest and best were first.  By the third grade it was clear who was on the top of the proverbial athletic hierarchy.  As for me?  My childhood obesity made me last.  Last to be picked.  Occasionally a gym teacher would take pity on me and make me the captain.  I am not sure that was much better as the audible sighs of the other students echoed off the gym walls.   

Then there was field day.  The coveted ribbons for 1st, 2nd and 3rd for each event.  I would go on to never win any of those, but was not alone in that notion.  I knew early on which handful of people would dominate those things as did everyone else.  When I look at today's take on that, my kids have their own field days and I see a swing in the complete opposite direction.  Everyone is a "winner", everyone gets a medal or ribbon.  Nobody "loses".  There is so much controversy over this.  A google search will  provide so much heated debate that you could literally read for days on the topic.

As for me, I think neither thing is the answer.  Those of us born in the late sixties and early seventies resigned ourselves early on to the notion that we just would not ever be able to be that person.  We would never have medals for athletic greatness, we would never be captains and you know what?  That was OK.  We invested in our other gifts and found a lot of success.  This may be OK in the 20's and 30's but as for me, I found that in doing so, not only did I not invest in athleticism I used this as an excuse to somehow be less mobile, less healthy. After all, I was not going to win at bombardament or the sack race, so I probably did not need to go to the gym.  Besides, those gym people are crazy.  One of the things in my own pile of bullshit as I convinced myself that my other gifts were enough to get me through life.  Well that, and my blood pressure meds.  Oh wait, that and my insulin resistance medication.  Well, the antidepressants.  You see that was just a chemical imbalance.  Just playing the hand I was dealt.  This is what we do in life.  Take the pills, accept the physical mediocrity and call it a day/  After all, I was a professional success and a good mom, so all was well. 

In my journey, I have come to understand that as far as elementary school is concerned, place ribbons or no place ribbons is not really the debate. It really does not matter what you give kids.  First is first and last is last.  Kids know regardless of the color ribbon or the way it is painted.  The real challenge comes in daring to believe that you can finish first.  One of those ribbons can belong to you.  That you can win the sack race in the third grade just as easily as you can run your first marathon at age 50.   It may mean a lot of hard work with some losses along the way, even Diana Nyak the first to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage failed four times before she got it.  Famous athlete after athlete have failed many more times than the famous victories they have had.  The big difference is they believed one day they could.  This has not been instilled regardless of the age old place ribbon versus participation ribbon debate.

That brings me to my first medal.  My first real gold medal for individual athletic achievement came one year ago.  I was long past the days of sack races and shuttle runs.   It was the marathon challenge at Orangetheory.  Run a marathon worth of miles in the studio in the month of April get a fancy towel.  Win it all, and there was a prize for top mileage.  Well, I couldn't run.  Fresh off my hip repair in February I was only allowed to ride a bike.  Bike mileage was calculated at a rate of 4:1, so I was staring down 104.8 miles.  This was a difficult mental task.  I had been back at orangetheory all of a week after being released to go back after surgery, with some restrictions.  Until then, I had been fighting the old ladies off the arm bike to ride ten miles a day, at the regular gym for weeks.  I put in my mind I would just go for it 104 miles.  Although at that juncture I had to beat back the disappointment of not being on the treadmill, fresh off the set back of a horrible injury, my trainers assured me I could still complete this challenge.  Well, I trained every day, even at the OTF's in Florida when I was on vacation that month.  Pretty soon I hit 104, with two weeks to go.  Now it was time to see if I could actually win.  I did.  Over 200 miles.  It was shocking seeing my name on the leader board for the bikers.  More shocking to see the medal.  My first real gold medal at 46.  Along with it the realization that I had it in me, I just, until this point,  didn't know I had it in me. 

So, happy ending?  Amy wins and here is the celebratory picture.  She believed she could so she did.  Well yes and no.  Yes, I won that month, however what follows is failure.  This year I could run.  Still working with hip rehab, in the setting of a person who never ran any distance in life until the last 10 months, I set my sites on a double marathon. Big hairy goals.  Surely that would do it.  Oh wait.  I don't run fast relatively speaking.  I did hit a double marathon and a wee bit more, 54 miles and change.  Awesome?  No.  I did not even place.  Lots of folks running 7 minute miles in there or less, even in my age group  It makes my 9 minute mile look slow.  However, the difference this time is I took that lack of winning to work harder as I finally understand my body is capable, I just have to keep working the bad hip and be patient, but not give in.   Training my mind to believe my body is capable.   So, the million dollar question....if I could have a do over to those grade school days armed with the knowledge that ability lies within me and all of us, would I go back?  Nah....this Mama Shark is having too much fun captaining a team of 50 folks who are learning their own bull shit is just that.  Bull shit.  They are tossing out this notion, along with their participation ribbons and taking on new challenges and killing it all.  So much better than any sack race on Field Day or being picked first for Red Rover.  Besides as I am learning little by little each day, the best is yet to come.