Learning to Not Barter Away My Own Store

I have five children adopted from two different countries, three from Russia, two from Haiti.  It was my tradition, as the adoptions drew to a close, to purchase something local to have as a keepsake from the time they made the transition to life here in the States.  For Katya it was a set of Russian blue nesting dolls, Jack, nesting dolls of famous Russian leaders, Zachary, was a hand made Pinnochio puppet, Grace, a Haitian doll and Alex a hand painted tap tap (Haiti's version of a cab).  Of course all of these things hold a special place in my china cabinet until they are all old enough to put them in their own china cabinets.  I often think back to the common thread in buying this stuff.  All of it was purchased at a road side stand in the middle of nowhere far away from here.  Said stands were always run by hungry people bartering to get the most for their wares.  Bartering.  This is not a task I enjoy.  The desperation on the faces of these people as they try to get as much money as they can, as they live in some of the poorest places in the world.

A funny thing seems to happen when this is the case.  Suddenly, there is no ability to make change.  The price stands firm.  I say 12 dollars, they say 20.  When I say no they stand firm for a while.  Then, just as I am walking away, they suddenly start adding more things to make up the difference due to their lack of change.  Pretty soon there is a bracelet, a plaque, another statue...  desperate to get the full 20 even if it means giving away the store.  Suddenly, the vendor loses all control of the transaction just to get the 20 out of my hand.  The ugly side of bartering in a 3rd world country is that their next meal truly may ride on my transaction.  So, typically, I would simply relent, allow them to keep some of the ever growing pile of wares, and give them the money.  Yes, I realize, I am a terrible barterer.

I was thinking about this very thing today.  I had a long chat with one of my sharks about pushing past the comfort zone of the group exercise class. I had settled into this a couple years ago myself.  The comfort zone of the trainer pointing the way, and friends to cheer you through.  I had never been successful on my own before now, and learning to trust myself to do other things has been a huge challenge.  Today was no exception.  I set out for a run after the comfort of my 2.5 mile interval hill climb at Orangetheory.  Just me and the trail.  The bartering with myself, just like I had done with some hungry Haitians a few years ago, began.  I parked the car and as I stared down the entrance to the trail, my resolve to run 30 mins suddenly began to waver.  I started offering myself less, maybe 20 would be ok.  Maybe I could walk some.  OK, NO.  I hit the trail at my usual 10:40 pace, and much like the vendors, stood firm.

I should say, I stood firm until I hit the 15 min mark.  I turned around and headed back to the car.  Pretty soon I saw my usual landmarks.  There was the Ferry Road Bridge in the distance.  OK I can make it there and then walk.  As I got there, I had to ask myself why I would want to walk?  I was breathing OK, nothing hurt that much, I was OK...keep going.  I had the same chat with myself as I came up on the park bench, only the old man sleeping on it kept me from walking there.  Then
 it was the orange barrel, I could stop there.  OK, wait, why?  I'm ok...keep going, I would pass the steel post signifying the road to cross was coming, and crossing that meant the final stretch, well I made it this far, I might as well finish.  Besides, I was emerging from the trail and I could see the beautiful water, with the sunshine.  As I looked out over the water I was suddenly realizing not quitting was so much better than giving in to my own low ball bartering.  That satisfied moment and many moments like it in this location in recent weeks has me beginning to think that Lock 7 very well may just be my happy place.

In the glow of a successful run, I truly began to think about how many times I had allowed my own hunger for something different allow me to relent part way through the plan and give away my own store.  I repeatedly gave away my goals and stood in my own way because my desire for a moment of comfort far outweighed a successful run or a good diet day, only to find myself disappointed once again.

Although from a business perspective, I guess I would be considered a terrible barterer.  However,  I wonder if maybe I am not altogether awful.  Maybe our job is really to not allow others to barter away their own stores in a moment of comfort, rather, help them build a bigger and better store.  Friday, I have the extreme fortune to be taking said shark on a run to bust her out of the comfort zone of group exercise and learn to trust her own abilities just as I am slowly learning to do.  One thing is for sure, she will never look at Lock 7 the same again and hopefully she will see, as I have, the best is yet to come.

Smell the Lilacs, Tie the Shoe

Cape Cod Ragnar.  Three simple words that have caused me a ton of anxiety, palpitations at times and at others down right fear. Ragnar was brought to me two years ago, by our amazing team captain right after I broke my hip.  This 200 mile 12 man running relay seemed so insurmountable for me at that time.  I had two issues.  I was on crutches fresh off a hip repair, and oh wait....I had never run more than two miles in my entire life, and at the one time I did do that, I did it poorly.  In fact, I only reluctantly agreed this year because I had taken our captain to a Spartan Race, so fair is fair.  So, last Friday, as we of Van 1 of Team 1DOS hit the start line it seemed almost surreal.  The sun was shining over the bay, the music upbeat, and the announcer buzzing with excitement.  We would send our runner off with the cheers of our mighty shark shiver and then take off to meet her at the first check point.  Oh shit.  The first check point, five miles from the start, that's where the first hand off would be, as in when runner two would take their first leg.  Oh wait.  I was Runner 2.  I would be running the next 4.9 miles.  My first leg of a race two years in the making.

I would take the slap bracelet hand off, adjust the music and go.  At first, all of the technical things I had learned were running through my head.  Breathe.  Relax.  Check your pace, 10:40, yep, let's keep it here.  One foot in front of the other.  There was a hill with a curve on a busy street without a sidewalk.  What do I know about a hill?  Oh yeah.  Channel your trainer. She always says,"lean into the hill, pump your arms and breathe", thanks Katie, yep, still hovering at 10:40, but was breathing hard from the hill.  Recover.  Flat road.  Fifteen seconds.  A voice of another coach, "it takes fifteen seconds to settle in and recover",  12, 13, 14,  ok , I am ok.  Keep going.  One foot in front of the other.

Around mile two, I would find my intense focus on technique would suddenly be interrupted with the overwhelming scent of lilacs.  There it was, a six foot lilac bush in full bloom.  When I was growing up I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house in Clinton, Iowa.  She had big bushes like this too.  As my brain was flooded with memories of her, Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" came on.  "My Mama told me when I was young, we're all born superstars...." as my mind shifted gears to memories of my mom I realized how much I would have loved to have both my mom and grandmother here to see me do just this.  Neither of them really got the chance to see me healthy. They had both, instead, had a front row seat to decades of obesity.  They had dried my tears and made me feel loved when I was not so sure some days.  Yes, it would be amazing to have them here.   However, with the thick scent of lilacs, a beautiful clear day, and the perfect lyrics, somehow I think they were watching.  I would finish that leg with "Paradise City" blasting in my ears, and my team rallying around me and the belief that my mom and grandmother were cheering just as loudly.

Leg two proved to be a bit more harrowing.   This was my night run.  Probably the time to truly grasp the reality that I had never run at night with a headlamp on uncommon ground, was not five minutes before I set out to do just that.  My teammate who does this routinely sent me off with the advice to "keep an eye on the three feet ahead of you."  The first few hundred yards were me trying to figure out how to focus the headlamp, watch the ground, and still look ahead to where I was going.  I kinda felt like a baby giraffe learning to walk.  I was downright anxious and all over the place, until halfway up a hill into the second mile I would cross an intersection.  Amanda Street.  I have a friend Amanda.  She always seems to be the voice of reason and encouragement for me.  She has a way of squashing my doubts and manages to keep me grounded a lot of the time.  OK Amanda.  I got this.  Lean into the hill.  Pump my arms.  Breathe.  Point the headlamp three feet ahead.  Check pace.  10:24.  Wait, what? That's quick for me, but I feel fine.  Keep going.  I finally passed the three mile mark onto another hill.  This one had a van parked on the side.  Two men were getting out and crossing the street to where I was running.  They seemed to want something.  Wait.  It's dark.  I looked around and realized, there were no other runners here.  In fact there was nobody here but these people and me and my headlamp.  Well, they looked like a Ragnar team.  I was suddenly wishing I had thought to bring pepper spray.  If these were not ax murderers and truly were the Ragnar folk they appeared to be, maybe I was lost.  Did I miss a sign?  Was I off course? Crap.  I am ahead of my  pace and doing fine.  Yet now I am lost.  I finally took my ear bud out as they were just 3 feet away,"am I ok?"  It was then the man would say, barely above a whisper,"great job runner."

I would later learn, Ragnar etiquette is to keep from disrupting the neighborhoods at night. So, honking and yelling to encourage runners was not really acceptable.  So, this creepy whispery form of odd encouragement was the trade off.  I would also later learn this encourager was famous for this sort of thing.  Later, this phrase would somehow take hold in our sleep deprived van causing us to insert it wherever appropriate into conversation many times over the days that followed, each time meeting with fits of laughter.  In fact, we now have developed a hash tag I can't look at without giggling (#greatjobrunner).  Nonetheless, I would finish that 3.2 mile leg, ironically again to "Paradise City", faster than even my team thought, as they casually stood at the hand off chatting, not even realizing I had finished,"HEY!"  I would shout.  They laughed,"oh sorry you got done quick!"  I would look at my watch and realize I really had.  Fast for even me.  Perhaps it was the fear of the dark or the desire to quickly put some distance between me and the "great job runner"guy.


Our van would finish all of our second legs at a cool 2:00 am, only to find a quick shower and a couple of fitful hours of rest on a cold gym floor before we would take on the third and final legs.  Grateful for my jet propelled Starbucks latte before I began mine on day two, I would start my final 4.6 miles on a cloudy, cold and even a bit rainy day. I gave myself all of my running instructions as I plodded along just as I had before.  Before long I would find myself four miles in, realizing I had done it.  Two years of fear.  Two years of training. Learning how to run with control and even conquer the hills without losing pace. I would cross the street and into the park where I knew the handoff was.  Yes I had this.  I was like a freaking superhero.....  until.,,  Wait.  Shit.  My left shoe feels lose.  No.  No!  The laces started smacking me in the ankle.  NO!  I am making a badass triumphant photo finish.  My shoe is untied.  I should say screw it and keep going.  Well, I had 2/10's of a mile to go.  Then again, I do not have a history of extreme grace.  I have a history of being clutzy.  Like when I broke my ankle rolling it on a Lego.  Hm.  There are other runners around.  I will look like an idiot stopping to tie my shoe so close to then.  I then had to think about what I would look like as my teammate said,"faceplanting four feet from the finish."

As I argued with myself, I began to think about how many times we set big goals and look so hard at the glory of the finish that we fail to see the things that can ultimately cause us to face plant before we get there.  There are the unexpected curve balls life throws at us like an illness or injury we didn't plan on, or a bad diet day and suddenly the super hero sensation of crossing the finish line goes away and we find ourselves face down and done.  Maybe instead the thing to do is face the obstacle. Stop.  Retie the shoe, take a deep breath and make the finish great.  As for me?  Yes.  I stopped and tied the shoe, and went on to dominate the finish line with my third round of "Paradise City", amazed that the shuffle feature on my itunes seemed to always come back to this.  I had hugs from my team and fresh tears, making that little pause well worth it as I remained firmly upright.

Since the race, I have had three more runs, only this time with double knotted shoes and now at that 10:24 pace.   I even sanctioned off a very special corner of my flower beds to plant my new lilac bush, proving to myself, I have amazing people in my life who's voices are slowly drowning out the voices of self doubt that used to play loudly in my head.  I also am beginning to see I am probably capable of more than I ever thought, and that even though my mom and grandmother are no longer here, their spirit is strong.  The best is truly yet to come.

Being More Like Marvin the Martian, Three Year Reflections

When I was a school aged child in the late 70's, I can remember how important Saturday morning was. It held two coveted things, no school and Saturday morning cartoons.  There was Hong Kong Phooey, Grape Ape, Roadrunner and even Marvin the Martian, one of my personal favorites.  He had that clever quiet sinister style to him which made outwitting his foes appear flawless.  Not to mention that he did it wearing a Roman style helmet and Chuck Taylors.  In my teen years I would go on to own Chucks in yellow, pink and even classic canvas.  Nonetheless, Marvin was cool and at that time pretty much all I knew about Mars. 

I would later come to learn that Mars was thought to have once been full of beautiful lakes and oceans, with many seasonal changes.  This week, I was reflecting the start of  my 85 pound weight loss journey that began with a single OrangeTheory workout exactly three years ago.   I Googled what else could be achieved in 3 years just for fun, and the answer was to travel to Mars and back.  How cool is that?   I can honestly say, in my 48 years I have never been able to stick with a weight loss plan or fitness schedule like I have this one.  I have lost the weight and begun to inspire others to do the same, and in the same amount of time I could have gone to find Marvin.  Seems like a stark raving success right?  Well maybe so, but by declaring that, we really have not really read the fine print of the full story.

First of all, to get to Mars and back is not really a three year journey.  It's six months there, wait two years for the Earth and Mars to be as close as they can be, then six months back.  So, essentially you have to camp out on Mars for a while.  To be honest, this is exactly how it felt.  The first six months, was the gung ho excitement of huge weight loss, big gains and trying new things.  However, once I hit six months,  I would find, just as scientists found on Mars, there are so many seasons on this journey, each one with new challenges of it's own. 

There was initially the notion that if gains came with working out, then clearly I needed to work out more.  If one hour of OTF a day was good, two were better.  My hip hurts?  No problem.  Keep going.  I slipped and can't walk?  Crutch it into the gym and try to bike anyway.  Push, push, push, six months into my journey until I woke up in a hospital bed on a dilaudid pump realizing overexercising had broken the largest bone in my body and I now was the proud owner of a hip full of titanium, and furthermore I was pretty sure my journey was over.

Fighting through  that crushing defeat, the rehab season followed.  I was smarter then.  One hour was enough, and stay true to eating clean.  There was yoga to ease the sore muscles and begin to tame the anxiety of working out less.  Later, there was the first Spartan Race at Fenway Park.  I would arrive there, and although I looked healthy, in my mind, I wondered what it was I was doing there among these people who appeared to be serious athletes.  I had essentially been the fat non athlete most of my life.  I would find myself self conscious at the start line, and nearly paralyzed with fear at the top of the 15 foot cargo net second guessing what it was I was doing.  I would go on to finish and stand on the first baseline of Fenway with my first medal around my neck crying my eyes out with my poor son trying to provide the comfort and support as he always has on my journey.  I would go on to race in five more races, even completing the trifecta of a Spartan Sprint, Super and Beast in 2017.  The insecurity seems to be becoming less each time.  I would love to say it has totally passed, but don't suppose it ever will.  In my last two races, I have had the honor of taking newbies to their first races and watch them learn as I have, that what we think we are capable of is probably not even close to reality.

In the last six months, I have taken on endurance running.  The anxiety producing task that brought back pace slowing memories of being ridiculed in gym class.  I long convinced myself I was not an endurance runner.  Yes, I ran Spartans, even a 20 mile beast, but Spartans were different.  There running was simply a way to get from one obstacle to the next, not sustained distance running.  However, I was roped into the skull crushing 12 man 200 mile relay known as Ragnar.  Fair is fair, I had taken the captain to her first Spartan Race, so I felt obligated to commit to this.  With the Cape Cod Ragnar only 7 days away at this point, and six months of training for it behind me, I have to say that running for endurance has taught me to exert energy with control and in doing it fairly well now, I have found it surprisingly empowering.  Me.  The non distance runner. Empowered by running, suddenly thinking the Disney Marathon in January is an excellent idea. 

Now that I have settled into running for endurance, though, it became simple to convince myself that running with speed was not a thing.  I blamed my hip.  My age.  My acid reflux.  No, its not those things either.  It's mental.  The notion that the fat girl has nothing.  The fat girl who needed a designated runner in softball because there was no way she was stealing bases, and was most certainly going to be last when it came to running the Cooper (1.5 miles) in junior high. So as I take this on as my next big thing, by applying an adage from a training friend,"some days you say fuck it.  You go hard and if you puke you puke."   Much to my surprise today, I did just that and found myself at a sprint of 6"56' pace for a short period of time suddenly realizing just maybe speed could be a thing.


When we look at the history of Mars, the current thought is that there once were rivers and lakes and life.  I think prior to the last three years, I settled for a life that I thought was just fine.  My own, what I felt were beautiful, lakes and rivers, but in reality, I think in a lot of ways I was simply drowning.  I was unable to believe I could no longer be morbidly obese,  and instead be healthy and, given enough time and training, could accomplish any physical challenge.  Considering motivating others to do the same was not even on the radar.  The reality is, though, at this point modern Mars is dry and uninhabitable.  I suppose that is what my three year journey has been about, six months in, start life on a planet I have no understanding of, with two years of various seasons of changes until the old life of doubt and "I can't" no longer threaten to pull me under.  I have come to learn that my old life was is simply no longer inhabitable, and it is time to go back and make things all new.  Only this time, realizing I have the power to make it any way I want to.   

So, here I go.  Setting out on year four of my health journey.  As I get busy with the scary task of goal setting, I think I will take a page out of Marvin's book.  Strap on the Chuck Taylors, show up with quiet confidence and outwit the competition, even if the competition is the old me.