A guest posting by triathlete, Jeanne McCann, whose popular blog Born Not to Run inspired 40 Days of Yoga. Travel along her twisted path of healing and falling in love, which does not, btw, end up in Bali.
I discovered running late in life, at the advanced age of 48, after battling severe back pain of unknown etiology. In other words, the doctors couldn't agree. I spent two years in rehab and on drugs and then, in homage to the wave of religious technicolor movies in the 1950s, I literally threw away my cane, started walk-running, and completed the Marine Corps Marathon.
Back pain gone!
The next year I did the marathon again, only gave up the walking part. By that time I had built a mini-brand as a blogger, joined a community of running bloggers, started training and the next thing you know I had morphed from a middle-aged slightly paunchy 11:30 minute per mile runner into a sleek (still slightly paunchy through - sigh) 10:00 minute per mile runner. I ran every race there was. I knew all the runners. I knew all the running clubs. I knew all the running theories. I read running books, listened to running podcasts, read running blogs, and had running friends. One thing lead to another and before you could say Bob's Your Uncle I was out there doing triathlons. I became, in short, an athlete.
I'm not telling you all this to make you feel bad. God knows you're already feeling bad enough from watching Diane complete 40 days of yoga AND blogging (which is harder?? You tell ME.) I tell you only so that you understand that when I fell in love, sometime around my birthday last year (February 7 thank you very much), it all went to hell in a handbasket.
I gradually replaced all that frenetic activity with, well, cooking. Nesting. Noodling.
It gradually occurred to me that I really really hated being rushed. And if you've never participated in a triathlon, let me tell you: rushing is required. You actually train to rush. You rush from one activity to the next and if you take too long, you lose time and you lose place and you lose face.
So I gradually cut back on my six-day-a-week training, never thinking it would signal the demise of my body.
Since falling in love, I've developed Achilles enteritis, iliotibial band issues, and my back pain has returned with a vengence. He's developed plantar fasciitis and bad knees!
Whoever said love is pain wasn't kidding.
But now that we're settled and noodling and nesting all the live-long day, I'm finding there was a connection between feeling good and being active and being in love and getting gradually inactive.
The straw was hopping on the scale this morning and seeing a horrible number. A number that is so horrible it shouldn't even be allowed to exist. When you reach that number, the scale should switch to binary or just start whistling or tell you a funny joke or something. Anything but that number.
And I wouldn't even be hopping on the scale if it weren't for Miss Diane, a woman who watches her weight like it's her job. Because experts be damned, apparently hopping on the scale every day actually works.
I've tried in vain to be kind to myself. "I'll just be fat," I say to myself. "Look at Rubens, he loved fat women!" But Rubens is long dead and you know what? Back then clothes were a little more forgiving. You could wrap yourself up in long flowing robes and corsets and petticoats and whatall and also? There were no sizes! You needed a gown - someone took your measurements and whipped something up. No need to fit. Fit is so 20th century.
But I digress. The point is, being in love shouldn't make your body fall apart.
Readers: What advice do you have for Miss Lovebird?
If ONLY it ended up in Bali! Thanks for the shout-out, but sadly, I'm just a former triathlete these days. :)
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