As a kid, sure I ran around the yard. One time I (narrowly) outran a Doberman on the length of his outdoor dog run. Running in short spurts wasn't the problem. But when it came time to run laps in gym class I always had a note, or enough of an attitude that I just didn't. I walked.
I played plenty of sports that required short spurts of running: softball, volleyball, badminton. But the thought of playing something like soccer, basketball or track? No thanks. Simply couldn't. I played volleyball in Jr High for 3 years and that was my favorite. When I got to high school, I tried out for the volleyball team. That was the one thing I knew I wanted to do in high school.
The weekend before tryouts they had a clinic where you ran a mile, did some drills, lifted some weights, stuff like that. My fantastic, always-my-biggest-cheerleader big sister went with me to cheer from the sidelines. We started with the mile - running one lap around the circumference of the high school grounds. Up to this point I'd had visions in my head of training for this. Perhaps my sister driving slowly alongside in her car as I ran, cheering me on, "you can do it!" Until I finally made it with the Rocky theme song playing in the background. But of course I didn't train. Who wants to do that?
So there we were, 20 girls at the starting line, some already on the team, some about to try out as new freshmen, about to run a simple mile to warm up. I remember starting off strong, but pretty quickly strong went out the window and was replaced by limbs being filled with sand and lungs being filled with anything but precious air. 18 other girls quickly disappeared into the distance as I pushed as hard as I could, just trying to stay upright and move forward. As I drew each loud strangled breath and desperately put one foot in front of the other, the finish line seemed to move further and further away.
I do remember being mad at myself. I recall being incredibly embarrassed and shocked at how poorly I was doing. Feeling like this was not normal. Passing the halfway mark, the other girls already sat panting at the finish line. I did finish, and not even last, as if that mattered. There was one poor little girl who weighed probably 300+ pounds who was also running. We were neck and neck most of the race. I do remember thinking there is no way in hell I am finishing behind this girl and made a final push to barely beat her at the finish. Yeah, way to go, me.
Afterwards my worried sister sat with me as I leaned against the bleachers gasping for breath for the next 20 minutes. I was really happy she was there. The older girls running the clinic asked if I was ok, telling me well we're just going to be in the weight room next so if you want to come in whenever you catch your breath go ahead. I went home.
I did go to volleyball tryouts the next weekend, but I didn't make the team. Big surprise there. Although I still get annoyed when I think about it over 20 years later. I was good at volleyball. And you don’t have to be able to run a mile to play volleyball. But alas, it’s probably for the best, most of the girls who were on the volleyball team were bitches. It wasn’t my path anyway.
But after that experience, my sister and I told my mom about it and she took me to the doctor where they tested me for exercise induced asthma. It was a very scientific test wherein I ran laps around the parking lot. At 3pm when the high school let out and all the kids walking home went right past the doctor’s office. No, it didn’t scar my overly self-conscious 14 year-old self, why do you ask?
Each lap I had to stop and breathe into a tube which measured my breath. 1st lap – yeah I got this no problem; 2nd lap – doing ok, a little slower; 3rd lap – limbs are filling with sand and weigh 150 pounds each, I feel air going in and out with each jagged breath but maybe my brain isn’t getting the message; 4th lap – cut across the grass, couldn’t even make it a full lap, could barely draw breath to blow into the machine. So I left with the diagnosis that maybe I wasn’t as much of a big fat loser as I’d thought, and an inhaler.
So you see I haven’t been much of a runner since then. An experience like that along with a diagnosis is plenty to make you think you can’t do something. I was proud of my status as a definite non-runner. And that has served me just fine for the last 23 years. But then something happened…
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