Tag Archives: boot camp

Your Permission Slip

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you are a runner

Back in 2008, I signed myself up for boot camp with a single goal:  I wanted to be able to do a military style REAL push-up by my 40th birthday.  Three weeks later, I did three!

Three months in, after running and working out three days a week in the company of my compatriots at WoW! Boot Camp, I felt better than I had ever felt about my body.  Not that it was getting thin–but I was getting STRONG.  I decided to jump on the bandwagon and sign myself up for a 5K.  

But to train for a 5K, I needed to increase my cardio training, which meant I would need to do some work on my own.  In the daylight.  Without my coach.  And someone who wasn’t also a member of the group might see me…exercising.  So my coach came up to me one morning (at 5:WTH30 in the morning) and asked if I had a training plan.  I stuttered, “Um, well, I thought I would start using the elliptical in my basement until I can do about 45 minutes worth because that will equate to about the same amount of effort…”  She looked at me sideways and said, “Nobody ever ran a 5K on an elliptical.  Why don’t you go outside and run?”  The immediate answer in my head was “Because someone might see me and laugh,” but I knew better than to say that to April.  I didn’t have an answer for her.  She suggested that I map out a 1.5 mile route from my house and go out and back, running as much as I could and walking the rest until I could work up to running the whole thing.  Easy Peasy.  

I was terrified to run in public because I felt like I needed a permission slip.  Wouldn’t “real” runners laugh at me if they saw in my $124 New Balance shoes and my double reinforced titanium running bra, size 40G (the G is for GOTDAMMM!)?  I took my dog with me so I could use him as an excuse to be out in public, taking up sidewalk, breathing the fresh air and pretending I was an athlete.  I started to run.  Just run.  I went at night so no one would see me, or on Sunday mornings when the mean people might be busy at church or still in jail.  

No test to pass.  No license to earn.  No membership card.  Just run.  

I finished my first 5K on a rainy Saturday morning.  I had to walk some.  Everyone there was nice to me.  I was scared to look over my shoulder during the race because I thought the only thing still behind me was the police car bringing up the rear.  But I did it and I was so proud of myself that I wore my number straight to a Weight Watchers meeting.  

So let this quote from John Bingham be your permission slip.  It doesn’t even have to be about running.  Replace the word “run” with sing, zip line, act, date, write, blog, swim, whatever you wish you had permission to do.  

A Blue Bead for Boston

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beaded necklace with all colorsMany years ago, so many that I can’t recall the name of the book or the author, I read about a method for seeing the pattern of your life from a grander perspective.  The idea is a simple one:  at the end of each day, imagine that you are stringing a colored glass bead onto a ribbon.  The ribbon is your life, stretching all the way back to the knot that was tied the day you were born.  The color of the bead represents how you felt on that one particular day.  A red bead for an angry day, when you spent your time feeling put out and put upon.  A green bead for the day when you were growing, when you could feel yourself becoming greater.  A blue bead for a day touched with sadness, a day when your heart was laid open to the world.  A gold bead for the perfectly balanced day, when your heart was blessed with joy and peace.

Once you have chosen a bead for the day and added it to the ribbon, you can look back to see the pattern they create.  I could look back and see the stretches of blue when Richard died that lightened into green when my life became whole again.  I could see how few red days are behind me, but how sharply they shout out for attention.  I could feel grateful for the gold days scattered here and there and there.  

Yesterday would have been a blue day.  A blue bead for Boston.

My boot camp coaches, April and Natalie, who finished yesterday’s race in 3:57, just minutes before the bombs exploded, have been robbed of their gold beads.  Their achievement should hold nothing but joy, but it will forever be darkened by violence.  There’s a boy in Boston who should have had a green day, after watching his dad finish something tough, but now the boy is dead and his father is left with a red bead, a blue bead, and many days before he will reach for a gold bead again.  How many people will mark April 15, 2013 as the first day they spent in a wheelchair?  Red and blue, red and blue; when will green return?

Today is also the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.  Another of my former coaches, Stephanie, ran the Boston Marathon a year ago in memory of the 32 people murdered at Virginia Tech.  Her brother, Jamie Bishop, died there.  If I think about that tragedy too long, I reach for a red bead instead of blue.  Especially after Newtown.

So at the end of this day, pick a bead.  There will be blue days.  There will be red days.  But there are so many green days.  And just enough gold to make it all worthwhile.

Thank you to April, Natalie and Stephanie for all of the green days you have coached me through.  For the gold days when I finished a race that I never thought I would have the courage to start.