mega weight loss

Just START!

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 8 Comments

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Spencer and I started this business, Novo Veritas, over 2 years ago.

I love it.  All of the work and hours and challenges and success.  More and more every day. It’s a hell of a ride, an intense privilege to work with our clients and we’re currently taking this business in directions neither of us ever dreamed possible…

My personal favorite part of the whole business adventure?  The privilege and honor of being invited into someone’s life at a time where their hearts and minds are more than likely vulnerable, ashamed, determined, brave, scared, fierce, focused and much more.  They invite us in.  Trust us with their stories, their history, their fears and deepest hopes.

And then sometimes, if it all works out just right, they even allow us to join their team.

Most of the people we get to work with approach us for one of two basic reasons…

  1. Tell me how to get started.
  2. Be on my team.
  3. (A close 3rd place would be….)  Hold me accountable.

In the past few weeks a handful of people have reached out to me asking how to get started – and how to build their own teams.  The following is a list I created about a year ago and pulled from one of my previous blogs.  And it’s still the advice I give, still what I believe in my heart.

AND it also happens to be the advice I wish I could have listened to when I got started on this journey to change my life.

 

Here’s what I wish I had been told.  And in the cases where I was told; I wish I could have embraced and BELIEVED it…

1. Your weight fluctuates.  Daily. It will go up or down during training.  If you have your period.  If you eat too much salt.  You smelled a cake being baked. The rotation of the earth. 🙂 Sometimes it’s really legit gain because you simply ate too many calories over a period of time. But you have to understand that your weight isn’t stable in the day to day. Not gonna happen. Quit even thinking it’s possible. And you know what?  It isn’t meant to be. You thought you got to a number and stayed there with just a little effort?  That this whole bodyweight thing was simple math and cut and dried?  Uh…  HELL NO.

2. Take measurements.  I really WISH I had known how big my hips or belly or thighs were at my largest.  I didn’t take measurements because — hell — who really wants to know that they have a 90” waist?  You will wish you had those body measurements for reference and reassurance in the process. At any point when you’re feeling ‘fat’, stalled, discouraged or just wondering how far your journey has taken you — you can pull out a tape measure and be assured, well beyond the confines of a stupid scale, that you were NOT gaining anything but muscle or fitness.

3.  Worry is wasted energy.  Spend time looking for solutions and opportunities.

4. And for the love of ALL THAT IS HOLY quit beating yourself up. YOU, who you are at the very CORE of your being, has nothing to do with the number on a scale or the packaging of your body. NOTHING.  Please, oh please, just believe me on this one.  I’m in tears writing this.  I am crying for you and for myself too. Because I know you won’t believe me, you can’t fathom what I’m trying to tell you… This is the last thing you can possibly wrap your mind around when you’ve battled your weight your entire life and a number is staring you in the face — a number you hate.  A number so large you didn’t know the scale went that high. I know that feeling of panicked desperation and hopelessness as well as I know the sound of my own heart beating. Text me, call me, reach out to me and I will spend the rest of my life relentlessly reminding you of your value to our world. And if you can’t believe yourself, then trust that I’m a way better judge of YOUR value than a stupid mechanical piece of crap you bought at Costco.

5. Don’t pick a number for a goal.  (See 1.) Don’t pick a clothing size either. That’s really just another number. Pick a feeling, activity, ability, destination.  You want to climb stairs and not be gulping for air?  You want to feel solidly OK with how you feel in your birthday or bathing suit? 🙂  You want to be able to hike, run, walk, move better….  PICK something that isn’t a transient, essentially meaningless, number.

6. Know that the BIG picture is worth all the little steps, mis-steps, concerns, questions, sacrifices. It’s hard work. It’s worth it.  They’re points of feedback and learning.  And this whole ‘get healthy’ thing is in NO WAY linear.  No way.  There is nothing direct, logical or straight about this path you are on.  And you’re going to be making shit up as you go.

7. Do NOT let that scale dictate your mood to the world.  So you can’t not weigh…  I get that, but we should keep working on that. 🙂   So you step on the scale and it’s up a bit?  DO SOMETHING about it.  Don’t be a bitch. Or walk around like someone ran over your dog. Or have a short fuse with loved ones.  Or start restricting food because you don’t ‘deserve’ to eat. Or start secluding yourself from the people you love because you feel you don’t ‘deserve’ their love or you’re deeply embarrassed. Stop allowing that stupid, effing, scale to affect your mood.  Reach out. You may not have great control over how you feel, but you can ALWAYS choose how you act and react.

8. Please, please, please love on yourself.  And believe in yourself.  Hang tightly to HOPE. Hope is powerful stuff. YOU will do this.  And you can’t see the day, but it’s coming; you will be healthy and happy. Your weight should not be allowed to dictate ANY of that.  You have so much to offer the world.  You’re an aunt.  A sister.  A friend.  A daughter.  A momma. A lot of really, really remarkable things that no one else in the whole entire world can possibly be! We were only given ONE of you. One. Do what you can each day to help yourself get healthy so you can be around and enjoy the life in front of you.

9.  This isn’t a short-term investment.  Trust the process. Life-time commitment. You will look at something daily and judge it as not moving, plateaued, failing.  HANG ON and look at this from the 3,000 foot view, look at this from a 365-day investment. You will see growth.  YOU WILL.  Really!  Keep at it.  You didn’t gain the weight over night.  You will not lose it overnight. Trite and irritating – but TRUE.

10. One of my favorite songs is ‘Live Like You Were Dying’ by Tim McGraw.  If you are like me you’re living this weight loss journey with a lot of fear.  Fear of going backwards.  Fear of judgement.  Fear of FAILURE…  The ‘what if’s’ can paralyze you…  Holy smokes.  The fear you have embraced and live with could choke an elephant. What if you could just enjoy the journey for what it was and live each day like you are trying to be your very best? Living like you’re dying doesn’t mean you live with no consequences for your choices.  It means you accept each day, each moment for what it is and keep moving toward the goal you want to reach…  (And for back-up… See this video by Brene Brown.)

Trust the process.

Keep moving forward.

Love on yourself.

Happy trails. 🙂

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Wearing my underwear backwards.

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 1 Comment

08_13_16_trrT_0506-ZF-7509-90007-1-001-014When I was 250+ pounds I used to wear my underwear backwards.

I had a pretty funny flash back to this forgotten and semi-embarrassing fact this morning running with my friend Carlea.

Last year I bought some running tights on super-sale from some obscure running site.  I do this periodically.  I get wonky, weird, off-season, running clothes bargains.  Once in a great while I find something amazing!  It’s all super cheap and a fun, daring, fashion-themed shopping-game of adventure.

This time around it was colorful running tights super cheap.

I show up to meet my friend Carlea at the Saddle for a run.  I wore the screaming-hot-pink tights today for the first time.  They… uh… were built weird. But they were really cute!  I told Carlea I figured I would get used to how they fit as we ran. (Always a bad idea.  Running clothes/shoes really shouldn’t need a break-in period… But in the face of cute/fun clothes; I always forget this ‘trail rule’.)

How weird was the fit? There was a ton of extra fabric in the front/crotch area and they were what we will politely call ‘plunging low rise’ in the back.  So I kept fidgeting with the stupid tights trying to keep them up over my butt.

We finally stopped about 3 miles in while I tried to figure out how to remedy the situation and keep running without flashing everyone in the forest. Carlea and I got to laughing — fairly sure I had to have the tights on backwards.  We checked.  Nope.  But, they sure seemed to be built backwards.

‘I think I figured out why they were on sale’.– Me.  Every time.

We got things sorted out and PG-rated for the rest of the run.  I got to chuckling.  I finally told Carlea that these tights were reminding me of a habit I had when I was obese.  I had kind of forgotten about it.

I have always loved the idea of having matching bra/panties. I just do. When I was obese and desperately wanted to feel good about how I looked and wanted to feel attractive – this duo always did the trick.  Cute undies was a near-daily goal.  When I was wearing a size 26/28 the options were limited.  Or ridiculous. Or really, seriously functional; steel belted bras with really wide straps, scratchy/ugly lace and cotton granny panties.

I finally, after years of searching and failed attempts, found a bra and undies set that matched and FIT and was cute.  I was so freaking excited!  I wore them all day at a conference, felt like a million bucks and was thinking I needed to go out and buy the dang undies in every color they made.  As I got undressed at the end of the day…

I discovered that I had in fact worn the underwear backwards all day.

They fit perfectly, totally ass-backwards.

Huh.

Why had they fit so well you might be wondering?  Well….  I was close to 400 pounds.  And I was built very much like an apple with all my weight in my belly.  With a really flat butt.  My belly was significantly larger than my butt.  So undies are typically cut to cover your bum and lay flat on your belly – right?  They didn’t work for me and my apple-shape.

But wearing them backwards worked for my body…

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Disney with the family.  And yes… I am about 99% sure I have my underwear on backwards in this picture. 🙂

So for about 10 years I pretty much always wore my underwear – cute or otherwise – backwards.  A problem accidentally and creatively semi-solved. I never admitted it to anyone, never advertised it.  But wasn’t proud of it by any stretch.

I was just too fat and misshapen to wear underwear normally…

So I adapted to what worked for me at that time.

So today Carlea and I were laughing over yet another clothing failure I snagged from a clearance rack.

I have lost weight and had the full-body lift surgery to remove 10 pounds of excess skin from my belly/waist.  While I am still built a little funny at my waist with some skin scarring and bumpy surgical ‘seams’ at the sides of my hips — I now have a pretty typical ‘runners’ butt and fairly flat belly.

NOW I can totally wear matching bras/undies if I want to – without having to wear them backwards. 🙂  (I just have to remember to pack them in my gym bag. 🙂 )

Turns out that even putting my underwear on can serve a daily reminder of how my healthy lifestyle now is so different than my Type 2 diabetic/obese days.

Carlea and I both had a really good laugh as I shared this story with her.

I managed to get back to my car and not accidentally show my bum off on the trail.

Today anyway. 🙂

*Screaming-hot-pink running tights are now free to a good home.

 

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Honest advice from a friend…

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 4 Comments

My good friend and fellow trail runner, Jill Puleo (check out her YouTube chanel) gave me permission to share this recent conversation we shared on Facebook.  It’s personal from both sides of our stories, but her advice to me…?

Holy cow.

Her advice to me is too damn good to keep to myself.

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Jill (rockstar in the picture above!) and I have only met ONE time in person. Yet we have both worked to build a strong and growing friendship based initially on two simple things: Curly hair and trail running. 🙂  We met at Western States Camp 2015 waiting for the run for day two to start.

Our friendship essentially started from a three minute conversation at the start of a run.

How awesome is that!??

Here’s the Facebook conversation between Jill and I recently.

Betsy:

So the day you checked in with me?

Thank you following your gut or intuition or whatever was guiding you Jill. I had had a rough day.

Longish story as short as possible? Spencer had a run/stride analysis with a local coaching/Ultra-running/Guru that we all love and respect, Joe. Spencer loved it, gained a ton from it – and was quick to tell me that I should get one done as well. I made some comment at the time about ‘I’m not fast enough to have a stride.’ and dismissed the idea.  Spencer would bring it up every once in a while… ‘Are you going to get your stride looked at by Joe?’ and I would say something benign and dismissive like ‘I’ll think about it’ or ‘maybe’.

Well this past weekend we had a full weekend of training. I am starting to ramp up training from an extended recovery period.

Spencer says he is only going to suggest to me one more time to seriously consider getting my stride looked at and then he’ll drop the topic but do I understand that this  would be a really beneficial thing to do?

So I say yes, I’ll go see Joe. (I’ll admit I said it with the unmistakable tone of bitchy, forced, pissed-off….)

I email Joe and get an appointment.

I go.

Joe is AMAZING. SO much patience and knowledge.  And it turns out I do have a stride and it’s kind of messed up or least could be a lot more efficient and ‘healthy’. He appreciates that my goal is to be running when I’m 70 and that I want to invest time in building a ‘healthy’ stride since I’m fairly new to running. He spent over two hours with me talking about what was weak/strong and how to work to fix some of the things he saw to get me to a healthy stride.

Here’s the deal… And this is what ALL of my resistance was about… He videos you running at different speeds and from different angles. And then you get to watch in ((slow-mo)) while he shows you your legs, angles, back, feet, arms… I assume it’s fascinating and instructive had I not been totally and utterly horrified at seeing myself running on video.

I saw a woman who looked fat, lumpy, flappy, floppy — her hair looked horrible and she really, really needs a new bra. I was so heartbroken at how I looked on that video I could barely hear what Joe was telling me.

And then we go through some range of motion exercises and cues — and we run/tape again. Again…. I’m watching the videos totally transfixed with how fat and awkward and horrible I look.

In my mind I’ve thought I looked happy and solid and like maybe even just a teeny, tiny little bit like an athlete when I run. Seeing the video removed ALL postiive thoughts I had about my body while running. I think deep down I KNEW this is what would happen which is why I was defensive and avoiding it all…  I drove home choking back tears the entire way in self-pity.  I know that Spencer knows something is wrong well beyond the stride analysis thing and me ‘not being fast enough to have a stride’.  And I’d just about rather cut out my own tongue that explain that I just didn’t want to see myself on video…

Seeing myself on video running was actually far worse than I imagined.

Jill, please tell me to grow up. And that everyone hates their self on film. That I need to get over it – so I can get working on what really matters – which is a healthy stride…

I’m stuck in horrified, defensive and bitchy mode.

I want so badly to have a different body than I do… And that makes me sad. I know you will understand that because we’ve talked about body image issues before. And I KNOW that learning to love my body as it is, is a process.

I always seem to know exactly what to tell others who are struggling.

But if you would have seen the video of me running — you would understand my current horror and sadness…

Jill:

The video: YES I UNDERSTAND.

I understand so, so very much.

I am still suffering from seeing pictures of myself that my friend posted of me from her wedding in which, I look like a puffy old crow with a hooked nose and thick calves.

I am not going to tell you to grow up.

I am not going to tell you to “practice self care” (whatever the eff that means…I HATE THAT PHRASE) and I am not going to tell you that it doesn’t suck. Your body was made in a way that doesn’t please you and you fight it every day. Being flippant about that and telling you it will all go away with a journal and a cup of camomile tea is epic bullshit.

Secret?

OK here’s a big one: Although I believe in the Body Positive movement, I don’t really get some parts of it. I feel like there are many good points, but it also seems like there are a lot of excuses being floated around. You know what I mean…?

It’s those people who don’t want to feel ANYTHING uncomfortable. Well you and I both know that if you don’t feel anything uncomfortable, you are not growing. You are also not challenging yourself. I would like to sit home today and eat M&Ms. That would make me VERY comfortable. And the body positive people would say that after multiple days of doing this I should love the body that results. BUT NO. Because that is NOT FRIGGING HEALTHY.

So, my idea is this: I like to think of my body like I think of my my sister in law…I have to accept it for what it is, even like it sometimes, but I don’t have to love it.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOVE YOUR BODY.

But, I do think that you have to love what it does for you, and that’s where I choose to focus my thoughts. Or at least, I try. I know I am not a fabulous runner. I mean, I am not fast and I will never win anything. I do have this pretty amazing talent for long distances. I get more comfortable the longer I go and feel better doing it too. I think to myself that I like this about my body and I thank it for getting me this far.

BUT I DO NOT THANK IT FOR THE CELLULITE I’VE HAD SINCE I WAS 10.

I don’t care how much goddamned tea I drink I am never going to love my cellulite. I don’t know if this helps, but your body has done and will do a lot of things.

Maybe it’s a partner, a co-worker, a sister in law…

It doesn’t have to be your true romance.

BUT YOU…you, on the inside…well, you’d better love that part because inside that package is a heart and a mind and a soul and all of it is pretty spectacular.

As far as the video/photos go…you have the choice to never look at it ever again or watch it over and over. I try to think to myself: which of those options will allow me to be who I want to be once I stop watching? Like, I don’t want to be a total bitch all day, so I should probably NOT go through my high school yearbook, you know? Not without vodka, anyway.  

You don’t get an award for being OK with watching your body flop around on a treadmill and being OK with it. But, it is nice to feel good and treat others well (aka: NOT be a bitch after said viewing) so in this case: YOU ARE JUSTIFIED and welcome to not ever look at that video again.

Don’t say “I should get over this” because that diminishes your feelings. Say “I will get better at handling this” because unlike the self-help/life coach/body positive ladies, I do not believe that this feeling will go away.

I think that instead of wishing it away, ya better cozy on up…because if you want to get through it by making it ghost, you’re in for a world of shit when it comes crashing back unexpectedly.

So, think about what you like about what your body does for you and focus on that. LIKE it. APPRECIATE it. But, don’t feel like a failure if you end up giving it the side-eye most of the time. You’re allowed.

That being said, be sure that you are not comparing your body to other bodies. I am pretty sure you don’t do this, but scrolling through Instagram can be incredibly defeating. All of those gorgeous bodies in front of gorgeous mountain ranges can be hard to watch…

OK that’s enough full frontal Jill for now…haha

Sending love as always

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

You are never alone.

Deeply grateful for you, our friendship and your stellar, blunt, authentic advice.

Thank you Jill.

Diabetes doesn’t go on Holiday…

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 6 Comments

img_4329-jpgI had to pull out my glucose testing kit this week.

It’s been in retirement for 3 years.

I am not gonna lie.  It was a bit of a low moment.  I was sad and a little scared.

I had a sudden flash of fear that Type 2 (T2) Diabetes was back or trying really hard to creep back in. I was noticing some things…  Things that seemed disconnected, but hauntingly familiar.

Fuzzy thinking. Thirsty. Sleepy. Insatiably hungry. Irritable out of the blue/out of porportion. Craving sugar.  Feeling ‘puffy’.

Not just the normal things that happen in life, I mean, the ‘symptoms’ were out of place given what was happening in my life.

All of the sudden it dawned me WHY these were familiar…  This is the crap that happens when my blood sugars are out of whack.

I hadn’t felt these symptoms in these odd clusters in over three years…

Holy crap.

It was time to test and see what the numbers had to tell me.

I tested as soon as I put the pieces together and realized I was possibly experiencing some blood sugar issues. My post-prandial (2 hours post-meal) glucose was 111.  For me — that’s a solid, if tad-bit high, number.  But respectable.

Whew.  Little breathing room and stab of relief.

I tested a fasting number the next morning and it was 110.  Exhaling in relief.  On the high side, but arguably good.

Yesterday was 100.

I’m in a ‘safe space’ with the numbers I’m seeing and recording.

They’re not as low as I would like, nor are they as low as I can make them when I’m keeping my diet ‘tight’.

While I’m clinically in a non-diabetic range, I still felt pretty clearly this was a wake-up call.

After Mountain Lakes 100 miler back in September, I had a revelation of sorts.  The conversation in my head (and out loud to Spencer…) went sort of like this:

‘I just ran for 100 miles, for close to 30 hours and fueled that effort with about 5,000-6,000 calories of SUGAR.  And while that’s pretty typical running fuel for ‘normal’ folks, uh…  You aren’t normal.  How horribly WRONG/DUMB/STUPID/RIDICULOUS is that equation for someone like YOU??!  Can I remind you that you used to be morbidly obese, insulin-injecting, T2 for two DECADES.  HOLY CRAP BETSY.  You’re a reformed T2 diabetic and you just ran (which you can only do because you are no longer morbidly obese) eating pure, easily accessible to your blood, sugar. This.is.utterly.asinine. You can’t keep doing this.  It’s a recipe for disaster.’

So I made the decision that I needed to change some things.  Immediately.

It all has to start with my day-to-day food plan.

There’s a health condition called ‘Insulin Resistance’.  It also gets talked about as ‘Carbohydrate Intolerance’.  I’ve done a ton of research on it, and I have come to understand that I am no longer T2 Diabetic, but I am still insulin resistant.  And I always will be. I can certainly manage it, but it’s not going to go away. While it is not an entirely accurate description, I kind of think of it as being ‘allergic’ to carbs.

((Here’s the disclaimer in all of this:  I’m an experiment of one. I lost over 200 pounds, reversed type 2 and somehow fell head-over-heels in love with the endurance running world. Turns out that there aren’t a lot of people like me out there, and the ‘normal’ rules for food/nutrition/fueling just don’t ever seem to work well for me. My solutions and chosen paths are not likely to work or make sense for anyone else.))

I’m well aware that if I eat too many carbs {ANY KIND OF CARBS – YES… Even the ‘healthy ones’}  I get swinging blood sugars.  If I keep carbs {even the healthy ones…} to a minimum — my glucose stays in a horizontal and largely stable line.

‘My body hates carbs!’ — me

‘No.  Your body loves carbs.  It loves them to DEATH.’ — Deb, my sister.

So…

Good-bye to my plant based diet that I loved and enjoyed for almost three years. (Averaging 300 – 400 ish grams of carbohydrates per day with a healthy balance of grains, fruits and veggies.)

Hello again to my old friend, no-and-low carb. (Averaging 40-70 grams of total carbs per day.)

I’m tightly restricting my daily carbohydrate load. ANY carbohydrate source.  Aiming for whole, non-processed foods. And I am most especially vigilant for any of the added or hidden variations of sugars/corn syrups that were truly and absolutely my worst enemy as a T2.

I know how to do this.

I just willingly and knowingly strayed from the basics that got me ‘here’; I strayed from the food plan that helped me lose weight, become non-diabetic, learn to run…  I mean I reversed T2 Diabetes — I suddenly felt FREE and healthy enough to try new things with food, fueling, diet.  So I did!  I’m totally OK with those experiments and what they have taught me about myself and the way my body works.

I just find it humbling and interesting that I am back where it all started.

Back to the very basics of what worked when I first started this crazy journey.  Back to low carb, NO SUGAR, low glycemic indexed foods.

((For my running friends who are wondering about fueling during training and events that this dilemma now hands me…  Well. Join the crowd. Me too.  I’m lost and little bewildered with it all at this moment in time.  But I am deeply driven by the knowledge that if I want to stay healthy and running; I have to stay the course in managing this or T2 Diabetes could possibly win this whole freaking thing. I won’t, can’t let that happen.  So let the new fueling experiments begin. 🙂 )) 

This week has been a solid reminder that T2 diabetes is still chasing me 365 days a year.

It never takes a Holiday.

But, guess what?

I have NO PLANS to take a Holiday either.

I am a trail runner.

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 24 Comments

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I lost myself on a mountain Friday.

And I found myself.

Friday was intensely emotional.  Like the kind of day where tears are all over the place and I seemed to have no way to stop them.  And my heart was busting open.  And I can’t find the right words to explain any of it.

I hate crying in public so I did a lot of hiding in porta-potties and my tent.

Stage 5 of Transrockies. It’s a hard stage. Lots of people struggled with it. I felt strong, it’s the kind of running I like and it involved some serious power hiking (13 miles of it).  I ended the day in 35th for the stage. I have NEVER had a solid result like that. So there’s that little emotional tidbit… I raced my ass off. And it worked. That alone would have been justification for a few tears. 🙂

Then there was another emotional tidal wave occurring during and after the run…

Right around checkpoint 2 I had what I can only describe as a breakthrough.

Except that while it kind of slammed me in the chest and mind; I’m still trying to figure out exactly what in the hell happened.

I went through the checkpoint and grabbed watermelon and small cup of coke. Grabbed 3 Gu’s to re-fill my pack and barreled out of the station. (Spencer’s voice in my head ‘quit dicking around and wasting time at aid stations.)

I left about 30 people in the aid station and was once again by myself.  Every other day I’ve fallen into a similar paced tribe and had great people to run along with.  Today — no one was around.

I was running on a ridge line above Vail, CO. I looked left and right and all I could see was mountains and trees and clouds and some of the most beautiful scenery ever.  It took my breath away how beautiful this country was that I was getting to run in, and see up close.

I started thinking about how THIS IS MY LIFE.  I’m running. In the Rockies.  And I have friends at the camp. And I’ve made some new friends that will be lifelong. And I’m running. I’m hiking.  I’m healthy…

This is my life.

Then the shovel hit me in the face.

I AM NO LONGER A 400 POUND WOMAN.

I’m a trail runner.

I’ve been waiting for the day I would no longer instantly and resolutely identify with my 400 pound former self.  I was always the heavy girl.  I still see myself that way.  Still judge everything against that benchmark. Still startle when I see my reflection sometimes and don’t recognize myself..

I’ve been waiting to see a certain number on the scale, or buy a certain size pants, or — fuck — I have NO CLUE what I was really waiting for to understand that that is no longer my life, no longer my identity.

Along the same vein…  I run.  I only say ‘I’m a runner’ to appease Spencer.  It PISSES him off no end that I run and work out and train and race and refuse to see my self as a runner.

Today on that exposed ridge, in Vail, with no one around.  I ran.  On the dirt.  Bawling.  And gasping for breathe, not just because of the altitude – but because I was totally overwhelmed with happiness and understanding and acceptance.

I kept running and the tears flowed.  I got to Checkpoint 3 and there’s a guy that I’ve become friends with who is an ultra runner —  his name is Mike and he here at Transrockies as a volunteer.  Outlandish costumes, cowbells and loud encouragement at the most unlikely of spots on each stage to cheer on every single runner. And he happens to be one hell of a great guy.  I feel safe with him after knowing him for about 72 hours.  I ran up to him, tears all over my face,  at the checkpoint and said ‘please put on your coach hat and tell me to run the 5 miles down the hill as hard as I can, because I’m tired and I don’t want to run, but I’ve had the best running day possible so far…’  He said ‘RUN! You can do this, I’m proud of you!’.  I grabbed watermelon and coke and again took off.  And proceeded to practice descending down hills — on legs that are tired — just the way Spencer taught me.  I was moving fast and strong and confident on the straight downhill stretches.

Then about halfway down he hill I got passed by Brett.  A runner from Chicago. He’s an athlete who I have been sharing parts of the trail with briefly each day.   By the halfway mark of each day he’s usually way ahead and I won’t see much of him until dinner. He went running past me with about 5 K to go, as I was walking a section sucking down some fuel and said ‘BETSY!  Come on, run!’. I didn’t have a chance of catching him – but it didn’t stop me from trying.

That moment triggered another onslaught of tears — which by the way make it hard to run… But here’s a guy who sees me as a runner.  Not the fat girl. Just a runner.  And he has NO CLUE of my history or background or story.  He just sees me as a runner – who somehow got in front of him late in the race. 🙂

And that shovel of realization hit me again…

The finish line I can hear Spencer yelling for me before I even rounded the corner to the finishers chute.

If there is one person in this world who gets the complicated package of my fat girl psyche and my refusal to identify and OWN my rights as runner — it’s him.

I was crying down the finishers chute and then found him.  Told him – choking on those freaking tears that seem to be cropping up even now — ‘I’m not that 400 pound woman anymore.  I’m a trail runner… I left the fat girl on the mountain.’

I sat in front of Spencers tent much later in the day. We would do a daily debrief and catch-up of how the day went and how we feel about things and what we need to be thinking about for the next stage.. This time was more about my emotional neediness.  Spencer, much to his chagrin, is a security blanket for me. I was emotionally raw and hanging on by the thinnest of threads.  And I couldn’t stand being alone, or being around people who don’t know me or my story at a time when something this big has shifted in my mind and heart and was swamping me.  The conversation meandered around about the day and with me crying and not knowing how to explain what had happened on the mountain – but me needing to know that he, of anyone, understood how HUGE this moment was for me.  He kept telling me to write it all down.  I kept telling him I have no real fucking clue what happened on that mountain – but it was undeniably life-altering.

Here I sit writing (and crying…) trying to explain to anyone else who would possibly care — what happened in Vail on Stage 5 that is going to make a different person tomorrow. And forever more….

Words aren’t going to do this episode justice.  They can’t.  It’s a change of heart.

It’s been a shift a long, long, long time coming. It’s letting go of the familiar and comfortable and the steel anchor that held me back all at the same time.

It’s scary as hell.

I feel totally and utterly confused about exactly what happened on that mountain.   And grateful.  And kind of stunned. Perhaps I’ll never entirely know or be able to explain it.  And I think I’m OK with that.

I woke up Friday morning knowing I could run, work hard, give 100% effort and that it still wouldn’t make me anything other than the former 400 pound woman who took up trail running as a hobby and to lose weight.

I am about to go to bed on Friday night a trail runner.  A trail runner who found running and then it and the people in the trail community helped me save my life. I am trail runner who can lay down a great personal effort because I’ve been trained and paid attention and worked hard — not as payment for past sins.

I am a trail runner.

I left my 400 pound former self on those very mountains that I watched from the airplane all those years ago…

And yes.  I’m still crying.  Just letting the tears flow.  I figure it’s years of fighting and ignoring and denying finally leaving my body… For good.

Saturday is stage 6.  I’m going to fight like hell, run my ass off and enjoy every single STEP of the journey.  I’m going to celebrate finding myself in the Rockies.

I’m going to run some trails.

The mountains are calling… Transrockies here I come!

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 5 Comments

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‘Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.’ — Sir Martin Convay

I am piling up clothes, shoes and supplies because I am about to pack a bag (several bags actually, because packing light is NOT one of my super powers…) and embark on an adventure.

An epic adventure that I’ve been working toward for the last 2 years. It’s cheesy to say, but it’s kind of a dream coming true moment for me.  I leave in a matter of hours!

My heart beats a little faster when I get asked about it, I break out in a big-ass grin and I have been walking around randomly humming ‘Rocky Mountain High’ (Yes.  I know it’s not just about the mountains. Save the jokes. But I am the girl who grew up listening to John Denver on vinyl… )

I have flown a TON for my work over the years. I worked mostly west of the Mississippi River – flying in and out of Portland Oregon.  My flights commonly hubbed in Denver.  We would soar over the Rockies coming into and out of that airport.  I can remember thinking many, many times as I stared out the window at those incredible mountains…

I wonder what it looks like in those mountains?  What is it like to actually be in those mountains?

How would it feel to climb up on one of those exposed ridges and feel like you could turn 360 degrees and see the ends of the earth?

At close to 400 pounds — looking out the window as we flew over the mountains ranges and simply wondering what the Rockies looked like was the extent of my connection to any of those fabled peaks for decades.

But life has a way of changing. 🙂

I don’t weigh 400 pounds anymore. I’m not a Type 2 Diabetic dragging along a Sharps container and pen needles. I don’t get winded and red-faced after walking half a mile. I’m active and healthy and damn it all… I WANT TO SEE THOSE MOUNTAINS. I want to KNOW those mountains. I want to walk in those mountains and breathe in that (thin!) air and just see what it looks like from the ground.

Not from the plexiglass window of an airplane.

So I am going to Colorado for a running event/race/camp.

I’m headed to the Transrockies Run.  Kind of what it sounds like…  It’s a 6-day running camp in the Rockies.

I am traveling with Spencer, Dave, Erica and Sean.  And for 6 days we get to run, camp, make new friends and SEE, LEARN, RUN THOSE MOUNTAINS!  120 miles of those mountains.  And about 20,000 feet of vertical climbing in and on and around the Rockies.

It’s epic.  It’s scary.  It’s exciting.  I’ve never done anything like this in my life.  Never thought I could ever do something like this in my life.

Oh… BUT I CAN NOW and you have no idea just how badly I WANT to…!

The old life I lived… I wouldn’t have been in shape to hike anything beyond the parking lot. I couldn’t sit in the car for 120 miles without being in extreme discomfort. I wouldn’t have fit in a sleeping bag.  Sleeping on a sleeping pad, on the ground would be the recipe for never getting back up off the ground.  I wouldn’t have trusted the camp to have enough of the sugary/fat/processed foods I was living on.  I never would have fit in a portable shower stall….  Get the picture as to why I believed something like this would never, ever happen?!

But that’s not my reality anymore. 🙂

I’m really going to try to absorb and enjoy each moment. I intend to enjoy EACH and every single step I get to take in those fabled, rugged and spectacular mountains.

I have worked for 2 years, steadily, to get to the point where I feel I can run the mileage and handle the back-to-back-to-back running.  I know I fit in my sleeping bag 🙂 and I’m totally OK with the food they will be serving.

It’s almost go time.

It’s time to meet those mountains with my very own feet.

We’ll fly over those mountains coming and going from Colorado.  But on the trip home… This time… This time I’ll know as I stare out the window, I’ll know what those mountains actually look like from the ground.

Now I really have to get serious about packing… 🙂

‘The mountains are calling, and I must go.’ — John Muir

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Before and after pictures are kind of a crock.  The real changes, the changes that matter the most are the changes of the heart.  The doors opened.  The live you decide to live, instead of just exist or survive.  This picture was 400ish pounds and surviving in the day to day.  SHE’s who I am taking to meet the mountains… 🙂

WHY can’t I take my own advice?

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 10 Comments
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Wendie and Betsy 2016

 

I weigh the same today as I did last year.

And it’s the same as the year before.

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SAME race 2015, with Spencer

This is 2+ years of stable weight for me.  Ups and downs, but year over year – I am staying almost the same. 🙂

And THAT is a big deal in my world.  A world that was dominated by very consistent weight gains my ENTIRE life.  Mixed-in with radical, unsustainable, starvation-style, short-lived weight losses. Such a life-long, nasty, horrible, depressing cycle.

Until 5 years ago.

I enlisted the help of Wade, Hannah, Liz, Deb and Anneke to be my accountability team and help me get control of my life before Type 2 diabetes and obesity killed me. I carefully tracked my weight loss over the 3 years I was losing and checked in with them all weekly.  But I have only been tracking my ‘stable’ weight for the last year and a half. This was in part prompted by Spencer asking me why I was paralyzed with fear at a ‘small’ weight gain.  I was in total meltdown, convinced I had gained 15 pounds or more overnight.  When we really investigated it and broke it down; it was about a 3 pound weight gain.  It felt MUCH BIGGER. But the truth was that I hadn’t tracked my weight consistently so I had NOTHING factual to go on. So the past 18 months or so I have documented my weight along with my workouts in my Garmin database.   Now I can only argue with graphs and facts.  Not my faulty and anxious memory.

I weigh 172.8 pounds today.

The part no one told me about this whole journey was that every little dip, dive, gain on that scale (Which is ENTIRELY NORMAL) often escalates into emotional drama and fear and over-reaction. I am ashamed to admit how many times I have stepped on the scale multiple times within a single day seeking reassurance or in some way hoping that stupid little machine would banish my fears…

Holy crap has the scale/my weight/a NUMBER had me in a chokehold.

This morning it was in graph form for me to see.  No arguing with anything.  I weigh the same as I did last year.  I told Spencer that my weight is now 2 years stable.  And his response ‘so what does that make you think about…?’

Good question. 🙂

I thought about ALL of the wasted time, drama, energy, self-loathing that have gone into the last few years where I was SURE every single food choice had the ability to catapult me backwards or derail my efforts. Let alone when I let the daily number on the scale dictate my mood for the day…

But this mornings weight and graph were pretty solid proof that I can actually manage my weight with food and activity. I’m doing the right things over the long haul, even if I don’t get the day to day stuff just right. 🙂

This morning’s realization and conversation also got me thinking…  Had I been open-minded at the start of this whole thing and could have listened to and absorbed some grounded advice — what information would have been helpful?

I really wish I could have told myself a few things when I started this whole crazy journey…

Told myself and BELIEVED it…

1. Your weight fluctuates.  Daily. It can go up or down during training.  If you have your period.  If you eat too much salt.  The rotation of the earth. 🙂 Sometimes it’s really legit gain because you ate too many calories because your friend Wendie makes this insane guacamole that you can not stop eating.  But you have to understand that your weight isn’t stable in the day to day. Not gonna happen. Quit even thinking it’s possible. And you know what?  It isn’t meant to be. You thought you got to a number and stayed there with just a little effort?  That this whole bodyweight thing was simple math and cut and dried?  Uh…  HELL NO.

2. Take measurements.  I really WISH I had known how big my hips or belly or thighs were at my largest.  I didn’t take measurements because — hell — who really wants to know that they have a 75” waist?  You will wish you had those body measurements for reference and reassurance in the process. At any point when you’re feeling ‘fat’, stalled or just wondering how far your journey has taken you — you can pull out a tape measure and be assured, well beyond the confines of a stupid scale, that you were NOT gaining anything but muscle or fitness.

3.  Worry is wasted energy.  Spend time looking for solutions and opportunities.

4. And for the love of ALL THAT IS HOLY quit beating yourself up. YOU, who you are at the very CORE of your being, has nothing to do with the number on a scale or the packaging of your body. NOTHING.  Please, oh please, just believe me on this one.  I’m in tears writing this.  I am crying for you and for myself too. Because I know you won’t believe me, you can’t fathom what I’m trying to tell you… This is the last thing you can possibly wrap your mind around when you’ve battled your weight your entire life and a number is staring you in the face — a number you hate.  A number so large you didn’t know the scale went that high. I know that feeling of panicked desperation and hopelessness as well as I know the sound of my own heart beating. Text me, call me, reach out to me and I will spend the rest of my life relentlessly reminding you of your value to our world. I’m a way better judge of your value than a stupid mechanical piece of crap you bought at Costco.

5. Don’t pick a number for a goal.  (See 1.) Don’t pick a clothing size either. That’s really just another number. Pick a feeling, activity, ability, destination.  You want to climb stairs and not be gulping for air?  You want to feel solidly OK with how you feel in your birthday or bathing suit? 🙂  You want to be able to hike, run, walk, move better….  PICK something that isn’t a transient, essentially meaningless, number.

6. Know that the BIG picture is worth all the little steps, mis-steps, concerns, questions, sacrifices. It’s hard work. It’s worth it.  And this is in NO WAY linear.  No way.  There is nothing direct, logical or straight about this path you are on.  And you’re going to be making stuff up as you go.

7. Do NOT let that scale dictate your mood to the world.  It’s up a bit?  DO SOMETHING about it.  Don’t be a bitch. Or walk around like someone ran over your dog. Or have a short fuse with loved ones.  Or start secluding yourself from the people you love because you feel you don’t ‘deserve’ their love or you’re deeply embarrassed. Stop allowing that stupid, effing, scale to affect your mood.

8. Please, please, please love on yourself.  And believe in yourself.  YOU will do this.  And you can’t see the day, but it’s coming; you will be healthy and happy. Your weight should not be allowed to dictate ANY of that.  You have so much to offer the world.  You’re an aunt.  A sister.  A friend.  A daughter.  A momma. A lot of really, really remarkable things that no one else in the whole entire world can possibly be! We were only given ONE of you. One. Do what you can each day to help yourself get healthy so you can be around and enjoy the life in front of you.  Be around for US.

9.  This isn’t a short-term investment.  You will look at something daily and judge it as not moving, plateaued (favorite Weight Watchers scapegoat phrase right there…) failing.  But if you can just HANG ON and look at this from the 3,000 foot view, look at this from a 365-day investment — you will see growth.  YOU WILL.  Really!  Keep at it.  You didn’t gain the weight over night.  You will not lose it overnight. Trite and irritating – but TRUE.

10. One of my favorite songs of all times is ‘Live Like You Were Dying’ by Tim McGraw.  You’re living this weight loss journey with a lot of fear.  Fear of going backwards.  Fear of judgement.  Fear of FAILURE…  What if…?  Holy smokes.  The fear you have embraced and live with could choke an elephant. What if you could just enjoy the journey for what it was and live each day like you are trying to be your very best? Living like you’re dying doesn’t mean you live with no consequences for your choices.  It means you accept each day, each moment for what it is and keep moving toward the goal you want to reach…

Even though I was intellectually aware of all of this,  I sure as hell did not understand it.  Couldn’t figure out how to apply it to my situation.  None of it.  I know that until very recently I simply wasn’t ready to hear it,  understand it.

Today prompted a lot of thinking.

This time I really am listening. 🙂

I hope that anyone else who might need to hear this is listening as well…

 

marilyn-ad-nike

5 years.

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 5 Comments

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It’s been 5 years since I started this whole wild, crazy, life-saving journey.

1,825 days spent working to change my ways.

Most of those days I worked hard, got it right, or at the very least I tried to make the smartest choice I could at any given moment.

Some of those days I just held on for dear life.

A few of those days were walks backwards. Regressions, lessons, pity parties and more than a few tears…

I am 5 years in today — with hopefully many, many years in front of me.  I am cherishing the time that this lifestyle change bought me; time I plan to continue to use to love, adventure, run, grow, LIVE…

I have been handed a second chance at life and I am not going to waste a single moment.

Five(ish) years ago my doctor basically told me I could be dead in 5 years if I didn’t make a serious change in my life.  Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol were taking their toll.

Here we are 5 year later…

And I’ve made some serious changes.

I love when someone close to me — who KNOWS what I have been through says … ‘Five years ago would you have ever guessed…?’

The answer is always ‘no.’

Always.

I knew things had to change. But let’s be honest… I really had NO idea how this whole ’embracing a healthy lifestyle’ thing would go.

Or what I would gain.  Learn.  Love.

How radically different my life would become.

There are inspirational quotes that speak to this — but in reality that time was going to pass anyway.  Each day was marching forward no matter what. I could have used those 1,800 days to hone my skills with needles/meds/glucose monitors and gotten to know even more fast food drive-thrus and bought more ill-fitting clothes in the largest sizes possible.  I could’ve kept marching toward a sure and early grave, merely treating the disease as I gave up trying to save my own life.

Not to be all dramatic or anything — but seriously?  That is exactly what I was doing…

Instead…

I woke up July 2 five years ago and I began to fight.

I built and then clung to a team of support people.

I was fiercely determined to find a way to make this work.

I started to eat less and move more.  I started losing weight and gaining control of my blood sugars.

A year in, I kicked diabetes to the curb.

I found running after a lifetime of saying I would only ‘run when chased’.  And then fell head over heels (pun intended, although I really have fallen on my face a few times…) in love with running.  Trail running to be specific.

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I’ve worn tight/short spandex shorts in public.  Many times. 🙂 I’ve even run in just shorts and sports bra.

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I can cross my legs. I can see my feet. I can fit in an airplane seat. 🙂

And then there’s the whole bathing suit thing… 🙂

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I still have to watch portions.  I still fret over the scale. I still feel like a 392 pound woman walking around some days. But I NOW have tools and people and goals that make all of those issues seems less-important and way less all-consuming than they were even a year ago…

Nothing happened overnight.  It was tons and tons of little baby steps on a wild roller coaster ride.

But I never, ever could have guessed where this was all headed or how my life,  body and health would change.

If you would have told me 5 years ago that I was going to be able to use my story of being morbidly obese, Type 2 Diabetic, inactive, really just ambling around and waiting to die….  If you would have told me that I was going to be HELPING others to try to reclaim their lives, I would have told you that you had lost your mind.

And yet that’s the biggest gift of this whole endeavor.

Meeting people like me.  People facing triple-digit weight loss, stern orders from Docs to ‘do or die’ and the inability to even know how to take that first horrifically-frightening step forward to save their own life.

I know how they feel.

I was THERE.

I remember going to bed on July 1st terrified out of my mind at what I was about to embark on.  And yet MORE terrified of what my life would be like in 5 years if I didn’t get started.  I don’t remember sleeping very well that night. 🙂  But I remember that when I woke up on July 2, 2011 — my feet hit the floor and I KNEW in my heart and soul that this time, this TIME, I was going to be successful in making some big changes. My life depended on it.

I’m not done.

I committed to this change for life.  I’m still learning and growing and changing.  And it’s not linear. There are still good days, bad days and habits that have to be shaken off or replaced.  I’m really not done. 🙂

But every single day is a gift.

The people in my life are blessings beyond words.

The people who started this journey with me, the ones who run beside me now and the ones in between at every cross/turn/bump who supported, cajoled, questioned and supported me.  It’s an entire, bustling village full of people who got me to this point.

This girl has a heart bursting with gratitude and joy.

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Fat in California…

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 1 Comment
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American River and the town of Auburn are behind us. Spence and I are heading out to run the Quarry Trail.

I am a California native.

In thinking about it on todays run… I spent all of the time I was an adult and working in California obese, inactive, eating all the wrong things.

I am not really exaggerating.

There were times where I would start a diet, try to get active, only to give it all up in a freaking hurry. As soon as I got hungry or sore – I would quit. And then gain even more weight. Like probably 30 different times. Hell. Maybe 50. Or more. You get the point.

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Easily 350 pounds and 20 years ago.

I see California as my ‘fat’ young adult years.

It’s where pre-diabetes walked in the door and would soon refuse to leave. I don’t have memories of California that aren’t of me as an obese adult. Happy, but the obesity and type 2 Diabetes were escalating rapidly.

Doing something new that I never knew existed always makes me introspective… And this time doing something new in California – in a place I drove by for decades – made me sappy, happy, grateful. I mean this is a place that could have been my stomping grounds had I been in any shape to have been stomping around.

Spencer and I along with our friend and fellow ultra-runner Josh Hough are in Auburn, California this weekend to run in a training camp.  We will run 70 miles of the Western States Endurance Run 100 course over the next 3 days.  Spencer and I did this training camp last year and it is ahhhmazing.  Running a historic course. Non race event, just long training runs that are supported. Surrounded by amazing athletes and folks passionate about the sport of trail running.

This year our road-trip brigade came down a day early to get our bearings, get set-up and simply spend one day relaxing.

Turns out that none of us are very good at relaxing. 🙂

Spencer and I went for a run this morning on a new-to-me trail that is right off of a highway I traveled for decades with my family and during College.

I was telling Spencer that my life is just still so surreal on a few levels.

Being in California, eating plant based, running…  Those are all things I could NEVER, ever have imagined when I was living in California.  I found myself thinking  about 6 different times this morning… ‘WOW! Is this really my life now?!’

I’ve driven by this spot for 20+ years and never thought for a split second about trails in all the years we drove by.  This specific freeway off-ramp had ALL the good fast food you could possibly want before heading up 84 to Tahoe.  I know those locations by heart.

I never thought I’d be back here one day and parking at a trail head so we could go run alongside the American River for a few miles.

Who knew?

I never imagined I would want to climb the trails in the Sierra’s, or run on them, or care deeply about treading the ground of a historic running race.

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Yet, here I am.

And I’m loving this view and experience of California that requires me to get off of the roads, explore  and eat healthy and move along under my own power.  And explore!

I am happy and healthy and do NOT take any of that for granted for even one second.

I have been given the second chance at life. Not everyone gets that chance.  I won’t waste it.

I will use this weekend to build new and healthy memories in the state that I grew up in.

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I love the Cali trails.  And they loved me right back. 

Mac 50K and Laziness

~ betsyhartley392 ~ 1 Comment
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Josh, Alan (ran his first ultra!) and me.  Running from Ridge, toward Horse.

Mac 50K this year was fantastic!  Cool, rainy, muddy, friends, laughter, perfection…

Mac is my favorite race, in one of my favorite places in the world.

I approached the race as a long and supported run to practice for the event I have in September. I was testing gear, making sure of my shoe choice, practicing my new-found downhill skills and I HAD TO WORK on fueling. This was my chance to put it all together and watch it work.

In the back of my head I knew I had run this race in 8:04 in 2015. So I’ll go ahead and admit that yes, I had a trying-to-ignore-it-but-it-was-out-there goal, to try to break 8 hours. I was trying not to think about that. It was NOT the point of the day.

Ultimately, I nailed everything I set out to do.

SOME MAJOR WINS!

Fueling was better than it has ever been.

Gut stayed intact.

Loved my Altras. (I still have all my remaining toe nails!)

Comfy with my hydration pack and know where to stash everything.

FINALLY got to run an entire 50K with my friend/running partner Josh.

Spencer placed 8th overall.  He had a fantastic run and wrote a great blog about it. Read it here.

Wendie paced Josh and I the last 5 miles, after cheering and crewing for us the entire day.

It was a perfect day.

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Patrick! An important part of our Novo Veritas team. He was at the start line this year to cheer us on.

From ‘The Saddle’ (last aid station) to the finish line is about 5 miles or so.

Everyone was muddy and tired. The finish line was really looking good at this point. I’d slipped and gone down in the mud at least 3 times. I was an unharmed, total mud ball head to toe. 🙂

Josh knew my not-talking-about-it-goal. I could see him assessing the situation. He knew we were in a race against the clock to break 8 hours.  We were appropriately tired, but totally healthy.  We COULD pull it off, if we picked up the pace.

I knew it.

I was just pretending to ignore it.

A portion of my brain was totally fine with not finding that goal.

To hit that goal would mean that we would have to run consistently and fairly hard for the remainder of the course.

That’s a lot of hard work at the end of a whole lot of hard work.

It had been a day of huge wins ALREADY. I didn’t even have to cross the finish line to have felt like the day was a smashing success.

But as I was starting to push the edges, with Josh speeding up, my brain was busy trying to convince me that we just didn’t need to put in the extra effort to hit that goal…

‘Bets. Just walk.

You’re going to finish close to last year’s time anyway. Close is good.

It’s fine to ease back now, Spencer and Josh and Wendie are still going to be proud of you no matter what.

This was a tough course. Take it easy. You’ve earned easy.

Just being out here is enough.’

I recognized that my head and her subtly negative voices were trying to shut things down.

‘Head’ management is very much part of the training for ultras. You literally have to practice making sure your head doesn’t talk you out of completing what needs to be done.

This is always scary and fascinating to me. Sometimes my brain drags out ‘the big guns’ and I really have to fight to just keep breathing and moving.  This time – since this race was essentially a practice run and I was surrounded by friends I trusted deeply – I decided I would just watch and see what demon/trick/weapon my head was going to try to drag out into the light…

My brain went straight for it’s old friend laziness.

‘Take it easy, you’ve earned easy. There’s no harm in just walking at this point…’

I have had years of practice being lazy. Honestly, it’s the natural go to for me.  And at this point in the race – 26ish miles in – my legs and back were screaming for me to just. stop. running.  My belly wasn’t thrilled.  My feet hurt.  I had these OBNOXIOUS and painful adductor cramps violently grabbing hold of my upper, inner thigh – and stopping me dead in my tracks a few times.

My body was doing it’s part to try to stop me.

My brain just joined in on the chorus.

I’ve done a few races at this distance, so I can now say that I have been here before in some form or fashion. This is the point where I simply have to buckle down and keep moving forward as best I can. And I have all kinds of tricks stashed away to IGNORE or quiet the chatter in my head that isn’t productive or healthy or nice. I usually just kind of blank out without fully defining whatever weapon my brain has chosen, count steps, breathe, and try my best to ignore whatever tricks my head is playing.

But this time I instantly recognized laziness.

And it was really pretty cool to define it, understand it and then just accept it for what it is.

I didn’t bother trying to evict or ignore the thoughts.

I sure as hell didn’t give into it.

I just decided to run with it – and tire it out.

Here’s where my thinking went…  When I’m on a training run – and my coach has given me parameters – I always go straight for the middle or low end of whatever it is that I’m being told to work on. Unless specifically told to do so, I rarely push to the outer, upper  edges or beyond in training on my own.

It’s a subtle, persistent form of laziness.

I mean training to run ultras is hard work in and of itself.  I’ve done a lot of hard work to get to this point and lose weight and reverse T2 diabetes. So does it really matter that I’m just a tad bit lazy about some aspects of training?

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Camera covered in mud and rain. Josh pushed me to give my all in the last 5 miles. I mighta, sorta threatened to throat punch him at one point.  Re-enactment at the finish line. 🙂

To be clear – I’m not being hard on myself or beating myself up.

I ran a freaking great run.

And this ‘work’ going on in my head around battling and understanding laziness was fantastic and constructive.

I ultimately kept on Josh and Wendie’s heels and PUSHED hard to the finish. I put down faster miles at the end than I had most of the day.

I’m just acknowledging that I recognized the voice screaming in my head as my long-lost, best-forgotten, crappy ex-best friend named laziness.

And I decided that I don’t want to be friends anymore.

So I just ran away. 🙂

I ignored the normal long-run pains and tiredness and just PUSHED hard to the finish. My training allows for that. My body was working her butt off. And this really was a training run – so why not PUSH hard and see what happened?

As I ran, in the back of my head the idea was clanging around that I am SO FREAKING CAPABLE of being and doing so much more.

If I’m given the chance to push hard, do I always give it my all? Or do I get lazy?

It’s an idea that I just can’t let go of…

What exactly would I be capable of, if I refused to let laziness win?

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I got home and Spencer and I were debriefing the race.  I walked through the pieces that went great; fuel, shoes, handling the wicked leg cramps.  Spencer and I both agreed that we could clearly see the core and strength work we’re doing with Jordan paying off as I was able to manage the slides and the muddy, steep terrain really well.  And then I ran faster miles at the end…

I was really proud of the effort I gave at Mac.  I’d had a good day.

I also told him that I recognize I get lazy in some of the targeted training runs during a training cycle. I cheat myself and aim for good enough/middle of the road. By doing what I’m told – instead of really testing the limits. I told Spencer I was going to work on learning to push myself harder when given the choice. I confessed that I know that I  sometimes let myself off the hook when I really should be capitalizing on the opportunity to push to another level.

The last few miles of the Mac I kept thinking…

I’ve come so far and I’m more in love with trail running and my body is doing things I never, ever thought she was capable of. And I know without a doubt that I am capable of still more strength and more growth and more change and well… just more good stuff.

Laziness isn’t going to win this race. Not this time. I’m going to keep training to out run it.

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My friend and pacer Wendie.