When 2016 came about, one of my resolutions was to illustrate moments in my life that would otherwise cause me stress and dysfunction. I have a leather-bound notebook that has but five drawings in it and one of them is an illustration of me in April, when I was training for the River Bank run, but I didn’t know I would be running a marathon that same year.
It’s a picture of that morning’s moment I put on a pair of totally rad cargo khakis, and I couldn’t fit in them. I couldn’t even get them over my thighs! I dated it April 28 and, under it, I wrote “solution,” trusting I would come up with one because, damn, those pants are good!
I was maybe two days into my toxic outlook of “starve yourself until those pants fit again” thing until Don offered me a spot in the Grand Rapids Marathon, then everything changed in the seamless way you wish it would for anyone cursed with a disordered eating mindset: I knew I had to make my body into something that would be able to withstand a 26.2-mile frolic and there was no way malnourishment was the answer. I had to eat!
Adding real, nutritiously packed meals when preparing yourself for a feat that killed the first guy who ever did it is just as important as the extra miles we are slowly tricking our bodies into tacking on. For the first time since high school, deprivation is no longer consistent in my mind and, because of that, my experience with the GR Marathon is already working its shockingly significant magic.
You all understand health, so I get that this “discovery” is as elementary as it gets. Even I knew how simple it was to increase the quality of my life just by abolishing this terrible relationship with nutrition, but I could never quite push past that until my goal shifted from “lose weight” to “train for a marathon.” It’s behind me now and, after nine years of that mental nonsense and rationing my daily almond intake, I’m happy as hell about it.
So, not much of a running story in this entry, but it’s just as important to the journey from the start to finish line. Returning to that harsh doodle depicting the pants struggle, I’m able to fill in the blank I left next to “solution”: train for a marathon.
P.S. Although fitting into those pants no longer interests me since my recent goal upgrade, I do fit in them now. Cool.
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