new year's resolution

This posting is going to be convoluted, so stick with me and we'll see if we can come full circle.

I hate making New Year's resolutions. You're usually doomed to fail. I mean, 365 days is a LONG time to commit to something. If I'm honest with you and myself, I have a hard time committing to the 40+ days of Lent and that's a mere fraction of a year. So I always figure it's better to just live your life the best you can (exercise, diet, etc) instead of saying that 2010, for example, will be the year of Susan Story's vegetarian experiment.

Except that I hate to exercise, so I don't do that on a regular basis. And I like junk food and french fries and pizza so cutting out all that yummy stuff is never going to happen. And I just threw out that vegetarian thing as hyperbole. There's a greater chance of Mac telling me he must eat brussels sprouts every day of his life to feel complete than my becoming vegetarian. In other words, not going to happen.

The singular example of my making a resolution and actually following through with it in my almost 39 years of life occurred a decade ago when I committed to training for and running a marathon with my best friend Caroline. We were approaching Y2K, she was turning 30 (I wasn't actually 30 until Y2K+1 but who's counting?), and she decided to run a marathon.

Now I wasn't a runner and never had been. I played high school volleyball for 2 years and used to get cramps in my ankles from running wind sprints in the gym. Seriously.

So I did what any BFF does. I said running a marathon sounded like a great idea and I'd do it with her. We were living in Guadalajara and she was in Charleston, so we were going to be long-distance training buddies and then meet up in some great city for the big event.

I went to bed knowing for sure that within 2 days, Caroline would decide this was the stupidest idea she'd ever had and she'd back out.

Except she didn't.

And so eventually I had to tell Jimmy what I'd committed to doing. I hadn't actually started running yet, so he didn't suspect that anything unusual was up. And to his credit, when I told him, he didn't laugh at me. But he did point out that I didn't run and he asked if I knew how long a marathon was. I had researched the actual length of a marathon so I was able to answer that with a great bluster of confidence. So then he said he'd run it with us.

Well, shoot. Now there were three of us involved in this thing.

New Year's Resolution Rule #1: It's much easier to not follow through with resolutions if no one holds you accountable. Surround yourself with people who will hold you accountable.

So now there were 3 of us in this thing, one of whom who lived in the same house as me. We also worked together, ate together, and went to the gym together.

In Guadalajara, we were members of a very nice club that had a very nice gym. The kind of club that people on soap operas go to (the actors on the show, not the actors in real life). You know the kind - there are lots of attendants who wait on you, you get fresh towels to use in the shower, there are ball boys to fetch your tennis balls, etc.

I can distinctly remember going to the gym on January 1 to start this New Year's resolution. I actually had never entered the gym part of the club. I took tennis lessons from a nice young man who wanted to play in the US and I sat by the pool and I ate at the restaurant. I didn't do the gym. I had never even stepped foot on a treadmill in my life. I didn't know how to turn it on or set it up. Best to start out slowly, but who walks on a treadmill. Crank that baby up. Except that I went the equivalent of about a block before I was huffing and puffing.

How many blocks does it take to make a marathon? Clearly this was impossible.

New Year's Resolution Rule #2: Don't lose the forest for the trees. A small setback does not render the entire thing impossible.

Well I started out one block at a time on that treadmill. A block turned into a 1/4 mile which turned into a 1/2 mile which turned into a mile. I was not fast and it wasn't pretty, but before I knew it, I was off the treadmill and running long runs in Guadalajara neighborhoods. We ran a little race in Guadalajara and then it was October 2000 and we met Caroline in Chicago for the Chicago Marathon.

26.2 miles.

Holy heavens to Betsy. What were we thinking? Jimmy was a much faster runner than I, so he had great ambitions as to his time. Caroline was also a much faster runner than I, so she had greater ambitions as to her time. As for me? They closed the finish line down after 6 hours, so I just wanted to be done in 6 hours.

I knew I wasn't going to be tearing up any records, so I was going more for the experience. I ran with a little fanny pack that contained chapstick (never leave home without it), kleenexes, a disposable camera (I'd read that tip in Runner's World, to which we were then subscribers, as a great way to capture various sights, the people, etc), and money (my Aunt Elaine's good advice in case I got tired and needed to call a cab or in case I got hungry and needed to buy a hot dog).

The gun sounded and I, along with some 29,999 of my closest running friends, set off. Caroline and I started out together but she soon took off because my pace was glacial. I had a great time at first. I climbed up on barricades and took photos of this huge surge of runners, I was appreciative of the people who cheered us on through the streets of Chicago, I enjoyed the water stations. In other words, I looked for any excuse to slow down.

One mile turned to two, which turned to ten, which turned to twenty and so on. It was the hardest physical thing I've ever done in my life. My body has never hurt so much and my toes have never looked so bad in my life. The last little bit of the Chicago Marathon is a really slight incline but after 26 miles, it looks like Mt. Everest. I was sure there was no way I'd make it, but then you realize all these people are cheering you on to the finish line, which is just in sight. And then you hear the announcer say your name - Susan Story - and you know it's you because he then says "of Laredo, Texas". You're not really from Laredo, Texas; you just have a post office address there through the State Department. But that doesn't matter because suddenly you feel like an Olympic athlete. You get a surge of energy and you know you must look peppy with your arms held overhead. Runner's World has told you to look peppy as you cross the finish line. Your official finish line photo needs to show a peppy you and not a nearly dead you. This is for posterity, after all.

Once I crossed the finish line and slowed down from slow jog (my feet had to look like they were in motion for the photo, remember?) to wobbly, jiggly leg speed, I wanted to keel over. So I found a patch of grass and collapsed.

New Year's Resolution Rule #3: It's better to keep moving even when you feel like there's not a stitch more movement in you. Inertia is very hard to overcome.

I finished the marathon in about 5 hours and 15 minutes. As I lay on the grass, I spotted Jimmy walking by. Since he'd finished the marathon about 3 days before me, he was looking very refreshed. If I recall correctly, he'd even had a massage. I lifted my head up (the only part that could still move on its own steam) and yelled for him and thankfully he heard me. There is no way known I could have gotten off the grass if he hadn't pulled me up.

New Year's Resolution Rule #4: Those same people who hold you accountable will also be your biggest cheerleaders and supporters.

So I checked off this resolution in the "completed" column, hung up my running shoes and have never looked back.

Until "The Biggest Loser" entered my life recently.

Do you know this show? Really overweight people enter this contest to lose the most weight or the biggest percentage of their weight or something like that. They work out with a trainer and eat only healthy food and they work on their "issues" which led to their obesity in the first place.

I only caught the last few episodes of this season but I got hooked. These people lost so much weight. One guy lost like half his body. Crazy.

Then they leave the fat farm and go home where they have to continue exercising and eating right, all while living their real lives.

Nothing earth-shattering for me here until they made them run a marathon. Now I trained for 9 months before running a marathon and I didn't start out at 400 pounds. These people were at the end of 6 months on their weight loss journey and some of them did weigh 400 pounds when they started. They hadn't trained for a marathon but they were going to have to run one.

Well my curiosity was piqued. Could they really do that?

In a word, yes! Some of them took a really long time, but they still did it. But the real kicker for me was that one of the 400-pounders (who weighed 200 and something pounds by then) finished the 26.2 miles in a faster time than I did and I had trained like a maniac specifically for this race.

How could this be? Is there no justice in the world?

I have a latent competitive streak that surfaces at the oddest times, like when I'm watching "The Biggest Loser" competitors run a marathon.

So I decided that if they could do it, so could I. And then I remembered how painful it was to run that marathon and how I swore I would never ever do that again. Marathon-induced pain is not the same as childbirth pain: you don't ever really forget it.

Then I contemplated a half marathon. That was actually a length that a decade ago I actually enjoyed running. It will probably feel like 40 miles now as opposed to just 13.1, but it used to seem a whole lot better than 26.2.

So today, January 1, 2010, as we celebrate the start of a new decade and as I approach the end of my 4th decade on earth (that makes me almost 39, people, not 49), I hereby announce my New Year's resolution of running a half marathon this year. I figure if I cut my race length in half with each passing decade, I should be able to run to the mailbox (but not back) by the time I'm 79.

I can't give you specifics on what race I'll be running as I have yet to figure that out. A late-summer move to the southern hemisphere messes things up a bit in terms of ideal time of the year in which to run a race. Bogota has a half marathon but it's in early July and we won't be there by then (and besides who wants to run at race at 8500+ feet?). And all the good races here in the US (by which time I could be trained and ready) aren't until the fall and we won't be here then. So logistics must still be figured out. I'm going to revisit my faithful and trusty running expert Hal Higdon to get started, but I'm putting it off for a few days. I'm a wimp with the cold so I have to wait until this little cold front passes through. I absolutely cannot start a running program when the high is 45 degrees and the low is in the 20s. Unless I buy a new running wardrobe which is an interesting thought.

I hope I've brought you full circle without boring you to tears.

Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope this year provides you the challenges you need to get out of your comfort zone at least a little, but gives you the comfort you need when you're out there facing those challenges.