I have been many shapes and sizes throughout my life. Fat kid no-one wanted on their team. Superskinny teenager who smoked and starved herself thin. Pushing a size 14 (UK sizes) in my 20s. Boyfriend troubles returning me to skinnydom in time for my 30s. Soon followed by marriage (not to the boyfriend) then children and the inevitable 45 pounds on (pastries during pregnancy), 45 pounds off (postpartum lactation) – twice. There I was at 40 with my increasingly dowdy clothes and a growing muffin top. And I was about to become a single, full-time working mum with a support network of close to zero. Husband was off to run a project in Africa for 5 months. Potentially longer.
How was I going to turn my increasingly bitter and acerbic self into someone who could cope with a job and children by herself and still have a sense of humor and a face which suggested a modicum of self-satisfaction, serenity or just plain happiness. Nothing was particularly wrong with my life or my lot. But I was drained. Running on empty. Drudged out.
I needed something for me. Not a secret bar of chocolate after the kids had gone to bed, or a gin and tonic (I indulged in both already). But something which challenged me in a non-calorific, non-intellectually tiring kind of a way. I didn’t want to ruminate over, offload or deal with my ‘issues’, I wanted a release from them. How to starve my brain of the oxygen it required to think without damaging my health or resorting to drugs….?.
….And then I got it….
Off I gently wobbled to the local YMCA and I walked/trotted a mile on the treadmill. In between finishing work and the school run, I puffed and panted for 20 minutes each day. Every week I added another lap or increased my speed. As the weeks past, I become more efficient at using my available time. That is to say…I ran longer distances…faster. I was hooked. The running gave my brain time to close down from work and rest for a while, before gathering the children and checking on homework, cooking dinner, washing, cleaning, etc. Running also gave my body the adrenaline to cope with previous list of daily chores.
And now?
I’ve moved continents. Children changed school. I don’t have a job. Husband works….and works…and works. But I’m still running. I’ve dropped 10 pounds (but that could be the move) and I am regularly running 5km a day (and increasing). I’ve just started track running. I’m in the best shape of my life.
The point of all this is that I am 41 without a history of ANY exercise in my life. My back catalogue includes smoking (20 a day until 32), drinking (still do), cake (I get through acres of the stuff), yo-yo dieting and moaning and bitching like a trooper. As a femme d’un certain age – that stuff just ain’t attractive any more.
Running makes me a fitter and better person. And if I fail at everything else for the rest of the day (as I much too frequently do), I still achieved something. That something earns me admiration from my husband and contributes to my self-respect. It stops me crumbling when my 6 year old is yelling that I’m a horrible mum because I didn’t take his bike to school in the rain. Or, once again, eating my cooking becomes a family endurance exercise.
I will be blogging about running. I probably won’t be able to keep my mouth shut about a whole ton of other things either. Sorry for that…
Sarah used to have a proper job before getting married and becoming a mum and is living in Lusaka, Zambia. She has two young children who are her sounding boards for her opinions on current affairs, politics, economics and history. Whilst living in the US, she had a regular column in the Wilson Daily Times and published editorials in the NC News and Observer. She has recently started a blog www.runninginmyforties.blogspot.com about trying to maintain her body, mind and spirit through the middle aging process.
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