What happened to me in the years following the 2001 SF Marathon? A whole lot of not running long distances. I ran very little in the following years. Then stopped being active altogether for a couple years after. Gained about 25 pounds, and for someone who only weighed 130 for years prior, that was huge. I owed it all to fast foods and sodas, in mass amounts. And I'm talking about the Super Big Gulps, at least once a week, all in one sitting.
When did I realize what I was doing to myself? I always knew but for some reason, I thought it was OK. I wasn't exactly in a great place in my life at that time. 2004 was especially a rough year. So what was the breaking point? It was literally my belt. I had a belt that fastened down with a clasp, and in my denial kept using the same mark to hold up my jeans.
My jeans weren't getting tighter. I've always had an issue with proper jean fit so usually had to buy a couple sizes up and used a belt to hold them up. It was the high quality leather belt that I got from the Banana Republic that couldn't handle the increase in girth. Holding up and stretching under the strain of an additional 3 inches is a lot to ask of from a $30 BR belt. The stitches popped under the pressure and the clasp fell to the floor as I was standing in front of my full length closest door mirror. I couldn't believe what just happened. Not that the belt broke, but that I let myself get this overweight.
I didn't jump back in to racing or even running. I started with eating better and stopped drinking sodas. I started biking to work and with the mountain bike that my brother-in-law gave me, headed to the trails on the weekends to do some mountain biking.
After building up a lighter mountain bike, I figured I should try racing it since I felt so fast on it. Keep in mind that there is a difference between feeling fast and actually being fast. I was probably overusing the granny gears and spinning at 200 rpm and moving a couple inches at a time up the trails. But I still felt fast. So in 2008, I signed up to do a 3-race mountain bike duathlon series and a sprint off-road triathlon at the end of that series with TBF Racing.
After the first duathlon, I was ready to quit. It was a run-bike-run race with a double loop on the bike course. I was cold, wet, dirty, miserable and bleeding when I got back for the bike to run transition. I fell off my bike so many times that there was a point in the race where I just wanted to walk my bike so I could avoid falling. I finished that last 2-mile run, dried off and drove home. All I kept thinking was, I have 2 more of these races and a sprint tri? I'm already so over it. But with a little pep talk from my fiancé at the time, I stuck through it and even ended up winning my age group in the sprint tri.
In the years following, I raced a few more off-road sprint triathlons, tried out orienteering races with the BAOC and even raced in a few adventure races with Nor-Cal AR. I really enjoyed spending time on the trails but didn't care about being competitive. It was all for fun and fitness and I have kept it up since.
In 2010, John G, the buddy I ran with in my first marathon, was running the California International Marathon, CIM, trying to qualify for Boston. He convinced me to give the marathon another shot. I was scheduled to work that day so put in a request to get that day off. Fortunately, I was granted the day off, but unfortunately, the approval came 8 weeks from race day so I told him I'd just come up to watch. He convinced me that 8 weeks should be enough time to train, especially since I wasn't trying to qualify for Boston and with all the triathlons and adventure racing I've been doing, I should have a good base. So, after considering for a couple weeks, I signed up and began my training with 6 weeks left before the marathon.
(Stay tuned for Part 2)
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