Rising Above
Part 1 of 4
I can’t write a blog about rising without talking about fitness.
When I was four, I would come home from preschool and collapse at the top of the stairs, exhausted. I remember lying there, sucking my thumb, my eyes heavy. My mom, a nurse practitioner, took note and took me to the doctor, where I was diagnosed with exercise- and allergy-induced asthma.
I was on inhalers from that point forward, but growing up, if I ran too hard I would inevitably trigger an attack. My parents signed me up for sports that didn’t have a lot of running, like t-ball and gymnastics. Still, there were many times when I would have to sit out of PE or stop a game of tag in the front yard because my lungs were simultaneously suffocated and on fire.
For whatever reason, when I was ten, I decided to play soccer and fell in love with it. I still had to run into the stands to get a puff of my rescue inhaler from my mom every game, but even at that early age, I loved how it felt to help my team, how I improved with time, and how successful I felt when praised by my coaches. It was sometime that year that a new medicine came out that let me breathe easier. There were still plenty of times that I had to sub out of games or step to the side to grab a puff of my inhaler, but it was worth it to me. It became my passion. For a while, it was my dream; I wanted to play on the women’s national team. But then when I was 17 I broke my jaw during a scrimmage and sat out the rest of the season.
I came back from the injury, relearned how to be fearless in the face of an opponent barreling down on me (I was a goalie), and had a great season. I was even asked to practice and maybe even play with the next team up during their post season tournament, but I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them, so terrified I would make a fool of myself, that I turned that chance down. It’s still the biggest regret of my life. I thought I had my school season left ahead of me. Instead, unsure of myself (which made my play unreliable) and used to playing a more aggressive style than the team was looking for, I was passed up for playing time my senior year. I didn’t know how to cope. I used my fears to talk myself out of continuing to pursue my dream and never tried to play anything beyond club in college. I was proud of what I’d accomplished, but always wondered what would have happened if I’d believed in myself a little more, been a little braver.
Firework
6 weeks old. I include this picture not to show the “Before” of my post-partum body, because I now can tell you there was nothing wrong with it, but to show the “Before” of my smile.
After I had my son, I lost sight of myself. He didn’t sleep (and by that I mean the was-up-at-all-hours, didn’t-sleep-through-the-night-until-after-he-was-one, only-napped-in-my-arms, hallucination-inducing type of “didn’t sleep”). On top of that, I had undiagnosed postpartum anxiety and depression, and not much of a support system. After struggling with my weight my entire adult life and finally losing a lot before I got pregnant, I had gained somewhere around 65 lbs in my pregnancy, and I thought that meant something bad about me. I thought moms were supposed to completely sacrifice themselves for their children (SPOILER ALERT: they’re not), and I often felt that I had no choice and was trapped. I cried during at least one feeding a night.
When I finally found fitness again, my son was 9 months old. My only stay-at-home mom friend had just moved away, and that meant I was now officially alone. I was running on zero sleep, felt like I had no purpose in life other than feeding and diapers, and had no hope about anything ever getting better.
In retrospect, this was just one more time that not getting what I wanted pushed me into finding something I needed. I was desperate for ways to get out of the house and meet new people (which is saying a lot considering how introverted I was back then). I saw an article online about a program where you could work out with your baby in your stroller, and even though I hated talking to strangers, something pushed me to pack my son and our stroller into the car and drive to Crowder Park one spring morning for a workout.
I was so nervous. I knew no one. And while many of the exercises were familiar to me from my soccer days, my postpartum body was not familiar with this kind of movement. I could keep up on some stations, but I fell behind as we ran from station to station with our strollers. I was so grateful when the owner, who was pregnant, stayed back with me and talked to me instead of leaving me in the dust. I tried hard not to be embarrassed by the fact that I couldn’t even keep up with a pregnant lady.
One of the first Stroller Strides classes I taught.
Afterwards, I went to the car rather than stick around and make uncomfortable small talk. Red-faced and sweaty, I scooted the seat back to breastfeed my son in the parking lot, and sank into the glorious rush of endorphins. I felt better than I had since before I’d given birth.
The next day, I could barely walk, I was so sore. I was staggering around the outlet mall in search of baby clothes, my son was fussing because he wanted to walk himself (which involved me holding both his hands while simultaneously pushing the stroller and ignoring how every muscle was screaming in protest), when we bumped into the instructor from the day before. Embarrassed, I tried to hide how sore I was. We chatted a bit about both having been teachers before we had babies, but what I remember most were the words she handed me, like a gift I hadn’t even realized I was longing for. She said, “You fit right in.” I called the owner when I got home and signed up for classes.
I love that I’ve gotten to share fitness with my son from a very young age.
Those women saved my life and set it on a new track. They welcomed me in so warmly, I quickly forgot to be shy around them. More than just helping me physically and boosting my mood, with Fit4Mom I gained a community, perspective, and support. I had a place to be, ways to entertain my son, people to talk to about this impossible stage of life, and good friends that I saw every day. I realized that working out was my sanity, my stress-relief, my bright spot in dark days. I grew happier, more confident, and—almost incidentally—fitter. I found purpose, too, and became an instructor to help other moms through their own journeys.
Fast forward some years, and my son was in preschool so I started working out with Camp Gladiator. I was still in my twenties, but I was one of the few people there besides my trainer who had a kid. I didn’t know the popular music (I was listening to Elmo in the car), I didn’t go out drinking on the weekends (and never had—I didn’t even know what “keep a tab open” meant), and I didn’t feel like I fit in with the crowd. But I loved the workouts, which pushed me to new levels, and I loved joking around with the trainers. CG became my happy place.
In 2013, my new CG trainer told me I should try a competition called CG Games. I had heard little bits about this competition at camps, and it sounded . . . intense. I told him it wasn’t the kind of thing I did. What I didn’t tell him was that the thought of competing and not being able to do the events, or being the slowest person there, was a terrifying thought and one I didn’t think my fragile self-esteem could survive. But he kept telling me I could do it and should. So the final day of competition, I showed up.
I walked up to a field at a local middle school having very little idea what I was in for. There were maybe 10-15 of us competing, and I naturally assumed all of the other people there were fitter than I was. These were the serious people. I tried to fade in the background so they wouldn’t notice me struggling.
2014 The weighted bear crawl drag. I dusted off my old college soccer cleats for this one.
The trainers walked us around to different parts of the field for different events. One event was strapping a heavy bag to a harness around your waist and bear crawling the length of a football field as fast as you could. Let me tell you, you don’t have a true appreciation for how long a football field is until you have had to crawl it. Everything was hard, from sprinting (puke), to burpees and crab walks (I had to take a hit of my inhaler after that event), to throwing a 12lb sandbell and running to it (that thing was heavy!). I walked away glad I was done and proud I had some crazy war stories to tell. There’s something magic about having done a hard thing you didn’t know you could do. It builds you up.
Then I looked at the results and discovered I’d finished 73rd in the nation for women under 40. They took the top 50 people to Texas for Finals. I’d almost made it.
The competitive part of me jumped up and did a little dance. I hadn’t even been trying to qualify! I’d never practiced the events! I’d only been doing Camp Gladiator for less than a year! I decided next year, I’d qualify. Little did I know how many ways that decision would change the course of my life.
*The names of the sections of this blog series are the names of the songs I was listening to in that period of my life or to pump myself up for each competition. You can find my full CG Games playlist here.