Bearathon 2015

At the end of last year, I pushed a little too hard in one of my runs and started noticing a bit of knee pain. I pulled back on my distance and pace so as not to injure it further and then just kind of got lazy with it – as evidenced by my half time at the end of January.

It was still bothering me on and off after that race, so I decided to drop down from the half to the 5k for this years Bearathon (2014, 2013 and 2012 recaps). I’m glad I did – not only because my knee pain has greatly diminished but also because long-distance running doesn’t hold my heart as it once did. (Something I’ll blog about in greater detail later.)

I major failed in not reading every bit of information provided to me by the race directors (because I got cocky since I’ve ran this thing for the past three years) and drove to what I thought was the starting line, only to realize no one was there. It was gone. I quickly pulled out the last email and realized I was two streets over. I got lucky as someone was pulling out of the parking garage and then had to sprint about a 1/4 mile to the start once I heard the starting gun go off.

Just a nice way to get my endorphins started, right?

The weather was in the mid-50s but it had rained the night before and was currently misting, so I decided to wear my rain jacket (purchased from Fabletics, I think Holly has the same one!) but a half mile in I was sweating more than rain was getting on me, so I tied it around my waist.

It managed to twist its way around and in true Tamara fashion, left me with a couple of great race pictures.

If only I had been wearing a purple seashell top, I totally could have been Ariel. Maybe next time.

Also, I laughed pretty hard at the first one because my shirt kept riding up and sticking to my skin, so you can see my stomach right underneath my race bib. Keeping it classy.

They changed the route this year (which is why the starting line was in a different spot) so that it ended at McLane Stadium. Which, for those of you who don’t follow college sports, is basically Baylor giving it their all since we had good ol’ RG3 as a Heisman winner a few years back. There’s even a statue of him.

I just reread that last sentence and it feels like I was trying to segue into a picture of said statue. I have no picture. The guy in the orange shirt? Not a statue. Also, not RG3.

I liked the course change but I did not like that we had about a 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk back to our vehicles depending on where we parked. There was no transportation/shuttles. Which isn’t a huge complaint, I mean, we literally just ran it but with the weather being kind of gross it would have added a nice touch, especially for those finishing the half. There’s some serious hills in that thing.

I managed to finish in 35:46 (only 3 seconds slower than my Jan 5k!) and forgot stop to my Garmin. But it showed my first mile as 11:12 as apposed to my 10:36 last time (fastest mile ever for me!) and so I feel like it wasn’t as much of a fluke as I was starting to think. Like, you guys, I really do have it in me to get faster. Exciting mental breakthrough. Only took me 3 years. Ha!

This was my third race as a Beef Team member for the year (in your first year you are required to run 3 races and volunteer at 1 in order to stay eligible for the next year – more on this in a later post) and hoped to check out our water station but had to pick up Lillie.

We ran a couple of errands in town (I brought dry clothes to change into) that included picking out some cleats and a helmet for tee ball. She’s old enough to be in organized sports and it is crazy talk. Super adorable but totally crazy. She could probably do without the catching of a ball but is all about running the bases. I’m still on the look-out for a local 1k or 1 mile race for us to participate in – suggestions are welcome!

You see the pink blur? Yeah, that’s right. You don’t. She’s that fast.

(Which is another reason I need to get my pace down, I can’t have her beating me! ha!)

Until we run again, my friends!

“My legs are sooo fat.”

When Lillie was 3 years old, she grabbed her thighs, sighed very loudly and said,

“Ugh, my legs are sooo fat.”

I would hope your reaction was the same as mine – surely, she didn’t just say her legs were fat. So, I turned down the radio (we were in the truck) and asked her as calmly as I could, “What did you say Lillie?”

And she repeated, “My legs are fat.”

My mind immediately ran through any and everything I may have said over the course of her entire lifetime that would have pushed her towards this conclusion. I came up with nothing. I don’t even say fat. I’ve even stopped other people from saying that in front of her. (I don’t have a problem with the word, to me it’s just an adjective, I have an issue with the context in which it was used.)

While I have had my fair share of weight issues, when I had Lillie, my perspective changed. My behaviors changed. I no longer made audible comments about my body or talked about food in a negative way (ex: I can’t eat that. It has too much fat. etc.) I became more active and my focus switched to being healthy as opposed to just being thin or restrictive. I had hoped by doing these things, by pro-actively sharing a positive body image in the woman she is around the most, that she would recognize her self-worth is not tied exclusively into her body – even though it can often feel that way for a girl, heck for a woman.

So, when she made this very wrong assessment about her growing body, about her toddler body, all I wanted to do was hug her, squish her close to me and tell her she was beautifully made no matter what size her thighs appeared to be. In fact, that’s probably what I would do to any of you lovely people reading right now but since she was only 3, I needed a more logical approach, one that would appeal to her current interests in the event that this would happen again. I didn’t want to ignore this comment and excuse it by thinking she wasn’t aware of what she was saying (but I mean, what if she knew exactly what she was saying and I just let her talk about herself in that way? Not acceptable.)

I decided to pull the truck over to the side of the road, asked God to help me find the words I needed and unbuckled my seat belt.

I knew by stopping the truck it would catch her attention and she immediately questioned, “Why are we stopping?”

And as I turned back to her, I found the words.

“Do you like to run?”

Yes.

“And you love to play really hard, right? Going down the slide and swinging, right?”

Yeah.

“Well, the only way we are able to do those awesome, fun things is by having muscles. You know how we show our muscles in our arms?”

Yeah.

“We actually have muscles all over our body. In our legs, our back, even our face! Pretty cool, huh?”

IN OUR FACE??

“Yep, that’s how we can smile. And that’s how we can run because of those muscles in our legs. That’s how mama runs. And how I pick you up in the air. It’s muscles.
So, saying your legs are fat isn’t exactly right. You just have big, strong muscles that we want to keep growing so we can run faster and play harder. That’s why we drink water and eat our fruits and vegetables, because they help our body grow those muscles. Okay?”

Okay.

I turned back around and we went about the rest of our day. And for the last year, I’ve tried reinforcing that conversation whenever I could. She runs “super fast” (her words) and when she finishes she’ll show me her muscles. When she asks for a water instead of juice, I give her a high-five. When she chooses to eat a banana instead of ice cream, I comment on what a good choice she’s made for her body.

I hate that she ever thought her legs were fat but it did help make our health a part of the conversation and for that I’m grateful. I strive to show her a balance and I’m learning as I go. We still regularly cook chicken nuggets from box, eat ice cream, share a soda, make cookies (which includes eating the dough!) and enjoy what we eat. Food is not something we revolve our life around, it’s just something we take care of in order to have the energy to do the things we want to do.

As she gets older, we’ll work on expanding our knowledge of health & food & exercise based on her maturity and what’s going on in her life. (I remember kids making fun of others in my 1st grade for their size!)

This particular incident helps serve me as a reminder of how easily influenced small children can be, even if they don’t realize what it is they’re saying/conveying.

I still don’t know where she picked up that thought – whether it was from a friend from school who has heard her parents talk about being fat, or from something on television/radio, or from someone close to us who maybe made an off-the-cuff remark to another adult without realizing the impact those words would make, this is an important conversation to have with our children. Hell, it’s an important conversation to have with ourselves.

I know I’m not going to be able to protect her from everything. From people’s opinions, from the media, even from her own voice of doubt – but I do plan on giving her the tools to break free from those things. Kindness being one of the most important tools in my book – and not only to other people but to herself. Speaking kindly and positively about your your body and your character can drastically change your own attitude (living proof right here) and create a better quality of life for you & those around you. And that’s why, I stopped the truck. And why I didn’t chalk this up to a kids say the darndest thing moment. Because one day, that kid is going to be an adult and what a terrible waste of this beautiful life we have if all we concentrate on is how ‘fat’ our thighs are.