Supposed to

 

I’ve always been the skinny kid. My whole life. When I was growing up jeans never fit unless they were ‘slim’ or came with an elastic waistband; this was way before slim became an actual style. 

I never really cared about my weight, it actually had its positives. When I was in 8th grade if I weighed under 100 pounds I could play any position on my youth football team. Had I been over 100 I would have been restricted to playing between the tackles. Through high school and college I just accepted I wasn’t going to be the bulky looking strong guy. In all honesty, I didn’t want to be the bicep guy and then never tried to be. I never was part of the “supposed to be” conversation until I started running. I was 30 and in regular skinny shape: not really flabby but not AbZilla or Crunchasaurous Rex. I was around 150 lbs but being skinny meant my 150 looked like 120 to most. When I began talking more about getting in to running I was frequently met with “that’s gotta be pretty easy you’re so light” or “yeah that makes sense you look like a runner”. I was supposed to be a runner. I was supposed to go out and run 4-5 miles. It didn’t matter that I had never done it before or that each week I was able to run farther than the previous because that’s what skinny people do. 

Running led to triathlons, and marathons led to Ironmans. More and more finishes started leading to more disappointment. When you’re skinny you’re never fast enough because the skinny people win, the skinny people qualify for Boston, the skinny people get the podium but I wasn’t winning, I wasn’t running a BQ, I wasn’t on a podium. Despite my training, my effort, my dedication, it never felt like enough because I was supposed to wake up and magically do what months of training takes others to do. 

I still struggle with this. I can’t be the skinny kid for 42 years and just drop the expectations and assumptions I’ve heard my entire life.  Even when I go out and crush a long run and average 7 minute miles, I get home and feel it should have been faster. In all honesty, I’ve never finished a race and thought it was as fast as I’m supposed to be. I have, however, found ways to move past this. 

Data. I look at my data all the time. I compare my speed, heart rate, effort… all in order to see growth. The data allows me to see that I’m getting stronger, I am getting faster and I’m better today than I was last week. 

Coach.  I have a coach that keeps pushing me. I have a plan laid out and I know if I follow that,  I will grow. 

Do stupid shit. This can also be referred to as do things that make a finish time irrelevant or do things that highlight me as a person and not a skinny athlete. Fundraising, for one. Setting a goal to raise money for a cause close to me has always made that time next to my name disappear and it also has been a way to NOT talk about what place I was supposed to get or how fast I was supposed to be because I just helped raise $x and that’s what mattered. Guiding visually impaired and blind athletes is likely the only reason I continued racing. It helped me do all the training and stay in the shape I wanted to be in but never have to talk about how I did. It wasn’t about me, it had nothing to do with what my race was supposed to be. 

So here I am, some days under 140, some days a little over. Still not Abs of Steal, still not dad bod. I’m getting faster because I want to, I am getting faster because I am learning how to push harder because I’ve learned that there is a big difference between being fast and supposed to be fast.