My Relationship to Exercise, by Kelly Z., age 33.67 years.

I wanted to talk a little bit about how I came to this point, in terms of a fitness and exercise perspective. This is likely to be long.

As a kid, I wasn't terribly active. I ran around, like kids do, but I wasn't into sports. I was the kid picked last for team things in gym class. A lack of depth perception will do that to a kid. So, I resigned myself to the fact that I Wasn't Athletic. I tended toward reading, the Speech & Debate Team, and other such pursuits. I always wanted to be more athletic, but figured I was just one of those kids who wasn't lucky enough to be able to be.

I was not one of the popular kids in school. Far from it. I was fortunate, then, that I was proportional in height and weight, and weighed 125 lbs when I graduated from high school. I somehow had a warped body image and thought I was overweight. What I wouldn't give now to be 125 lbs! It's all about perspective.

Then I went off to college, and gained 20 lbs. Then I gained 20 more by the mid nineties. I went through a lot of things in my early-to-mid twenties, and by 1999, I weighed 217 pounds. On a 5'6" frame. I was far more than overweight. I look at photos from that time, now, and I hardly recognize myself.

In early 2000, I met my now ex-husband, and by the time we were married, in mid-2001, I was down to 185 lbs through moderate activity and trying to watch what we ate (and, somehow, despite frequent meals at the Indian place and Anthony's Pizza when we lived in Malvern, PA in 2001, I gained no weight while in PA -- didn't lose any either, though.).

My ex had a tendency toward extreme activities, once something captured his interest. So, he discovered racewalking in 2002, and, me being me, I tagged along, wondering what this was all about. He is a great endurance athlete -- he can go for hours at a steady pace. I am a sprinter -- I tend to vary through an activity, but can pour it on at the end. But with racewalking, I ended up being the one to grasp proper form more quickly. I adored racewalking. I did racewalking from April through September of 2002, before I was sidelined by a hip injury. I'd come down to about 155 lbs at that point. I started off racewalking 15-minute miles. By the time I got hurt, I was able to steadily keep up a 12:30 pace or so. Sometimes, 11:45.

I put on a few pounds that winter, but racewalked them back off in the summer of 2003. I kept racewalking, through the winter, and into 2004. I racewalked my first 10:30 mile that summer, and by October of 2004, I was not racewalking in the back of the pack. That was when I figured out that, with the right activities, I could consider myself moderately athletic.

Then I stopped racewalking for various reasons, and put on 20 lbs by the summer of 2005. That spring/summer/early fall, my ex decided to go off and thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. He completed his thru-hike in early September, and I hadn't lost a pound. He came home, worked for a bit, and went off to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail in the summer of 2006. I still hadn't lost a pound.

We hatched a plan for both of us to pack up everything, put it in storage, and go thru-hike the Appalachian Trail together. I lost 20 lbs between November 2006 and April 2007 just by regular walking 4-6 miles a day. The thru-hike failed after a week (For all the athletic things I am capable of doing, thru-hiking held little joy for me), and my marriage was over, too. Which turned out to be the best thing for me.

I came home and tried to pick up the pieces. Because I was (wrongly) trying to save the marriage, still, in May 2007, I joined the next thing my ex found: Crossfit. I found an amazing program, that I stuck with, every day. I had lost another 8 lbs by October, and was feeling great.

But by October, my divorce was final, and I'd met someone new. When that happened, any pretense of getting along with my ex went out the window, and I lost Crossfit. I stopped exercising then, and tried, in fits and starts, through the fall and winter, to get myself back on the wagon.

This nice boy that I met proposed to me in January, in the Bahamas, and I, of course, accepted. It's nice to be with someone who supports me and appreciates me for who I am. At any rate, while in the Bahamas, I skipped out on snorkeling, because I didn't really know how to swim, and was afraid of the water. That spurred me, finally, to take swimming lessons in April. After a couple of months of lessons, I can now do basic swimming, so I've conquered something I thought I couldn't do.

I went and bought a bicycle, and shall be riding it this summer. But what I am focusing on for the next couple of months, is learning to run. I know I can do it if I put my mind to it. So, this 5k that I am raising money for is the way to help me keep my mind on the end goal. To run a 5k. Then to run more than that.

Someday, I'd love to compete in the Danskin Chicagoland sprint triathlon. That's the far off goal. More immediate is to run a 5k. Which I will do. On September 7. To honor and remember people who have become important in my life, even if I have never met them. :) Ah, the power of the internets.

A while back, Sean got me a magnet for my fridge. It says "Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I'm an athlete. Yes, I'll kick your butt." I want to feel like I live up to that magnet. That's another part of why I'm doing all of this.

Looking forward to my run tomorrow, and (hopefully) completing week 1 of C25K!