Crash Time, Again


You know how that saying goes, “third time’s a charm?” I am hoping that saying applies to me regarding crashes. Crash number one, Wendy versus bench. Result-improved fitness. Crash number two, Wendy versus dirt road. Result-improved respect for my body and what it has allowed me to do so far. Crash number three? Well, let’s just say that all of you who cautioned me against trying to maintain a calorie deficit while training hard were correct.

Like I have said before, something profound happened to my relationship with food when I put up such a fast baseline 5k time on no fitness back in mid December. For the first time ever, I believed, truly believed that I had the potential to be a good runner. From that point forward, my willingness to ease up on portions of “recreational” food and drink seemed almost effortless. I actually lost a small amount of weight through the holiday season, which has never happened. For the first 6 weeks of 2009, I totally motored along, setting personal bests every workout, and steadily losing around a pound a week of scale weight. Enter crash number three. I wish I could blame it on PMS, because it happened during that week. But the data indicates that I had no issue navigating PMS the other two times that happened since mid December. Nope, this was a metabolic crash, pure and simple. This crash was my body’s way of telling me “enough is enough”.

It started innocently enough-mild crankiness, loss of focus at work and home, fatigue. I knew something was up when a friend decided to have an impulsive super bowl party. We had been scheming for months to set up two mutual friends on a blind “date”, but in a group setting. My friend ended up going, I didn’t have the energy to get myself off the couch.

My appetite was really strong during this time, and I was craving stuff I typically don’t care about, like the processed 100 calorie packs that are for sale down at the pink lady shop in my building. Me? The food snob? Wanting Hostess Twinkie 100 calorie packs? Ummm something is gravely wrong with this picture.

So I did what I always do when I have a question about my fueling or my training. I consult my experts! I posted a few threads here to get feedback from our very own Leigh Peele, the Fat Loss Troubleshooter. I emailed the expert running coaches at Furman University, who promptly emailed me back. They all said the same thing-don’t cut calories and run hard at the same time.

So now I was faced with a dilemma. I know that as a 5 food 6 ½ inch woman who weighs 150 pounds at 26% body fat, I am not the ideal candidate to run a fast marathon and qualify for boston. Ideal running weight for someone my height is probably around 125, which is a joke, particularly with the muscle I have built over the past few years. Even the sports dietician told me that the women she knows who do what I want to do are in the high teens for body fat percentage. The local women I know who have qualified are in the high teens. I know I don’t want to be in the high teens, mostly because I don’t want to work that hard, but also because I like the way my body looks right now! But my goal for this 5k season was to get down to the low 140’s and around 23-24%, which I felt was a good compromise. I have no doubts that I would have an easier time running if I were leaner. I have proven this to myself so far in this 5k season.

But my body was sending me clear messages to stop trying to do it all. So I stopped. I started eating at maintenance or a little above. And felt amazing. And had amazing workouts, in running, swimming and lifting. Most importantly, my mojo was back. I was focused, motivated, energetic, happy.

Clearly, I had a choice. Choice 1: Put my running dreams on hold for yet another year, and focus on really leaning out, coming as close as I can to that ideal runner girl weight. Choice 2: maintain the body that I am in now, train hard, fuel correctly, and reach for my running dreams in the body I have today.

I don’t have to tell you all my choice! The lesson I have learned in crash number three, is perhaps the most critical lesson of them all: The time for achieving my dream of becoming the best runner I can be is NOW. I could spend a lifetime chasing an ideal runner’s body composition. It took me nearly 10 years to lose 78 pounds. At this snail pace, it could take me the rest of my life to get to 19 percent body fat! At some point, aging does accelerate, and even though the Boston qualifying times do slow with age, they don’t slow THAT much. The time for me to run well is now, today, right here, in THIS body.

I have decided to eat at or near maintenance. Some days more, some days less. My body composition on race day will be my body composition. My fitness on race day will be my fitness. I am going to give everything I have this year to train hard, fuel smartly, enjoy life, be productive, stay healthy. I will show up to that starting line in the best shape of my life. And if the finish line clock says 4:00:59 or less, dream accomplished.

But you wanna know the coolest thing? If the finish line clock says something slower than 4:00:59, dream accomplished! What! How can that be! You spend an entire year training with everything you have, recording your intake in the daily plate, measuring your output with the gowearfit, doing speedwork in the 88 degree florida sun with 90 percent humidity, waking up at 4 am on a Saturday to meet your running buddies for a 20 miler, plunging your legs in an ice bath to aid recovery, passing on that yummy shiraz because you have a 15 mile tempo run the next morning.-You have made all of the sacrifices and you miss your goal? You miss it by a minute or an hour. You miss it by an inch or a mile.

Here is the other big lesson learned from crash number three. It isn’t about the outcome, it is about the process. I crossed the finish line of the Disney Marathon in 2000, weighing 208 pounds in 7 hours, 13 minutes and 52 seconds. If I cross the finish line of the Spacecoast Marathon weighing 150 pounds in 4 hours and 1 minute, one second past the time I need to qualify for Boston, I am victorious. I may have lost my Boston dream, but I have won my battle against obesity. I have proven to myself that I am capable of maintaining a lean, fit healthy body. I have beaten the odds. The odds of losing 80 pounds and maintaining that loss for a lifetime are abysmal, like less than 5 percent. but I am doing just that. I have beaten the odds. Will I beat the odds again and be a woman with 26% body fat who qualifies for Boston? Who knows. One thing I know for sure-I will be celebrating at that finish line. I will be celebrating the woman that I will become during this year of hard training and sacrifice. A woman who is more than just a number on the scale, a percentage of body fat, or a time on the race clock.

At the end of the day, we really don’t know how many heartbeats we get to have in these bodies. I want to make sure that I spend my heartbeats doing activities that I love, with people I enjoy. These day to day, moment to moment, beat to beat activities are the basic building blocks of our lives. And if all you do is focus on the outcome, become attached to the outcome, and miss the glorious process, than you are wasting your precious heartbeats.