The Power of Peers

I have a lot of respect for fitness professionals, I really do. Several have been instrumental in my decade-long trek from obese to fit. Today, however, I am celebrating the power of peers.

 As a lifelong scary science girl, I started my fitness journey by learning everything I could about exercise and nutrition. I could detail for you the metabolic nuances of high intensity interval training versus long slow distance. I could discuss the merits of slow twitch, fast twitch, and the ever versatile undifferentiated muscle fibers. I could draw the chemical structures of simple sugars. I could detail for you the biochemical complexities of the various amino acids and how they combined to form the very building blocks of our bodies. But I was doing all of this in an obese body. Why couldn’t I take all of this head knowledge and put it into action? I was making it too complicated. And truth be told, deep down, I didn’t believe it was possible for me.

At just the right time in my life, I met Peggy. I was working out at a local gym doing one on one personal training. At 228 pounds and 5 foot 7, this trainer had me doing one set to failure of super slow reps on machines, eating 1100-1300 calories a day, and taking body building supplements, like creatine, HMB, and other popular late nineties, gym-rat-intensive concoctions. I do remember feeling really rockin’ strong when I would leg press twice my body weight for reps, but now I realize that  I was doing everything back-asswards. No wonder I would inevitably “cheat” on my diet. I could have lost body fat on twice as many calories! 

During one of my trips to the gym, I saw a pamphlet about training to walk a marathon while raising money for the leukemia society. My niece’s best friend had just celebrated her one year anniversary of being free of leukemia, and I thought this would be a great way to join the celebration.  My trainer was dubious. He told me that I should not attempt to do a marathon until I lost weight. He said my risk of injury was too high. What I heard at the time was  “you are too fat to do a marathon,” and the gauntlet was down. Game on. I’ll show you. This moment was the beginning of my fat acceptance phase. I decided if I had to live my life in an obese body, it might as well be a fit, obese body, and what better way to prove my fitness but to walk 26.2 miles while raising money for a great cause?

So far so good. Peggy was one of the volunteer coaches. When I first met her, I immediately classified her as one of those genetically gifted runner girls—she was in her mid forties then, with long, thick black hair that she would wear in a braid, gorgeous olive skin, and amazingly beautiful legs. At the time, I was struggling to maintain 20 minute miles on our walks, and it was barely even an effort for her. 

Peggy wasn’t a fitness professional. She worked in an electronics factory putting together components. And she was one hell of a runner, often winning her age group. As I got to know her,  she told me her story—five years prior, she had been obese, had a health crisis, and decided to take up running. I didn’t believe her. So she brought in pictures. I recognized her by that long, beautiful, thick braid, but otherwise, I wouldn’t have believed it was the same person. In that moment, I believed that change was possible. I could feel myself switch from scary science chick, overthinking, overanalyzing, overeverything to humble student. I wanted to know how Peggy did it. I wanted to be as lean as Peggy. 

Fortunately, marathon training is inherently time intensive. Over many miles, Peggy became my mentor. I learned how she prioritized cooking, I learned how she fit exercise into her busy schedule. When we would go out to eat, I would watch how she seemed to effortlessly modulate her intake, and how she would leave food on her plate. 

One day, we were on a training walk in my old neighborhood, and she said to me, “Wendy, why don’t we just run from here to that lamp post?” Said lamp post was maybe 200 yards ahead. She might as well have said, “Wendy, why don’t we jump off this cliff without a parachute and hope there is a big trampoline at the bottom to catch us?” I didn’t trust her. I didn’t believe that I could be a runner. Running was for thin people. Someday, when I lost enough weight, I would be a runner like Peggy. But for right now, my thighs were so large that I would get chafing just from walking. My feet were so stressed by the distance walking that I had custom orthotics made. Despite  the negative head-chatter, something in me decided to trust her anyway and go for it. Those first steps, that brief fraction of a second that both of my feet were in the air at the same time--- the movement that differentiates running from walking --- was transformative, intoxicating, and literally breathtaking. I was running, but I might as well have been flying. I had jumped off the cliff, I was airborne, and I experienced a sensation so liberating. I  finally believed that I had the power to transform myself into a fit, healthy, lean person. I was hooked. 

 Peggy carefully nurtured me to the finish line of that first marathon. She believed in me before I was capable of believing in myself. Peggy didn’t judge my external body and make assumptions about me based on my physical appearance like I had made assumptions about her based on her physical appearance. Out on the roads, we were just two athletes, training hard, swapping life stories and making memories. 

It took me many more years before I was able to fully understand the things Peggy tried to teach me. I am just now putting some of those things into practice. I don’t see Peggy anymore at the races, and I often wonder what happened to her—maybe she moved, maybe she has moved on to another sport? I want her to know that the seeds that she planted in me a decade ago, are finally bearing fruit. After many years of trial and error, too much sunlight, not enough, too much fertilizer, not enough, I think I finally have negotiated a balance—just enough running, just enough strength training, just enough nutritious food, just enough rest—all working together to form the athlete I am today. The athlete that Peggy was able to see a decade ago. 

This, my friends, is the power of peers. Peers who have walked before. Peers who can look at you and see your potential. Peers who can hold the vision of your very best life, and believe in your future before you are able to believe it yourself. Pretty soon, you are not only believing in your visions, you are creating them, manifesting them, achieving them. And each time you share the gift with others, each time you hold someone else’s dream for them before they are strong enough to hold it for themselves, your own resolve to reach your own goals becomes hypertrophied like a muscle. Together we can achieve our dreams, peer-to-peer, athlete-to-athlete, step-by-weightless, effortless step. Together we fly. Thanks Peggy, you have permanently altered the course of my life, and I celebrate you today.