I was not an athletic child. I was the girl who was picked next-to-last in gym class pretty much every day. I was uncoordinated, gangly, slow, unpopular, and just plain untalented (in sports, anyway). I went to a private school that required physical activity every day, all year, however, so I suffered through the humiliation of failing at pretty much every sport or game I tried.
Until I discovered volleyball. Finally, a sport for tall girls that didn't require the agility of dribbling or the precision of free-throw shooting. I played every fall from 5th grade through high school. While I wasn't the star of my high school team, I'd like to think I was a contributor to any success we had.
Somehow, the admissions office at my college missed the fact that I played volleyball on my application, so I received no notice of pre-season practice or team tryouts. Instead, I showed up at practice on the first day of classes, fully expecting to either be cut or make the JV squad by the skin of my teeth. I had the great fortune of attending a college that had gone coed only 5 years earlier -- meaning the athletic teams were still very young and new. Much to my great surprise, I made the team -- the varsity team! I wasn't a starter my freshman year, but I played in every single game and finally felt like I'd found my niche.
Over the next three years, my playing time increased and my abilities improved. I went from sub to part-time starter to starter to double conference all-star by my junior year. I was the first one to arrive at practice and the last to leave. Senior year, my name was in the
Philadelphia Daily News (I still have it framed in my office). Strangers on campus knew who I was and wished me luck on game days or commented on a specific play the day after a game, and even the dining room staff wished me success at our pre-game meals. I was a stud, the BWOC I'd always dreamed of being.
After graduation, I played in every league and tournament I could find. I played women's or coed, sixes, fours, or doubles. I played in gyms, on grass, and on sand. Eventually, though, the opportunities to play started to lessen. Teammates and doubles partners got married, had babies, moved out of town. The less I played, the harder it became to maintain the level at which I was accustomed to playing... and the more frustrated I got. The next generation of recent college grads was tearing up the courts the way I used to. I was a has-been at 27 years old.
Then I discovered the gym. I cardioed my little butt off on the bikes, the ellipticals, the stairmasters. I lifted like a mofo, getting my body fat down to 14.6% at one point. I taught every class the Y offered, sometimes teaching 8-10 classes per week. I got certified as a personal trainer and trained 2-3 clients per week, in addition to everything else (and a totally unrelated full-time job). After several years of that, it became exhausting and too time-consuming. I cut back to 4-5 classes per week and gave up the PT clients.
At 37, I started running. I hated it. H.A.T.E.D. IT! I trained for the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon, successfully raising nearly $7,000 for the American Stroke Association in 3.5 months. On race day, I congratulated myself on never having to run another step again. But a funny thing happened the following week: I missed it. I started running -- because I wanted to, not because I had to -- and that made a huge difference. Because I was so new to running and so late getting into the game, I saw success early on. Every race was an opportunity for a PR, and the PRs came frequently. In the next few years, I repeatedly dropped my PRs in everything from a mile to a half marathon.
Ten days before my 40th birthday, I did my first multisport race -- a sprint duathlon. And fell in love. Unfortunately for me, my birthday is in late October, which meant that I couldn't do another race for at least 6 months. I was completely addicted. I've done at least 2-3 races every year since then (five years this October, as I'm approaching the big 45). When I started, I pushed myself to my limits in training and on raceday. I left everything on the course.
Recently, however, the desire to push so hard has been hard to find, and those PRs have become more and more elusive. (I haven't seen one in years.) I mentioned a few weeks ago that I haven't been proud of a race in a very long time.
Is my body just slowing down? Is my metabolism to blame? Should I just suck it up and realize (and accept) that a 45 year-old woman simply cannot do the things a 35 or 25 year-old woman can, the way I had to accept that my volleyball game wasn't the same at 30 as it had been at 20? Is it time to give up on this sport and find a new way to challenge myself athletically?
Or do I keep doing what I'm doing -- running and triathlons -- and appreciate that my body CAN still do it all, just not in the same way or at the same speed it used to?
And, most importantly, how do I make myself believe that that's actually OK?
