The Adventures of IronMel: Big Dreams

I'm not a skinny person. I've never been a skinny person. I was the kid other kids made fun of in elementary school and called really creative names like "tub o' lard" and "Shamu". When I played basketball in the Japanese league (why did my parents think I had a future in basketball? I'm 5'4!) I'd cry when they'd make me run extra laps for being the slowest. Many of my teammates grew up playing sports, track stars, water polo, swim team. I was never athletic. I'd walk the mile in junior high. The closest thing to athletic was the JV volleyball team in JH and marching band in high school. I attribute my decent looking calves to marching backwards on my toes. You try forcefully exhaling into an instrument, bounding across the football field like a gazelle, and holding a 7lb hunk of metal in front of you for an extended period of time. When I put on my black wetsuit I worry about sharks because I think I resemble a seal. A cute seal. The sleek round ones with long whiskers and giant puppy-like eyes. I saw a recent picture of myself in my wetsuit, it's like it was squeezing all the excess fat to my neck, like a tube of toothpaste. I did not tag myself on fb, which is sad cause it was a good quality picture. Believe me it was not the most attractive pic of me even when the majority of my pics are of me making ridiculously stupid smiley faces.

Then three years ago I was hit by a bus.

Metaphorically.

I experienced rejection in a whole new way. As a sign that this was not your normal hurt feelings I exploded into a private meeting (in a church...) and yelled at someone, screamed, punched a wall and walked out assisted by a friend screaming and crying. I tend to keep my anger inside. I don't usually speak my mind. That was a big deal. Then I was essentially dead inside. I no longer was the positive, cheery, goofy person I once was. I cried all the time. I felt lost. Like my insides had turned into a puddle of heavy goo and I was weighted to the floor slowly oozing and becoming one with my bed. A zombie.

Then I began to run. It started as a way to prove to the world that I could do this. That I was better than "them". Just a mile a day. Then 2 miles a day. I'd get up religiously every morning and just run. The only time I wasn't heavy with emotion was when I was flying through the neighborhood, quick beating music pounding in my ears, matching my heart. My friends worried about me. I didn't laugh anymore. So they woke me up. They asked me to do an Olympic distance triathlon relay with them, with me on the run. The longest I had ever gone was 2mi so 6mi seemed like an unreachable goal. After some hesitation I said yes, found a plan online and went after it wholeheartedly. My friends depended on me, I needed to run it for them, and lastly for me. (and I lost 10lbs in the process)

The day came and I was alive. Excited. INSPIRED. It was a new world. Transition area? Tri-suits? Race waves? I will never forget this woman. More than twice my age, small, and with one friggin' leg. She had one leg! And she was doing the whole race by herself. WTF. Every shape and size and person was here to swim, bike, and run. Different speeds. Road bike. Mountain bike. You didn't have to be tall and lean, you just had to be yourself and no one judged you for it. In fact they cheered you on. And I ran. And I got lost. Somehow I ended up off the race course and saw other competitors above me on a different path, but it didn't matter. We finished and I was hooked.

Since then I've done numerous 10k's, 1 5k, 2 half marathons, 2 sprint tris and 3 olympic distance tris. Now I'm training for an Ironman distance race, where biking for 4 hours is becoming normal and running 13mi isn't a big deal anymore.

When people say they could never do what I do, I laugh. Of course you can. If I can, you can. All you need is a little help from some friends and to wake up.

Team in Training helps too ;)