Let’s be real, we could be subjected to the diluted tepid-water breaker: Even Before You Knew My Name, You’d Know… and you would still already know the following: Even when looking to try something new that is bold enough to cover the whole summer, I should avoid signing up for any kind of multi-session fitness class, particularly one that revolves around running.
And so it will come as no surprise to you who even slightly know me that, in keeping with my both disturbed and disturbing need to try new things each month (and preferably sign up for things that I already know I am going to hate), I signed up for a “Running/ Fitness Camp” for teachers. It was a moment of pure madness, a.k.a. the last week of school. Five days. End of June. 6-8pm. Feel free to blame SFUSD for even suggesting it.
The company? Windswept Fitness. An apt name, since we met at the Polo Fields (which they might want to modernize into the name Summer Tundras) at 6pm. Not that we could see each other through the windy fog. Windswept Fitness? Terrible. An utter waste of time, talent, and money. They are high on my list of companies I do not recommend. It is possible I am just not their target audience, since everyone else played thrilled with the week. I mean, I got through, but it was far from pretty.
Because the experience really represented everything I don’t like:
* Groups filled with other teachers
* Organized sheep mentality
* Working out
* Sarcasm and lack of attention to detail
* Running
* Trainers who appear to know less about health or their audience than I do
* People who are constantly trying to sell you shit and
* Wasteful “gift bags” of lots of paper fliers, soft plastic bike water bottles and silly red t-shirts.
So I went the first day and positively despised it. Why go back? If you have that question, get in line behind every single person who knows me me even slightly and asked me that. My answer:
Well, I already paid for it, damn it. So I am going. And I want to see if I truly hate running as much as I think I do.
But I finally realized on Friday night at 8:15pm, when I was free of them the last time, that my answer to y'all is somewhat incomplete.
I always think of myself as having been a weak, nonathletic kid. I was teeny-tiny and possessed very few muscles. And I was deeply shy. I was always picked last for class “teams.” I'm not kidding. I was one of those picked-with-audible-sighs-because in-the-70s-no-one-could-be-left-out picks when I was little. I remember one time being so gravely embarrassed that I alone could not successfully swim between two points (that were not very far from each other) that I hid in shame after trying and failing that test that day. I must’ve been super-wee at that point.
Showing that everything happens for a reason, this week has caused to me to remember that my self-perception has a gap.
For a spell and once upon a time, back when I was even shorter than I am today (at least by second grade - for those of you who are quantifiers), I loved loved loved running.
And, over time, I became good at it. I came to be the fastest sprinter in my class. I was faster than all the girls. I was faster than all the boys. If there were any little intersex kids in our class, I was faster than them, too. I was even faster than the boy I had a friend-crush on: John Clay. And even though I was faster than he was, he still liked me back. It is possible he just saw me as one of the guys, but I was such an innocent in that way, I wouldn’t have consciously understood any of those dynamics. We were good friends and maybe in that funny second-grade way, we liked each other, too. But one thing I know. I was the fastest sprinter in the class. I was great at something, and, more importantly, I felt free.
At some point, a guy transferred into our class. That was probably fourth grade. He was from Japan. I wish I could remember his name. I want to say it was Tomiko, though I don’t know why. He was really fast. He was legendary. And I couldn't beat him, though we went neck and neck for a while. I heard he liked me. I didn't get the feeling that anyone ever would like me. My friends were all having moments of going steady. But not me. And he was nice enough and interesting and different. So I liked him and I liked racing him. Being the fickle fourth grader I was, I transferred my John Clay friend-crush to him. We were friends and friendly. He showed a lot of respect for me. I congratulated him when he beat me. It was all in fun. I felt so free. And then, one day, in front of the whole K-6 grade, I beat squarely beat him in a sprint.
He stopped talking to me. For the rest of the year.
I continued to beat his scores, but he refused speak to me. John Clay (who, in retrospect, was a wise person and a friend) explained that Tomiko was hurt because a girl had beat him. Still totally sheltered, I had no idea what he was going on about. I continued to beat Tomiko because I still loved running. I continued to try to talk to him because I still liked him. And he continued to avoid talking to me. Until fifth grade, which was my last year at that school.
We came back from the summer. We had an obstacle course tournament. I was picked for a team pretty close to the beginning because I could win races. Tomiko was picked by the other team. We raced. He won. I was congratulated for being the fastest girl. Some adult at that school, perhaps the PE teacher or someone, told me not to be disappointed; our bodies were changing and so boys would beat me from then on. I could remain the fastest girl perhaps, but it wasn't realistic to think I could be the fastest runner in the class.
Leaving the tournament, as I passed by an "alley" between two trailers that constituted school classrooms, Tomiko's hand reached out and nabbed me by the wrist. He pulled me into the walkway. I remember how his cheeks were flushed sunset red. I congratulated him and he held out his hand and congratulated me enthusiastically. He was very friendly, his eyes were bright and beaming, he was smiling so widely. He pulled my face into his face. I couldn't see around it. He kissed my cheek. He then ran off. I stood still, stunned. He was speaking to me again, and he was again the fastest runner. And Tomiko kept winning. Although I didn't mention the whole Tomiko alleyway thing, I remember being upset about the whole tournament thing enough that my mom found out about it and, trying to make me feel better, assured me that athletics were not important and it was o.k. that I wasn’t an athletic person. She wasn't either and neither was my dad. My best friend, Honor, then beat my time, became the fastest girl-runner in class. By the end of the year, she and Tomiko were "together."
I stopped sprinting. And went back to getting picked towards the bottom on the class teams for gym.
I didn’t go out of my way to run again until high school, when I tried out for Crew. I got up at 4:30 a.m. each morning to get out to Lake Merced and completed all the morning runs and practices for try-outs for a whole month. I remember it being really hard because I didn't think of myself as athletic. I was pretty sure every morning I wouldn't be able to do it. But I didn't want to come in last. I was still small and not very strong. I didn’t make the team, even as a coxswain. I eventually found out that my mom had, without my knowledge, asked the coach if he would just let me continue to practice with them, even if I never be in a meet. He refused, apparently. And that was that. I never willingly ran just to run again, until this past Monday.
So I guess signing up for that thing was helpful in a way. It reminded me we bury demons deep and that I don't have complete onset of Alzheimer's yet.
And just in case that wasn't enough trauma for one week: Just when I thought I had looked at and thus laid to rest some core feelings of childhood shame, my 94 year old neighbor stopped me in the hall to ask if I was going to the Gaybors' (my new neighbors) BBQ the following day. Now, I live in a building with 5 apartments, containing six people total. I replied, “Well, I didn't know they were having a BBQ tomorrow. They didn’t invite me.” She looked awkward a moment and then away completely. The good news is that it cleared up why they had never replied to my invitation to come see the SF Mime Troupe in Dolores Park with me that same day.
So it appears that whether I like to run or not is kind of immaterial, since a person cannot ultimately outrun the triggers that stop us from feeling free. So in addition to this being the Month of Organized Running, this is also my month of: Relive Every Aspect of Elementary School Self-Confidence-Depleting Left-outness at the same time. And I am here to tell you that no matter how stodgy, hard, and worldly a person has become, it still always hurts my feelings.
Come here, demons. I still got space at my table.
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