23,016 words

My head is swelled with pride and excitement. Make way.

My Beloved challenged me to write 20,000 words on my memoir this week, and I did it! Twenty-three thousand sixteen words.

Here are 392 from the 1,935 I wrote today. Ironically, they’re about training for the marathon I ran in 2006 — I feel like I’ve been running a marathon this week.

The only C I earned in junior high and high school was in phy ed.

I hated Nancy Johnson with the seething enmity only a seventh grade female could summon for a person occupying such an innocuous role: Physical education teacher.

Mrs. Johnson in her Members Only-esque gym suit stood at the entry to the group showers, checking off names as shrieking girls ran in and out of water flow too quickly to allow their hair to lose its 1980 puffiness. She probably found it highly amusing when the gawky tall girl had to promenade during the square dance lessons with the elfin boy who had an eye-level view of her blossoming bosom. And she was the one who skeptically watched the self-conscious, uncoordinated geek hang back from any activity that would require jumping, stretching or sweating. “Get out there, girls! Get going! Come on, ladies!”

After a quarter of lukewarm participation on my part, Mrs. Johnson got her revenge: The only C on a report card otherwise populated with A’s.

Though I managed Bs the rest of the school year, our relationship never improved over the course of my time at Wadena Senior High School. Mrs. Johnson coached the varsity girls’ basketball team, and even though I was the tallest girl in my class, my complete lack of interest in jumping, sweating and running – God, I hated running – kept me from ever progressing past the B squad. My senior year, I switched to golf, a game at which I was an utter failure as well, but at least I didn’t have to run.

Throughout my adult life, I spent a lot of time in front of the TV with exercise greats like Gilad, Denise Austin and “Buns of Steel’s” Tamilee Webb and I willingly walked when the occasion presented itself, but I wouldn’t run.

Good ol’ Jill, my ever faithful friend, was the one who suggested we try something new. She suggested that as a farewell to our 30s, we should run a marathon – Grandma’s Marathon.

So one Wednesday morning in January, I got up before the sun rose, put on an inordinate number of sweat-trapping cotton clothes and ran around the block.

Two days later, I did the same thing.

Jill printed out a marathon training plan for beginners and sent it to me, and I started following it. I was a runner!