The Happy Little Morons Running Series

I love signing up for races. They give me motivation to train for something with a hard deadline; but, more importantly, they give me shirts, free snacks, and cool medals. I passionately love shirts, snacks, and medals. Unfortunately, since I am still on maternity leave, races are a little beyond my budget right now. Missing the anticipation and fun of running with a crowd, I decided to organize my own races.

I present to you the wildly popular Happy Little Morons Running Series that attracts nearly ten runners every race. For participants I enlisted the most reliable of comrades in adventure, my cousins, the Happy Little Morons. (We inherited the name Happy Little Morons from our parents who were lovingly given the moniker by my grandmother. The title fits the tone and disposition of the races and participants.)

Every other month we gather at a different location and run a 3-6 mile race. There are no timing chips, the route distances are roughly measured with google maps, and no one shuts down the streets for us, yet we manage to have a lot of fun. So far we have completed the I Love Me Run (a mild rebuke of Valentine's Day), The Aw Hill No! Run (two miles uphill and two miles down, and The Ebey's Landing Run on Whidbey Island. Coming in August is the Sun Bear Run which has an optional sun bear plunge into Puget Sound at the finish (think polar bear plunge, only slightly warmer).

Even though we represent a wide variety of gaits, paces, and running habits, no one finishes alone thanks to the HLM Finishing Protocol. It goes like this: When you reach the finish line, you turn around and run or walk back to the last runner and run with them to the end. This way everyone finishes together and the last runner (usually me) feels less lonely. We're all winners!

This running series brings me prolonged joy from planning the routes, to naming the races, to crafting the finisher swag bags (each race has customized swag bags, and they are awesome), to the actual running.

Outside of these races, running is consistently dispiriting right now. Being so out of shape makes me wonder if my goals are at best fantasies and at worst delusions. Even though I'm in a low place as a runner, the last thing I want is direct encouragement that reads as empty courtesy or pity and fuels my sense of pathetic-ness.

What feels so much better is being in the presence of people who are having fun, who are supportive in their enthusiasm for my silly plans, whose excitement about running buoys my soul. It's like running through a haze of warmth and belonging spiced with jokes. Even if most of my solo runs are a slog, when I look back on this year, I can know that there were six times when running brought me joy. It feels so good to be a Happy Little Moron.

I can't be the runner I want to be without support, and the Happy Little Morons are the best support a person could ask for. As my sister says, "Sometimes you just need someone to push you in the butt so you can be the giant's booger," which I take to mean we all need a little help to reach our goals. (She actually only said this once, in reference to my dad's request for a butt boost to position himself just below the Fremont Troll's nostril while we took a group race photo.)

Shhh, Brain, Shhh

The next post I planned to write was titled, "I'm Fat and Depressed and Running Sucks." In it I would chronicle my dearth of running and general distaste for exercise. Then I'd address my ongoing identity crisis -- Am I a runner? How can I call myself a runner if I don't run? Once you've accepted running into your heart are you a runner for the rest of your life or can you fall away from running to such a degree that you are no longer a runner? I would get into, like, deep denominational sports philosophy.

There would be no pithy little life lesson at the end -- no "Here's how I'm taking all this negativity, grinding it up, squeezing out the juices, adding some patented look-at-the-sunnyside serum, and using it to fuel my dreams and goals and self-esteem." Pfffft. Instead I planned to end the post abruptly, waist-deep in the bog of my existential crisis, like a good French film.

Up until June I ran twice in a four-month span of time. And then I found an easy half-marathon training plan, wrote down what I was supposed to do each day on a free gift calendar from some save the animals charity, and started running a bit. That was it. Here's the stupid, annoying thing: There was no magical catalyst, no inspirational documentary, no pep-talk. It barely even felt like a decision. I just did it. (Nike. I know.)

Maybe the magic was in not thinking. I have a tendency to roll thoughts around in my brain, turning them every which way to examine and fret about every surface. This type of thinking can be reflective and lead to thoughtful change. But it can also cross a threshold of usefulness and border on obsessive. For me, running is binary. I'm either running or not running. Obsessively contemplating not running does not lead to running, so why let my brain keep tumbling these dead end thoughts? (Why? Because my brain does whatever it wants. Stupid brain.)

In summary, I stopped running, and then I started again.

It's not going that well. The bones in my feet remind me of making toothpick bridges in math class to see how much weight they could hold before they collapsed, my knees conjure images of a mortar and pestle vigorously grinding tissue into paste, and my low back and hips have the flexibility of Trump-era political views.

But it's getting incrementally better. Of course incremental improvement is not very satisfying, so I'm going to try to not think about it.

Hey Daddy

Little Squish and I enjoy nice, long walks with the stroller. Most of our baby gear was either gifted or thrifted, but not the stroller. The fancy, bright yellow running stroller with fixed front wheel, hand brake, safety reflectors, and hood that lowers in increments depending on the angle of the sun was my personal splurge. I know there are perfectly good strollers on Craigslist, but I wanted something new. This stroller is special. This stroller is for us, Squish.

On a recent stroll, we happened to walk past the high school during lunchtime, which means young, bright minds were spewing into the streets, eager to get away from the building for 30 minutes. A car full of cool dudes approached, their cool dude music blasting from the rolled-down windows. As they passed, one of them shouted, "Hey daddy!"

He was talking to me.

I'm the daddy.

My first thought was, Clearly, I am not Hot Mom. Hot Moms make disheveled exhaustion look chic. The dark circles under their eyes are sultry. Their messy buns are coiffures. They make motherhood look so damn good.

I look like a dude.

My second thought followed quickly: I don't want to be Hot Mom. I want to be Strong Mom. Not only is Strong Mom a way more realistic goal, it's so much more practical. It helps me carry heavy babies, heave groceries, diaper bag, and occupied car seat into the house in one trip, push a stroller up a massive hill. It improves my running, snowshoeing, and hiking. None of this happens by just looking good.

Hot Mom has its benefits, I don't doubt, and Hot Moms can be strong. But when I aim for Hot Mom I end up with perpetual dissatisfaction and a hefty price tag for all those cool clothes. I constantly compare myself to other women, ranking myself in a hierarchy where I will never be content with my position.

Strong Mom can be achieved while wearing the oldest sweatpants in my closet.

I'm not saying I'm ugly. I don't think that at all. I'm a very nice looking human being. I'm saying my brand of nice-looking can be mistaken for a man from time to time. And I just can't muster the energy to care. I'm too busy getting stronger, faster, and happier.

Besides, if those cool dudes thought I was a man, then they saw a man being active and spending quality time with his baby. I'm happy to represent model fatherhood.

237 Pounds of Rrrrrrrraaaaaawwwwwwrrrrrrrr!

I am happy to announce, my guts did not explode out of my belly! On January 1st I ran for the first time since July, which was also the first time I'd run since birthing Little Squish. It was a 5k on a freezing day along the banks of Lake Washington with three cousins and my sister.

My plan was to mostly walk, but much to my surprise, I managed to mostly run. I did so alone, because everyone is faster than me, and I'm okay with that.

There have been 5ks where I feel panicked, winded, alone, and lame. They seem as long as marathons. I notice every footfall, frantically search for every kilometer marker, and wonder at how such a short race can defy the laws of time and space. During those races I'm at leisure to contemplate my fat, each jiggle cause for mental self-flagellation. Each prancing LuluLemonhead fuels envy, as I tug at the Target discount rack leggings stretched indecently over my thighs. I feel self-conscious instead of proud when I finally cross the finish line.

This was not one of those races. Not much about me is different. I'm overweight, far from my running prime, a 5 kilometer race is still 5 kilometers long, and I'm still dressed by Target.

Besides working toward running again, I've been practicing factualizing myself. Instead of wrapping my weight in shame topped with moral failure, I tell myself my weight is a fact. I weigh 237 pounds. That's a fact. It's not easy to scrape off the emotion, guilt, and societal meaning so thickly applied to weight, but the more I practice, the easier it becomes. As a cold, hard fact, my weight feels clean and light. It takes up less emotional energy. My heart and brain feel tidier. And if tomorrow I weigh 239 pounds, that too is a fact, not evidence of failure, cause for obsessive brooding, or a sin that requires penance.

So, light and factual, I set myself tiny running goals during the race. I'm going to run to there! Okay, now I'll walk. I'm going to run to there! Ooh, I was going to walk, but I think I'll keep going and run to there instead! I did think about my weight. I thought, wow! Look at what 237 pounds can do! And damn, I'm wearing these Target leggings like a boss. And then I just internally roared like a ferocious lion.