Jet to Jetty 10K

I finished.

Which was the plan.

Ran the whole way (except for when I got water). Didn't throw up. Could talk easily at the end.

Paul came with me. He didn't want to wake the kids and then have to supervise them, so they stayed in bed.

The highlight was meeting Glenn of The Running Fat Guy fame. (He's not fat, BTW, but he's not a gaunt-looking guy, either.)

He also sweetly came back after he finished and ran with me and talked for the last half-mile or so.

Glenn writes one of the first running blogs I started to follow. The name drew me in, but I kept reading because he always teaches me something. I enjoy following his training progress as well.

Other notes on the race:

1) I was right. There was indeed no chip timing. I still don't know my time, as I was running this to finish it, and I forgot about finding out my time with all the socializing. I'll find out eventually.

2) I couldn't find my iPod, which meant no music. The lack of electronics did allow for me to dump water on my head, which was a nice tradeoff.

3) The field was different from the first race I ran. It was a considerably smaller race, and it didn't seem to have a lot of walkers or people much slower than me. I finished easily in the middle of the pack in my first race. With this one, I was probably in the bottom 20 percent. But that might be a function of the doubled distance.

I think I enjoyed this one more, with my lowered expectations. I also had a better idea as to how to pace myself.

Being unkind

If you read unkindness to fat people here -- in any way, shape or form -- you are missing the point.

I got on the scale one day in October 2007 and I weighed 248 pounds. I think I got higher, but I never got on the scale to find out. That's not chubby. It's not fat. It's morbidly obese. I was over 200 pounds for a long time. And, even when I was younger and thinner, I felt insecure about my size. I've never been a truly thin woman; I'm not sure I ever will be.

The fact that I started being treated so much better once I lost about 50 pounds, even though I am essentially the same person, is what ultimately prompted me to start the blog.

I was enraged by the difference, by how much friendlier strangers are.

The fact that I was the Other when I was fat makes me go out of my way to be kind to those who might feel their own Other-ness.

At the same time, I won't play down some of the fun things about having lost weight. It's fun to wear smaller clothes, to be able walk in heels, to exercise and enjoy -- rather than dread -- it.

Losing weight wasn't the greatest or most important thing I've ever done, but it has been pretty cool.

At the same time, I really believe that people who want to can do it just as I have, even though it can be challenging. I went through years of desperation myself.

How could I not be sympathetic to others?

More to Love

I started watching this reality show, and then I had to turn it off. I've tried subsequent episodes, just so I know something about the show before I comment -- and those had to go off as well.

It is wrong on so many levels.

To summarize: It's a dating reality show where one large man who says he likes large (oftentimes rather fat) women gets to choose from a whole crop of them, with a typical elimination structure.

For one thing, they picked women with beautiful exteriors, but then they talk to them as though this 300-pound man is doing them a huge favor by considering their heavy selves. I think in addition to being chosen for the show because of their pretty faces, they were chosen because of even less self-respect than the average reality show participant. Many of them have virtually no experience with men. In addition to being heavy and inexperienced, they act incredibly immature as well. Of course, if they didn't act immature, they probably wouldn't have been picked to go on the show.

Of course, I don't tend to watch the dating reality shows anyway. The closest I've come is "The Pick-Up Artist," which wasn't really a dating show as much as a show that taught guys how to manipulate women.

But "More to Love" just rubs me wrong, with its implication that these women can't find a man any other way.

Oh, there's no question women do better with men when they're slimmer. When I was in my early 20s, I used to joke about the "150 pound rule," as I magically did much better with men my age when I was below that line. But I do think a lot of it is attitude. I see plenty of heavy women partnered off.

Rather than giving these poor women anything of value, I think this show is something that'll hold their personal growth back even more.

2 miles

I went much less than usual today, in preparation for Saturday.

I suspect I'll have to be careful about starting off too fast with the race atmosphere. I can rather easily run the 10K distance at my slow speed. I'm not sure how long I can sustain it if I go too fast.

The Smile Experiment

People who know me casually don't believe this, but deep-down I'm pretty shy.

Sometimes I feel it coming back, if only for brief periods. When I get myself in a role (breastfeeding counselor, experienced homeschooling mom, journalist), I'm OK. I can smile and talk and be gracious. I focus on helping other people or getting from them what I need to do my job.

When I feel outside one of those roles, it's more of a challenge. I can get shy with clerks at the store. Or other shy people.

Lately, I've been going out of my way to fight this.

So I've started the Smile Experiment.

I smile at strangers I interact with at the library or the store. Or see in the elevator.

The crucial part of the experiment is that the smiles have to be big and genuine. Teeth must be shown. Eye-crinkling must occur. (If you watch someone you find insincere smile sometimes, you will notice that he or she smiles only with the mouth.)

Why am I doing this? Obviously, it's an attempt to push my comfort level. I also am trying to make someone's day. Not that a smile from me makes someone's day, but I'm trying to put more positive energy into the world that can grow and spread.

It's early on in the experiment so far, but it has been fun. I will have a more detailed report later.

Today's run: I went out there with no timer and no music and did 6.25 easy miles in 75 minutes.

I did get some insight into my tweaked knee. I think I was running on the same uneven surface too much. Today, I went -- get this! -- The Other Direction in my little 1.25-mile loop, and things seemed to go better.

Yesterday's exercise class: A fun homeschooling dad, who has this wonderful happy energy, leads a bunch of us in kinds of exercise I would never do on my own.

I can usually handle, psychologically, whatever he throws at us with little difficulty. Not necessarily the physical things -- but he doesn't push my psychic comfort zones. Yesterday, however, he wanted us to pick each other up. This whole Allowing Someone to Pick Me Up thing is hard for me. I have trouble letting my husband do it, let alone Other Homeschooling Moms.

For Paul, it's like a new party trick. He gets a huge kick out of it. When he first started doing it, I had trouble believing he could. I've figured out he can do it rather easily and have relaxed a little bit -- but I still worry that I'm going to give him a heart attack or something.