Athlete - Work Horse or Race Horse?

Webster’s Dictionary defines an Athlete as:

“a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina”

I have never been an athlete. Truth be told, I always wanted to be one. I am no stranger to watching the Olympics and wondering in awe at the spectacular feats these humans place on their bodies. Growing up my mom and I would watch gymnastics and figure skating and I remember as a child thinking, if only I could breathe I could do that.

I have exercised and allergy induced asthma, which means running a short distance may or may not happen depending on how “short” that distance is and coupled with outside allergens and weather, I might just wheeze myself into a full blown asthma attack. That definition right there pretty much knocks out the whole athlete thing in a hurry.

Well, that isn’t the only thing that held me back, there was also laziness and chunkiness. I am not what you would call skinny or thin, as my husband tells me (and I have come to accept) I am “solid”. That is not a derogatory comment, it is simply fact. I have good sized shoulders for a woman, I will never be a size 2 and I will always have thighs that exist without a “gap”, flabby or fit.

So my life went on and I stayed pretty inactive. I was never fat when I lived at home because my mom fed us very well and I still walked a lot or biked around the neighborhood. However, I did have that awesome nerdy inhaler (and glasses) and an excuse from heavy loads of exercise in P.E. so I never played a sport or challenged myself, I just accepted my fate and steadily gained weight.

Then one day, my life changed, I lost my mom to ALS and from that tragedy, I found a silver lining, which was always my mom’s rule in any bad situation. I realized that I was wasting a gift from God, I was wasting the ability to be healthy.

I have all the tools necessary to be fit and I was allowing one hindrance to keep me from being an athlete. I made a choice to get moving and loose weight and be healthy for the first time in my life and I became a gym rat. I know this sounds really odd, but I always wanted to be one. I wanted to be that girl that said things like “Oh, I can’t tonight, I have a date with my trainer” because to me, being fit was always out of reach, it was something that I couldn’t have or do.

I lost the weight. I went from a size 12 to a size 6 and I still felt fat. I was doing the right things but I still had some hurdles to overcome. Sadly, I didn’t have the determination or the guidance to do so.

Long story short, I fell off the wagon and got fat all over again and the weight came on worse this time. I lost all my muscle tone (looking back, it wasn't much) and just turned into a hot flabby, depressed mess. My dreams of being an athlete were smothered in chocolate, dark chocolate.

Then something amazing happened, my husband finally got through to me. Instead of becoming violently angry and self loathing when my pants didn't fit, I went to the gym. When that started to show some signs of progression, I reevaluated our diets. I had to apply myself in the kitchen just as much as I had to apply myself at the gym. Once I was secure in the first leg of my journey, I started lifting. Lifting is what changed everything for me. My “solid” frame now had a purpose and I couldn’t believe how good it felt to put on muscle!

We started off moderate and easy on the machines at the gym and then slowly progressed into the free weights. My husband was patient and understanding and guided me through the meat head section, to the squat rack and dumb bells. He trained me and corrected my form and gave me the confidence that I could do it with or without him there.

That’s where my athletic journey finally started. It wasn’t when I was doing cardio seven nights a week, it wasn’t when I was doing assisted weights on the machines and it wasn’t when I was doing interval training. My journey started when I believed I could do it.

I am still not an athlete in my head, I think that is a title you earn. I am working towards it in every work out, rest day and foam rolling session I participate in. I don’t want to be “the best” I want to be the best version of myself. I will never be able to do a marathon and that is okay because I have accepted that I am not a race horse, I am a work horse.

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