(I think) the most important legacy for your child

Sunday, January 23, 2011, was the 7th anniversary of my mom's death.  She found out she had esophageal cancer, 3 weeks later I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd (and last) child.  Nine months later I gave birth to my son, and a month later my mom died.  The first few years were rough, to say the least.  The sadness, mind-numbing exhaustion and moving from one necessary task to the next as I struggled to deal with an infant who seemed to be constantly either on the brink of screaming or just flat-out screaming, while my three-year-old endured a year-and-a-half-long bout of withholding her bowel movements.  As I look back on that time I have a hard time distinguishing between emotions resulting from my mother's untimely death, and those caused by struggling with being a very lonely new mother of two.  My husband was constantly traveling, I had no family nearby, and I still hadn't formed any meaningful friendships in my insular Connecticut town.

I thought of this a little bit on Sunday.  We were in the Washington, DC area, visiting my in-laws.  We used to live there (it's where Bill and I met), and in many ways it feels like home to me.  We have many friends there and I always felt welcome, from the first day I arrived there back in 1993, I think.  DC is smaller and more manageable than NYC, and full of transients and transplants from all over the world.  The perfect place for a TCK like me.

I toyed between going to church or going for a run on the morning of the anniversary - what would make me feel closer to my mom, what would be more meaningful for me/her?  I decided to join a friend, Jeff Horowitz, for a run.  My parents had always been very active as my sister and I were growing up (in fact, my dad, now age 70, is preparing for the Myrtle Beach marathon - his 25th?).  My mom grew up dancing ballet and I don't remember a single day that she didn't do aerobics or at least some stretching routine.  Even on vacation.

Sunday's run ended up being with a group of a dozen or so people, who met at the Lululemon store in Georgetown (FABULOUS workout clothes, by the way!!).  Jeff led us through some functional warm-up exercises (he's a personal trainer & running coach, author, ultra runner, etc.) and then we all headed out into the 17 degree air and ran over to the National Mall and then back for a series of hill repeats.

When I wasn't chatting, I was thinking about what I consider to be one of the most important legacies my mom left me.  I love training.  I love being active.  I remember even in my party 20s, when out on the town, if a bar or club didn't have dancing, pool, or at the very least darts, I wasn't interested in it.  It's not that chatting doesn't interest me - I love an intense conversation - it's just that I found most conversations didn't satisfy me the way that expressing myself physically, or in competition, did.  Even today, when I was reflecting on some of my friends who are involved in several Bible study groups or the like, I noticed how at least at this point in my life that is not exactly calling me.  However, if I think of a line from Scripture or a philosophical statement, and mull it over while snowshoeing across a beautiful, isolated golf course, or while running by the Lincoln Monument, or riding the ski lift up with my snowboard dangling, gazing out at the beautiful white landscape down below - this to me is a much deeper connection with God.  As is every time I practice yoga and focus on nothing but my breath, and the gratitude I feel for my health and strength.  It's what I call a sensory spiritual experience, as I exuberantly engage my 5 senses.

Growing up, I never considered myself an athlete.  I grew up in Mexico City and I don't ever recall it being as crazy as things are today surrounding athletics.  My sister and I went to ballet once or twice a week and on weekends our family would go to the Club France, which was really a swim & tennis club.  We dabbled in tennis, splashed around a lot in the pool, seeing who could do the most creative dive or jump off the highest diving board, and my dad and I would play in badminton tournaments.  My dad would also take us roller skating and I remember flying recklessly downhill in the UNAM university stadium parking lot (no helmet).  Eventually the Skate Inn skating rink was built near our house and that became our favorite place to go every weekend evening after the Club France, especially once my sister and I won free memberships.

We never really participated in organized sports.  I had a brief stint on the softball team, I think when I was a freshman.  I ran on the high school track team for 2 weeks and while the nickname I was given "Tortuga" (turtle) was a little annoying, it wasn't the reason I quit.  I'd only joined because I wanted to participate in a specific tournament that I'd heard was loads of fun, where there was a water park.  Meanwhile, my dad was racking up his marathons.  He was the first Brit to run the Mexico City Marathon, earning him a feature in the local paper.  He did New York several times.

It wasn't until college that I committed to anything athletic.  I rowed crew my freshman year at Rutgers, because I'd seen the movie Oxford Blues with Rob Lowe and thought it looked fun and the rowers cute.  Living in a freshman dorm, with a bunch of students who after years of midnight curfews and strict rules re: alcohol & sex were now liberated from parental law and on a collective rampage, didn't bode well with my 5:30am roll call at the boathouse.   Severely sleep-deprived, and not feeling like I fit in with the crew creed to Live, Eat, Breathe & Date Crew - I quit after one semester.  I decide collegiate sports were too myopic and intense for me, so I'd try intramural sports.  I played in the intramural badminton league. I joined the Rutgers Ultimate Frisbee club, since I figured that my 3 weeks in San Diego as a high school freshman had taught me all I needed to know about throwing a frisbee.  I think we were 3 females but that didn't faze me.  After college I heard there was such a thing as 10k's on rollerblades and thought, cool!  I competed in my first in Central Park (New York) and I was hooked.  Speed, competition, not exactly a mainstream sport, and surprisingly, always a top 3 finish in my age group (non-elite).  And I never trained.  I'd taken to skating to class now and then in college, and I did workout to try and shake the 20+ lbs I'd gained in college (they shook alright, and wiggled, but didn't melt away till a few years later).

Fast forward to now.  After each baby I turned to running, and between that and breastfeeding, quickly dropped the weight.  I used to HATE running.  I'd run a mile or two and call it a day.  I'd only run if my boyfriend du jour was into running and would drag me along.  Then when I moved to DC and a coworker convinced me to run at lunch with her, my dread turned to anticipation.  Running round the monuments of such a historical, optimistically-built city, in the midst of all kinds of military boys with their dog-tags hitting their bare, muscular chests as their feet pounded the ground along the Potomac River... Let me tell you, I became a runner!  To this day, the love of running has stayed with me.  Sure, sometimes (often) the temptation to skip a day, or shorten the workout, is there.  But somehow I (usually) push through it, and inevitably I'm glad I did.  And I have my parents to thank for that.

Our country is in the midst of an obesity epidemic, with children suffering the most from it.  There are so many reasons for it: few opportunities to exercise during the school day; unhealthy food choices at school and at home; over-medication; lack of opportunities to walk instead of climb into the minivan; too much screen time; not enough unstructured play... The list goes on and on.  I can't change the world today, but I do believe I can influence enough women to take charge of their health the way my mom did.

Next week my Active Women's Club begins, where I will train a group of women to transition from walking to running, to run their first 5k or 10k, or to train smarter by incorporating yoga & functional strength training into their workout regimen.  Especially since becoming an Ironman athlete, many women have said, "I could NEVER do that.  I'm sooooooo unathletic."  I've been thinking about that statement constantly, and when I ran on Sunday, the anniversary, I thought about how sad it is that so many people think of themselves that way.  When I was starting up my local Ultimate Frisbee Club and I approached a few friends to try it out, that was their reply.  "I'm not athletic."  But to me that's as false as someone saying, "I'm not creative."  Like creativity, we were all born athletic.  Granted, only a small fraction were born with the drive to be Olympic athletes, but that's not what I'm talking about here.  There is no physical reason why someone is not athletic.  Look at Kyle Maynard, who has no arms or legs, and is a great wrestler.  Fortunately, my "unathletic" friends agreed to try out ultimate and now they are zipping round the field, catching and throwing the disc in a way that even surprises them.

I often roll my eyes at kids' athletics today.  It's too intense, too adult-driven, and kids as young as 7 or 8 have to try out for teams.  God forbid they make it, then mom can forget her own life and dad can kiss his golf game good-bye.  And for what?  Sure, you'll have your Mia Hamms here and there, but the majority of kids will get to middle school and if they aren't Wayne Gretsky or Mia Hamm, they'll decide they're unathletic.  My own kids are not exactly athletically gifted in the traditional sense.  Compared to their peers, they're pretty mediocre.  But I see that as an advantage.  As long as they don't become discouraged, and they continue to Just Have Fun, my hope is that we are creating life-long athletes.

 The Race to Nowhere, which I unfortunately have yet to see, examines the way in which our super-driven society pushes so many kids over the brink - in terms of academics.  I'll bet the depression and all those other issues they list as consequences of the pressure kids feel today, are at least in part because of the fact our kids rarely get the opportunity to play just for the fun of it.  Almost all sports today (even cheerleading) require an enormous level of commitment, both financial and in terms of time.  So dammit, if I have to spend $500 for you to play hockey, little Jenny, you're not missing any practices, we're dragging our butts to the rink at 5am on Saturday, and driving all over the state for your games!  (And Jenny is only 9).  I can understand the urge to embrace the intensity.  It's rare that you can just sign up little Jenny for something that's a bit of carefree fun, where she and her friends can figure out the rules for themselves and make do with crappy equipment.  Everything these days has to be high tech, special uniforms, even the snacks are a formal affair.  It doesn't help that Play it Again Sports went out of business so we've got to rely on eBay and Craigslist for used equipment and pay more for shipping than the darn thing's worth.  No wonder parents so often make their kids' athletics their own life.  No wonder so few parents today make the time to workout.  And no wonder so many little Jennies burn out.  And when they label themselves as "unathletic," people and children are missing out on a human need to MOVE.

I believe that the most important ingredients of a good life foundation, that I can instill in my children, include the following: to love to read; to know how to swim well; to always do what they love; to never rely on others for happiness; to avoid herd mentality; to take charge of their health by making wise food choices and exercising daily.  I used to begrudge my parents for not pushing us more.  But now as I look around, I realize I will always be thankful to my parents for never pressuring us to succeed, instead for just letting us be.  I just hope I can do the same with my kids.