The D Team

When I was in elementary school, we had Track Day every spring. In the weeks prior, our PE teacher would divide us up into groups for the relay race, i.e. the crown jewel event that did its best to show off the most athletically-inclined kids...and the ones who, uh, weren't. There was the A Team: kids who could run a mile in under six minutes, kids who were lean and quick and would later go on to be basketball stars, quarterbacks, and track phenoms. These were the kids who didn't even have to try in PE class; their genes were just that awesome. There was the B Team--slightly less-genetically blessed kids, but who could still hold their own in a fifty yard dash. These were the kids who would still play sports, but instead of their name in lights, they'd end up with a decent scholarship to a local state school.

Then came the C and D Teams, i.e. The Islands of Misfit Athletically-Challenged Kids. I came to know the C/D Teams well, having spent all six years of my elementary school career being their champion. Having grown up in a small town, I had the same faces in my group year after year; I wasn't a fat kid like my friend David, but I was slow, and by fourth grade the two of us became resigned  to the fact that we'd never be A/B Team material. We'd run against other C/D Teams, sometimes winning, but most of the time coming in last place, or next to last. I didn't really care; I was a bookworm, so what did I care if I couldn't win a relay race?

But there was always that element of humiliation when our PE teacher called out your team placement, even when I inevitably knew my fate long before she ever said my name. I wasn't fast, and everyone knew I wasn't fast. I was D Team material.

I was a lifelong turtle.

Fast forward twenty years or so. In an effort to get healthy, my husband and I started going to the boot camp at our local gym. I avoided the treadmill like plague--like I wanted people watching me flop around and run! Right. I stuck to the elliptical machines and stair climbers and pretended all the treadmills in my gym were broken and/or covered in a deadly virus.

But I wasn't losing any weight! My cardio wasn't improving like it should have, and that's when my trainer said to me as I sobbed in the locker room over my impending doom and wretched fitness, "You need to get on that treadmill. You need to start running."

Cue more sobbing.

And yet...something clicked in my head. I climbed on the treadmill the following day, took a deep breath, and just...ran. Well, walked, really. Walked-jogged. Jogged-walked. I felt awkward and dumb and like the whole gym was staring at me. But I kept going for twenty minutes.

The crazy thing is, I liked it. I felt good after I finished. So I went back the next day and did it all over again. I had a business conference in San Diego the following week; I staked out the treadmill at the resort gym and ran every day. Pretty soon I was able to go two miles without walking.

A turtle enjoying running? Madness, you say. But it's all true. This turtle starting going out and buying running shorts and water belts and subscribing to Runner's World. I bought my first pair of running shoes over $100. I learned what a "PR" was.

I didn't run my first 5k until the following fall. It was sponsored by the local Humane Society, and runners got to participate with their dogs. It's hard to be nervous when a dozen or so Golden Retrievers are smiling at you like you're the shit. The course was ridiculously hilly; I ran the first mile like a bat out of hell. Naturally, I promptly ran out of gas the second mile. My final time was somewhere around 46:00.

I was ecstatic, because I had completed a 5k. 


Since then, I've ran seven 5ks. My best time was this past Thanksgiving at the Pilgrim Run in Kansas City, where I broke 40:00.

This past fall, I got the crazy idea to try a half marathon. My husband, who has become an avid cyclist in the midst of my running craziness, did the Tour de BBQ in Kansas City last October. It's a 65 mile bike race, and he completed 62 of those miles (he blew a tire and was unable to repair it). A few days after the race, he looked at me and said, "If I can fucking bike 62 miles, you can do a half marathon."

So in December I signed up for the Rock the Parkway Half Marathon. I've been training since the beginning of January, averaging 20 miles a week. My average mile time is around 13.50.

I train on a trail, along with dozens and dozens of other runners. I joke that I only pass walkers; guys twice my age blow past me on a constant basis, barely breaking a sweat and probably listening to a David Sedaris audiobook on their iPod.

Last week, I saw my first turtle on the trail. He was sitting on the sidelines, his neck outstretched, not afraid of a damn thing. He looked me straight in the eyes and didn't flinch when I ran by. He probably got passed by a gazillion runners and cyclists that day, but he didn't care. He was a turtle, he was there, and he wasn't going anywhere.

I thought, That's me. And I'm okay with that.


I started this blog to help other turtles who are coping with the realization that they are now, in fact, runners. I'm not out to give expert advice or anything, because hey, I'm still a newbie. But if you were a kid on the D Team and are getting a second chance at A Team status, let's commiserate. Let's be turtles who don't give a shit what people think, and just go run.