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I decide I’m not going to let her down.

I decide I’m not going to let myself down.

I decide I’m not going to keep making excuses.

Nothing’s going to change until I lace up my running shoes, channel the energy generated from haters hating and just freaking do it already.

•   •   •

I’m going to need all my friends behind me here—Ice Cube, Chuck D, LL Cool J, and the whole damn Sugarhill Gang. I put together the greatest old-school hip-hop playlist of all time and then, for the first time in far too long, I cart my big ass downstairs to the treadmill. I’m beginning my training right now. Period.

I start with a brisk warm-up walk while Hambone stares me down, completely confused as to why I’m moving but not actually going anywhere. Eazy-E’s “Gimme That Nutt” plays first, a song that’s so unbelievably filthy and wrong it’s actually funny.

(Sidebar: This is exactly how I feel about
Fifty Shades of Grey
, too. In my opinion, it’s not erotic; it’s
hilarious
.)

“Nutt” is only three minutes long and I feel . . . okay by the end of it. So I press on to De La Soul’s “Me, Myself, and I”
and I’m puffing fairly hard by its finish. I may well be panting and my heart’s beating out of my chest. I think I’ve gone deaf in my left ear, too.

I’m already tired and I feel like quitting. Then I realize that it’s my
mind
telling me that this is difficult, rather than my body.

I have strength.

I have endurance.

I can hump a hundred-pound dresser across a Wisconsin county fairground. I can lift and move twenty pieces of furniture
in the time it takes a window well to burst. I can stand on my feet and paint, buff, and polish for twelve hours straight. And in terms of tapping into my “stored energy,” also known as fat, I could likely power Toledo based on my reserves.

I can do this.

I just have to quiet my inner critic, whom I’ve thus dubbed Lorraine.

Next up on the playlist, I “Fight the Power” with Public Enemy. I always feel like a massive poseur when I listen to this song. What power am
I
fighting against in my suburban-dwelling, college-educated, conservative-news-watching world? The power baked goods hold over me?

To truly relate, the song would have to be rewritten thusly:

Salad was a hero to most/But lettuce never meant shit to me/Straight up tasteless that arugula was/Simple and plain/Motherfuck endive and John Wayne.

I want to send Chuck D a note telling him that I’m so sorry about co-opting his struggles to meet my own purposes. Gina’s friends with him and she promises he’s just happy that I’m paying to download his stuff on iTunes. I hope so.

As I chug along, I hear Lorraine tell me that I’m tired and that I’m destined to fail, that I’ll always be fat, and that I need to just accept it.

Lorraine is a punk-ass bitch.

I’m as warmed up as I’m going to be, so it’s time to start alternating jogging with walking. According to the Couch to 5K app, I’m supposed to alternate sixty seconds of jogging with ninety seconds of walking, and I’m to keep doing this for twenty minutes.

I look to Eazy again for inspiration and I complete my first sixty-second run to “Straight Outta Compton.”

Much to my surprise, I do not die.

Take that, Lorraine.

I run another sixty seconds. Then I run again. Eminem helps, as does Run-DMC, and I find myself changing the lyrics to:

Whose house?/JEN’S HOUSE!

I power through the end of the training session shouting along with LL Cool J about not calling it a comeback, ’cause I been here for years.

Hear that, Lorraine? I BEEN HERE FOR YEARS.

Fueled by spite, I reach my goal.

Turns out the actual act of trying to run wasn’t so terrible. The hard part was getting out of my damn head and finally starting.

I
can
do this.

And I
will
do this.

21.

S
EE
Y
OU IN
H
ELL
, B
ETTY
S
PAGHETTI

I’m surprisingly spry the first morning after running.

If I were starting the Couch to 5K program cold, I imagine I’d be in pain, but between walking the length and breadth of Rome and carrying furniture up and down the stairs, I’m more prepared than I hoped. In trying to build a new business, I’d already set the wheels in motion toward success in fitness and I didn’t even know it.

My first month of training progresses so smoothly that I’ve decided when we run our girls’ trip 5K, I want a medal at the end. We’re not participating in an actual race because there isn’t one where we’re headed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still award ourselves upon completion. As I’m vehemently against “trophy culture” where everyone wins, of course I’ll be eligible for my medal only if I complete the race. I believe when everyone’s guaranteed the same prize regardless of performance, the efforts of those who actually won are discounted.

Of course, if I were someone’s mom and saw my little kid standing there crushed and empty-handed at the end of the game
despite giving her or his best effort, I’d surely be ringing the TROPHIES FOR ALL bell. It’s easy for me to suggest that children have to learn to deal with disappointment when I have nothing at stake, but in practice it’s got to be so damn hard.

Making judgment calls as a mom or dad has to be the toughest job in the world, especially with us childfree types on the sidelines, quietly judging.

I’m so sorry if I’ve inadvertently contributed to anyone else having regrets.

Because, honestly, what do I know about raising kids? I can barely discipline my dogs. (But I do keep my opinions off everyone’s Facebook page, so there’s that.)

Anyway, I’m planning to eat some Yoplait between now and my trip. I’ll use the lids to make medals, like they did on
The
Office
in the Olympics
episode. Should I complete this event, I’d also appreciate if someone were to craft a crown of wildflowers and ivy leaves. I don’t know who or how, but again, I’m putting that out there à la
The Secret
.

Probably won’t happen.

I’d request that the girls carry me on their shoulders like a conquering hero, but I’m still way too heavy and also, I won’t have cured cancer or brought about world peace. But I’ll have done something so outside of my comfort zone that I’ll definitely be proud of myself.

#WINNING

•   •   •

I practice jogging every day, so by the time my girls’ trip rolls around, I feel ready to complete my 5K.

The universe, of course, has other ideas.

Our original plan was to run on the beach but somehow the Savannah-bad-travel-juju rears its head again. What’s supposed to be a relaxing seaside vacay turns into a flea-bitten (literally),
roach-infested (again, literally), stray-dog-ridden, non-toilet-flushing nightmare that is so aggressively unpleasant that my friends and I end up abandoning our group tour three days into it, heading to the nearest big city.

Although we probably could have stayed and tried to make the best of the Worst Tour in Christendom, we decided that we’d have the fewest regrets if we simply charted our own course, which is why we now find ourselves about to run crowded city streets, instead of the beach where we were supposed to be staying on our tour.

Julia, Alyson (a friend from Dallas), and I are all geared up in our moisture-wicking running clothes, with bills stuffed in our sports bras so we can buy bottled water along the way. Joanna, having recently completed her own first 5K, decides to cheer us on from her spot in the café with free Wi-Fi. She and Alex, Julia’s mom, promise to have cappuccinos ready for us on our return.

We take the elevator down from the little apartment we rented on the fly and hit the street. We start out slowly, intending to add speed once we’re properly warmed up. But within the first five minutes, we realize that our goal of running on these old cobblestone streets is not only impossible due to all the pedestrians, but also quite dangerous.

Instead of giving up, we choose to adapt.

In lieu of running a 5K, we end up speed-walking for 10K.

Never saw that coming.

Later in the evening, when Julia places the completion medals around each of our necks, I truly feel like I accomplished something significant. While walking a 10K wasn’t my original goal, without having trained, I could never have powered through.

Never one to allow a triumph to go to waste, I immediately add
walk a 10K to my list,
taking great delight in immediately crossing it off.

Which feels terrific.

And that’s enough for me . . .

. . . or is it?

Once I return home (and after all the flea bites heal), I still feel like there’s something left to check off my list, so I lace up my shoes and head downstairs to the treadmill.

No one’s here in the basement to cheer me on (or offer me a cappuccino) and there’s no prize at the end, but that doesn’t stop me from trying anyway.

I cue up my best hip-hop running playlist and put a muted episode of
Jersey Belle
on the television, so I have something to focus on other than the numbers.

As always, I start off slowly, allowing my muscles the time to warm up. My knees feel better than they have in a long time. I was always so hesitant to work out for fear of injuring them, but it turns out that the more I exercise, the better they feel.

Yesterday when I undressed for my shower, I noticed something odd going on with my butt. It’s . . . a little bit higher than it used to be, and now there’s some distinction from where my thigh ends and my glutes begin. In no way am I ready to pose for a swimsuit calendar, but that I’ve actually worked hard enough to see a difference is incredibly motivating.

As my muscles begin to loosen, I quicken my pace from 2.5 mph to 4.0, which is not terribly fast. At all. In fact, I can speed-walk more quickly than I can jog.

I crank up the speed some more and within the first ten minutes, I’m so hot that my whole shirt is damp and clingy, to the point that I have to take it off. I pray that Fletch doesn’t come
downstairs to see me running in my sports bra because I suspect he’ll never stop laughing.

I chug away for an embarrassingly long time, feet thudding on the moving belt beneath me, heart pounding so hard that I temporarily lose hearing in my left ear again. Maybe it’s all the sweat pooling in my ear canals? I eventually find a rhythm and my task becomes slightly easier.

I have to break up my jogging with frequent bouts of walking to keep myself from hyperventilating. But in the end, I manage to complete the full three point one miles in . . . well, more minutes than you’d think. I’m not about to go posting this Personal Record anywhere because it’s nothing to be proud of.

And yet.

I really did a full 5K, which is why I feel completely justified in donning my medal again.

For I am a champion.

A very,
very
slow champion.

•   •   •

Delighted with my 5K checkmark, I feel ready to embrace all sorts of healthy habits, so I don’t laugh when Fletch suggests a juice cleanse. (Although I do highly suspect he’s been reading the lifestyle magazines I leave in the bathroom.) Gina does cleanses before every bikini-based vacation, and each time, I’ve questioned her sanity. But now a cleanse doesn’t seem like the craziest idea in the world, especially when I hear that some guy made a movie about losing one hundred pounds in sixty days by juicing.

A hundred pounds? In sixty days? Sign. Me. Up.

“How does a cleanse work?” I ask. “Do we buy premade juices?” Every time Gina’s on a cleanse, she shows up with cute little bottles of clever-sounding drinks.

“Of course not. Why would we buy anything when we can do it ourselves so much better?” Fletch asks, handing over a stack
of diagrams and recipes. “We’ll do it at home. We make five juices a day and we can eat fruits and vegetables for dinner.”

Two months ago, I wouldn’t even have considered such an idea due to my deep and abiding love of dessert. When I started the 5K training program, I noticed how much more energy I had on the days I avoided simple carbohydrates, so I decided to cut out sugar entirely to see what happened.