It's All About the (F)un

I got my fat ass off the couch and started training for triathlons in 2008 after 27 years of little athleticism in the traditional sense. I didn't swim, bike, or run, and I rather hated the idea of sports. In high school, people I knew who participated in sports seemed so serious, intense, and anti-fun.

In middle school I played basketball (not well) and tried cross country and track for a few weeks but got attacked by bees during practice and was regularly trounced at events, so after 8th grade I turned my back on sports. I joined drama club and choir and found friends who didn't like sports either.

The one exception to my no-sports rule was skiing. In high school and college, I loved skiing and being in the mountains, even if the mountains were often smallish hills in New York's Finger Lakes region, and even if one of my favorite reasons to go skiing was to smoke on the ski lift and party after a day on the slopes.

Alaina and I especially loved glade skiing -- through the trees -- on our trips to the northeast, to gems like Jay Peak and Mad River Glen. There was no greater experience than being knee deep in untouched powder, feeling totally alone, and finding the quiet of pines in unreal beauty. This was my idea of fun.

For me, skiing wasn't a sport. It was a lifestyle, albeit one I participated in irregularly and not incredibly well. But it couldn't be a sport to me, because it was so much fun and I didn't have to play by anyone else's rules.

I chose my line, my trail, my jump. No coach hollered at me, and my friends celebrated my small victories, like landing a dropoff, as often as I celebrated their daffies. Of course there was competition between friends, and we all knew where we ranked as skiers, but no one won and no one lost.

One thing I learned from skiing is that above all, athletics should be fun.

After college, I landed a demanding job teaching high school English, and I got fat and we lived far from ski mountains in San Diego. Even though I surfed, played a couple hours of beach volleyball some weekends, and mountain biked once a week, I hadn't found a substitute for skiing (didn't help that I have an intense fear of sharks).

Then we moved to Michigan and I hated it. To me, the state was cold, dark, flat, and even farther from decent mountains. I was fatter than ever and looking to change my career, my attitude, and my lifestyle.

So in May of 2008, I signed up for my first triathlon, a sprint distance in June. Hey, if Alaina could do this stuff then so could I. Who cares if I can't swim, don't own a bike, and can't run? It's better than getting even fatter.

The race went as expected: I panicked in the open water, biked as hard as I could and still got crushed, and walked the hills on the run. But the seed was planted. Sure, I had to follow rules and I was leery of the competitive aspect of it, but I was back outdoors, pushing myself toward my own goals, and for the first time, celebrating a lifestyle of fitness.

Triathlon became really fun once I lost 50 pounds and picked up enough speed to keep up with Alaina and my training buddies. Learning to swim gave me self-confidence, as did overcoming panic in the open water. I got comfortable on the bike and loved the feeling of riding at 20+ mph on my own power over hills and through the countryside. But the run was where I felt joy like I had when I was skiing.

I loved getting lost in my head while running on rolling country roads and feeling the runner's high when running fast on flat terrain. I started adding trail running in the woods to my training, and when my legs felt good I was having as much fun on dirty single track as I had in the powdery glades.

By the end of 2011, I'd finished an Ironman, a dozen half-Ironman races, and a bunch of Olympic and Sprint distance triathlons, in addition to running Boston-qualifying marathon times and completing shorter running races. But the tri fun was dying after 3 years of going to the boring pool and fearing for my life on the bike with all the angry drivers. All I wanted to do was run trails.

In November, I decided 2012 would be the year for ultrarunning. I signed up for Leadville Trail 100 Run spontaneously and started trail running every day. The fun had returned, and with it, a new sense of adventure, for I was discovering the extensive local Ann Arbor trail system and I was exploring the woods as I had loved to do when we were glade skiing.

Gone was the fear of being hit by a car as well as the dread of going to the pool. The vibe at trail races was so much more mellow and the people spoke often about their love for the woods, the adventure, and the excitement of taking on a 50 or 60 or 100 mile distance all on foot, when you never know what is going to happen to your body and mind over that time, terrain and distance.

I know that more trail running adventures are ahead in 2013 (and maybe beyond), but more importantly, this year I've realized once again that when it comes to sport, it's all about the (F)un.