Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish by Betsy Schow

Author:Betsy Schow [Schow, Betsy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cedar Fort, Inc.
Published: 2013-01-08T08:00:00+00:00

9

a LITTLE SPARK

of CORRECTION

The finisher medal from the half marathon became my favorite accessory. It wasn’t as pretty as the Park City one, but this one was around my neck and not some picture on the Internet. I didn’t take it off for hours after the race, and then only because I badly needed a shower. I wore it to church the next day. It only clashed a little bit with my dress. People came up to me and asked what on earth I was wearing. I was all too happy to tell them about it.

“Oh, what’s this you ask? I totally forgot I was wearing it. I got it yesterday by running a half marathon. Yes, that’s thirteen point one whole miles. I just love the number thirteen, don’t you?”

Yes, I realize I was terribly obnoxious. I can only ask that you excuse my behavior as finisher’s delirium. The elation from finishing my first race was a thousand times better that any lame old starter’s high. With finishing, you got to pack two punches: the excitement from starting and satisfaction of finishing. If I could bottle this feeling and sell it, I would make millions.

It took a whole week for the giddiness to wear off. I needed more, but the full marathon was another two months away. I couldn’t last that long, and what if, heaven forbid, I didn’t finish that race. After all, it was like running two half marathons in a row. Would this wonderful feeling disappear and take me from Super Betsy back to Dumpy Betsy? No way, I wouldn’t let it. I needed to figure out how to make this feeling last.

It was time for my brain to switch gears again. First I had gone from being a lifelong quitter to making the commitment to never quit. While the no-quitting thing was great and all, it was merely a half measure to keep me from giving up on the things I had to do. It wasn’t good enough anymore; now I wanted to be a finisher. A finisher set out to find new challenges on purpose. The non-quitter just kept doing the things that were required. You may not see much of a distinction between the two, but to me they were miles apart—literally. Thirteen point one miles to be exact.

***

Common sense told me that if I wanted to be a finisher, then I needed to look for something to finish. I could go get a bachelor’s degree. Naw, going to school was a nice long-term goal, but that wasn’t going to help in the immediate future. I could finish that book I’d started, but that would take a long time too. Probably not as long as a four-year degree, but still longer than I wanted to invest right now. I needed something that would take me about a week to complete. I started sifting through the boxes of junk in the guest room, looking for something I’d started that needed to be finished. Around the fourth box, the lightbulb went on in my brain.

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