This would be the time to point out that the only thing I have in common with 35 year-old Christy Marvin of Palmer is that we both have sons named Isaac. I first learned of Christy and our common-Isaac-son-having in this Alaska Dispatch article reporting on a mountain running race that has literally killed people in years past, and in which this mother of three young boys posted up her second first place women's finish this year.
Christy now joins my pregnancy twinsie/skiier Kikkan Randall and rock climber Steph Davis on a short but illustrious list of elite female athletes profiled on this blog to whom I am physically (and in probably many other ways) vastly inferior. (For one thing, Christy seems to be running with both feet off the ground in the pic below)?
I think a Buddhist monk once said it's unhealthy to compare yourself to other peeps. Totes. I tooooooooooootes get that. But it's also unhealthy to suffocate by shoving chocolate chips and partially hydrogenated palm-kernel oil packed like gauze into your nostrils, and that never stopped anyone, right? Sometimes I just get the hankering for a self-spankering, and the outdoors-adventure section of the Alaska Dispatch never fails to deliver a heavy dose of it.
There's something about looking at pictures of the women in this race that really makes me own my truth of wishing swift death upon myself by cookie dough and an embalming of my Nestle Toll House-stuffed corpse with ten gallons of Nutella.
The vision of these competitors in their sports bras, teeny-tiny-itty-bitty-running-bouncing-friendly titties, and sinewy arms also makes me want to IMMEDIATELY call my insurance company and feign a back problem so I can get a pre-authorization to have three cup sizes chopped right off my rack. Because then, obvi, I would be Christy Marvin's mountain running twinsie! Yup. I am one breast reduction and perhaps just a TEENSY bit of flying squirrel/turkey gobble underarm flab away from winning Mount Marathon!
I know, I know. I should stop feeling sorry for myself and join a gym or at least walk up the stairs at work once a week. It's all about baby steps. But I'm not talking about what it's all about. I'm talking about owning my truth, and truth be told, I'd rather thrash violently as the final breaths are stolen from my body by an enormous vat of refined flour, sugar, and butter all mashed up into every orifice of my face which oxygen could ever penetrate. And then I want the funeral home to place me on a cold stone (creamery) slab and replace all of the fluids in my body with Nutella.
So yeah, I am owning my truth. And the truth is the coverage of the women's race up Mount Marathon makes me feel FUCKING TERRIBLE ABOUT MYSELF! But it's okay. With the FDA having just issued a new warning about contracting E-Coli from raw cookie dough, I'm closer to owning my truth than ever before.
All photos: ADN
