I was called athletic today.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love being called that. Tickles the hell out of me. But I really don’t see myself that way. Yeah, yeah, I know, what else does being an athlete require but spending some time on a sport on a regular basis?
I’ve mused on this before, but I still haven’t internalized the idea that I wanted to — that being an athlete merely requires something physical you love and do on a relatively frequent basis. I mean, I just swam over a mile today!
Am I a great athlete? No. Am I even a fast swimmer? Hell, no!
I think part of it is that I do sometimes slog through a swim. Goodness knows I did today. I was constantly telling myself, “C’mon. You decided to put in a 2,000 today. Just keep doing it. You’ve got one more length in you.” This was not one of those glorious swims where I feel like a god. (Though I like those a lot better).
Now, a lot of why I’m doing the 50 mile swim is because I’ll get a t-shirt at the end of it that I intend to wear when I’m working the front desk at the gym. So very often women built like me are scared to come to the gym. They’re scared their goals won’t be listened to. They’re scared of being judged. The gym I go to is about getting moving on a regular basis and not about getting down to 12% body fat, but there are gyms that feel otherwise about it, and goodness knows that can put someone off.
Although maybe I’ll be taking away hope when I prove that exercise doesn’t automagically make you skinny. Who knows?