I Dare You

To say I'm competitive is an extreme understatement. As one of seven children, it's no wonder. We always competed...for the last serving of dinner, for our parents' attention, for the best spot in the car. When you are one of so many, you HAD TO fight for your position. To be the first to do anything was like finding the Holy Grail, and we climbed and scraped our way through many a situation to earn our standing amongst the crowd.

To this day, all it takes to make me rise up to a battle is for someone to either tell me I cannot or shouldn't do (insert task here) or to brag that they DID do (insert task here). Heck, even the first kiss with my now husband was based on a dare! We were goofing around, and he told me if I kept it up, he'd kiss me -- thinking it would make me stop whatever it was I was doing to annoy him. Little did he know he was setting himself up for a lifetime of fun...

My freshman year at college, I had a somewhat less than stellar first showing. I'd always earned pretty good grades, skating through high school on minimal effort and staying out of trouble. But at school, away, all on my own, and somehow enrolled in CALCULUS?? I actually failed my first semester. My GPA was...well...1.6. That earned me a big fat "P" on my transcript: PROBATION. Seeing that, and knowing how precious every dollar was spent toward earning that, my father laid it out in plain English at Christmas break.

"You need to come back and live at home and go to Oakland University. You obviously can't keep up there."

COME BACK HOME? Leave U of M for OAKLAND??? He must have been INSANE...no one leaves a Big 10 school for a local university to LIVE AT HOME and share a room with her sister, much less be under the watchful eye of the Big Sicilian. Oh, no, mister...that's all I needed to knuckle down and do better. I'm sure now, looking back, that he did it KNOWING I'd push back against his edict, just to prove him wrong. And I did...not immediately and not drastically, though I did four-point my final two years.

Of course, I had to get through the college boyfriend transferring to U of M and taking classes together, and the inevitable break-up with said boyfriend a few years later. Then my father died suddenly, and I decided many days that simply getting out of bed was asking too much. My grades during those years clearly reflected those occurrences.

Sometimes, the challenge I claim is trivial and means nothing to anyone but me. Many times it focuses on some physical feat I determine must be overcome to prove a point. My daughters' swim coach used to say, " Swim in your own lane!" meaning, "Compete with yourself." That sums me up to a T. I'll hear someone say, "Wow, I just rode X miles on my bike!" so I'll go out and ride X +1 to see if I can. Then I'll do it again but try for a faster time. Or I'll try to do it on a tougher course...anything it takes to "take it up a notch."

That reasoning has led me to do lots of silly things over the years. Told to take it easy during pregnancy meant laughing at concerned warnings from friends. I painted bedrooms even though a co-worker told me not to raise my arms over my head. I shoveled rocks at 38 weeks pregnant because I refused to sit and be a blob or wait for someone else to do it. Granted, I broke my water that night a delivered two weeks early...oops. But two weeks LATER after my post-surgical check-up, I was on my bike riding around the neighborhood because technically I COULD.

I never learn.

When I turned 40, I decided I had to run a mile. I'd had bouts with jogging attempts over the years, but nothing serious and not for any measurable duration. Then I determined that to be a REAL runner, I had to finish a 5K. I started taking our black Lab Truman with me, and we accomplished a mile in fairly short order. I was well on my way to two miles when I developed what I thought was a sore knee. It hadn't occurred to me that at my age, with bad shoes and a dog dragging me along on concrete, I might do some serious damage.

Turns out it was actually a fractured femur starting to splinter off into two other directions. But before we figured that out, I hadn't stopped running because I had to keep competing with that worthy adversary...MYSELF! I'd also trekked through an airport on that leg, climbed flights of stairs daily at school, and chaperoned a trip to our state's capitol. Finally, after x-rays, two MRI's and a frantic phone call from the doctor telling me to GET OFF THAT LEG, I was told to cool it on the training. Two weeks on crutches and stern warnings cured me of running for five years...

Once hobbled, I decided to tackle swimming next. The girls were on the swim team and complaining MIGHTILY about how many laps they had to do each day. No problem, I told them...tell me how many, an I'll do the same in solidarity. "You'll never make it!" they laughed. That's all it took to force me to call their bluff.

Holy crap...it was A LOT of laps...but if they could do it, I had to. I started with two laps...then four...then ten. Slowly I built up to a mile by the end of that summer and repeated it for the next two summers just to see if I still could.
Last summer, I finally scheduled a surgery I'd put off longer than necessary. For years, a female issue had plagued me, and I'd finally reached my breaking point. After the first few horrific days at Camp Beaumont (where I was humbled by pain and the extensive nature of the surgery), I was allowed to walk "small distances" but NOTHING ELSE. PSHAW! In the hospital, I'd been doing wall push-ups in the shower (where I couldn't get caught), and then started a strict walking program at home. I'd time myself and measure my distance using a program on my iPhone, and then beat each previous day's efforts. At my two-week check-up, I proudly shared my progress and asked for clearance for swimming, biking, tennis...all denied. And I was soundly reprimanded for the walking regimen.

That obviously made me up the challenge...didn't that doctor know who she was dealing with??? By fall, I was walking my typical three miles and had even worked my thrice sliced and decimated core muscles up to a full minute in plank.
The latest accomplishment has been to revisit that 5K dream. I'd toyed with it a few times over the past five years, only to give in to temporary issues like shin splints, excess weight or laziness. But it never left me, that desire to reach the elusive milestone. I'd see other friends, neighbors or random strangers doing the same...some much older, heavier, riddled with health issues. Surely I COULD do it. I even dreamed of running...vivid dreams where I'd run great lengths for no reason. So in March I looked up the Cool Running Couch to 5K program once again, and hit the treadmill.

By the end of June, I'd run my first REAL 5K, but only after a trial attempt alone on a local track. I had to do it for myself before I did it in front of others...and then when I ran the public race, I had to beat my solo time.

I never know what the next challenge will be. And sometimes I'll think about it for years before diving in and conquering it. Other times, it's a random statement from someone else that throws the proverbial gauntlet down at my feet. That person may never know what they've forced me to do! But if you are reading this now, you have a powerful secret to get me to try something.

Just don't dare me. I might not be able to help myself.