9:04

I love this look. Belinda Carlisle looks like she’d be accompanied by a percussive soundtrack when she crossed the room: Ba-BOOM. Ba-BOOM.

Today, I’ve recreated it as faithfully as I can with my figure and clothes from Target and DSW. I’m delighted to say I’m wearing a size 10 high-waisted, black pencil skirt; a short-sleeved, scoopneck black sweater with white eyelet trim; and these shoes:

But beyond the superficial… Dave and I did a 1-mile run for time today.

The last time I did a time trial was in 1999, when I was training for the Wildflower Triathlon, widely recognized as a half-Ironman that’s so tough, if you can complete it, you can probably finish one of the “easy” Ironman races. Ahem. Not sure that an easy Ironman exists, but I appreciate the nod to the difficulty of the Wildflower. For the record, I finished the race in the neighborhood of 9 hours — but that’s a long story for another time.

This story is about my dingdong, skinny ass, self-absorbed “mentor” from Team in Training.** As part of our training schedule, we had a group workout at a track in San Francisco. I had zero history with running tracks, and I was feeling less-than-confident about the task before me: run two miles for time.

The run was hard — tough emotionally and physically. I hadn’t yet begun to think of myself as an athlete. In my mind, I was still fat, slow, and sure to be the butt of jokes as soon as anyone saw me on the track. But I did it anyway. (Never cheat. Never quit.) And I finished without bringing shame on myself or my family name.

Miss Thang (Who can remember her name now? Who cares to?) asked me my time, and when I told her I’d done 11-minute miles, she laughed.

Laughed.

Bitch.

Today, I completed a nice, comfy one mile in 9:04.

I’m laughing now.

**NOTE: My Team in Training mentor was clearly a dingbat and is not representative of Team in Training. That organization is AWESOME, and I would definitely do another triathlon or other event with them in the future. I met fun people who were also training for the biggest sporty thing they’d ever done in their lives, and I finished the race without collapsing. Goodness all around.