Sponsorship
Opportunities
Charities and the
Portland Marathon
Going The Distance
The definitive chronicle of the Portland Marthon
Available in
PDF format
Click here
to download
Note: 23mb
Take our Interactive Course Challenge!
Learning to Walk
From the Sofa to a Marathon in Nine Months
The essays in Sheilagh Conklin's book, Learning To Walk, chronicle the nine months leading up to her participation in the 2006 Portland Marathon. At the onset, a simple walk around the park proved to be too strenuous. Forty-five years old, fifty pounds over weight with no previous athletic experience, Sheilagh had her work cut out for her. But with supportive friends, a common sense attitude, determination, and a sense of humor, she put one foot in front of the other and eventually found herself in Portland, Oregon on October 1, 2006 for the marathon. Her book is inspirational, informative and laugh-out-loud funny.
The Portland Marathon will feature a different excerpt from Learning To Walk each week leading up to the 2008 Portland Marathon with the hope that readers will be entertained and inspired by one very typical woman's experience with marathon training and participation. Sheilagh is registered for the 2008 Portland Marathon and is once again assembling a team of walkers and novice athletes. Her goal: finish in 8 hours. If you would like to join Sheilagh's Team, let her know through her website, www.learningtowalk-book.com
If you like the excerpt, you can purchase the book through her website at www.learningtowalk-book.com. In keeping with the Portland Marathon's tradition of community service and charitable contribution, Sheilagh's efforts were done in support of her chosen charity, The Children's Tumor Foundation and a donation is made with the purchase of each book.
Learning To Walk
By Sheilagh Conklin
Excerpt #14: Excerpt #14: April Progress Report: Sheilagh's Dreidel Diet
April was a month full of change for me. I focused on adding a handful of good habits and eliminating a couple of bad ones. All-in-all, I would say I was quite successful implementing the specific changes I had outlined for myself at the start of the month. I'm disappointed, however, that my incredibly humongous butt doesn't seem to be much smaller, and the scale didn't steadily head south.
Actually, that's not true. The scale did take a huge dive. My ritual is to weigh myself each morning before showering (so as not to add the weight of water in my hair) and after peeing, when I had jettisoned everything from jammies to urine. My daily happiness was dependent upon the high tech digital scale Jon brought home a few months ago. With a clear glass top and sleek design, it had the look of complete competence as it definitively and confidently proclaimed my weight to the half pound in large red numerals. No waffling, no needle bouncing back and forth, no hesitancy whatsoever. Up a half pound, down two, I trusted it with my life. Then, last Monday, I climbed aboard and after only a brief hesitation it boldly told me that I had dropped forty pounds. In twenty-four hours I had plummeted forty pounds. I jumped off, gave it time to rethink its position, then hopped back on. But again it stated my weight with certainty — forty pounds less then the day before. Since I had not lost a limb during the night, I knew the scale was wrong. Which then got me thinking — how many other times had it lied to me? It was like catching someone close to you in a serious breach of trust. It saw me naked every day. How much more intimate could we have been? What else had it lied about? I trusted it, and it betrayed me. This put me in a personal tail spin. Now I don't know what I weighed at the start or what I weigh now. My guess is I'm down about five pounds.
In April I met with my physical therapist, Jamie, a terrific guy who specializes in gait analysis and orthotics. I told him my marathon plans, showed him my shoes, and explained my new knee pain. He gave me two exercises to do to strengthen the muscles that support the knee and knee cap — squats and side stepping up and down the hall with a stretchy band around my ankles. I'm to do these exercises every day. I started great guns, doing them religiously each day, and my knee felt better within 48 hours. After five days of religion, I fell from grace and stopped doing them daily. I need to get back on the band wagon. It would be terrible to limp 26.2 miles with a throbbing knee. Jamie also told me not to get too focused on weight loss. With the amount of exercising I'm doing I'm exchanging fat for heavier muscle. He encouraged me to go by how I feel and not by the scale. How did he know that my scale was the source of my happiness and self-esteem, and it would betray me later in the month?
The good habits I successfully added during April were eating a healthy breakfast, eliminating after dinner snacks most of the time, and engaging in frequent exercise.
First, breakfast. Eat only a healthy breakfast with protein and fiber. I deviated from my Kashi Go Lean Crunch only twice the entire month and had pancakes and low-cal syrup with my youngest son. Digressing only twice out of 30 days is great for me. I'm a donut-and-Cocoa Puffs kind of gal. I also enjoy Sugar Pops and Sugar Smacks. Now they call these cereals Pops and Smacks. They dropped the Sugar. Sugar was considered goodness when I was a kid getting hooked on these products. Now the "sugar" is gone from the name, but they still have that same great taste, not that I will ever enjoy them again, mind you.
No after dinner snacking. This was a hard one but I was successful about 80% of the time. There's room for improvement but still a significant change for the better.
I devoted a lot of energy and time into establishing an exercise habit. It's equivalent to a full-time job. At least it seems that way when you add up all the time spent thinking about exercising, preparing to exercise, driving to exercise, actually exercising, and returning from exercise. It's exhausting. However, out of 30 days, I swam seven times and walked 12 times. 19 days in one month is a new personal record. All swims were a little over a mile each — 72 lengths of the 25 yard pool. I can do that in just under 50 minutes. The walks ranged from 1.5 miles up to 4.2 miles, with ten walks being three miles or more each. I walked 39.6 miles and swam seven miles in April. I know for a fact that's a personal record. I can't believe I walked that far. I don't even like to drive that far.
My goals for May will build upon what I've started. I will try to maintain the habits of eating a healthy breakfast and eliminating after dinner snacks. I need to find another breakfast food because I'm sure to get sick of Kashi Go Lean Crunch soon. I'll keep up with the exercise as the marathon training schedule starts May 7th. I will be walking three times each week, and I'll try to swim between walking days.
In addition, I'll try to add the following new goals in May — do my PT exercises every day, drink eight cups of water every day, and eliminate all fried foods. I'm not sure I buy the water thing, but everybody says to do it, so I guess I'll just take their word for it. It can't hurt, and it might take up space that would be otherwise occupied by crackers or chocolate. I need to address my caloric intake, and I think I'll start with a specific and clear directive: Do not put anything deep fried in your big fat mouth!
Frankly, with all this exercising, I can't believe the fat isn't just falling off, but I'm not exactly following the food pyramid guidelines either. My personal pyramid is turned upside down and shaped more like a dreidel. As I recall, the food pyramid (at least the old one I learned in school) has a broad fruit and veggie base, narrows for the starches, narrows further for proteins and milk products, and has a little tippy top for fats. Sheilagh's dreidel diet has a narrow, almost non-existent fruit/veggie base, widens quickly for starches, stays thick for protein, and has a sizeable fat-based top. I heard "they" (the all-knowing "they" in the Federal Government) have changed the pyramid but I doubt the new one resembles my dreidel. I'm getting concrete proof that my dreidel plan is not supportive of weight loss. Even with exercise, embracing the dreidel food plan is not going to get me where I need to go.
Finally, I need to remember that the other equally important reason I'm doing this marathon is fund raising for the Children's Tumor Foundation. In March and April, 18 friends and family members sent in contributions to the CTF in support of my marathon effort. So far I have raised over $1,900 with donations ranging from $10 to $600. Several folks contributed amounts that I know were significant chunks out of their spending money, and I'm in awe of their generosity and kindness. My goal is $3,500 so I'm over halfway there. With five months to go, I think I'll hit my target.
I love May. It's my favorite month. It will see my 45th birthday and my 15th wedding anniversary. Mothers Day will also be thrown in as will Memorial Day. We're guaranteed more sunny days and lots of blooms in the garden. A big month no matter how you slice it. At 45 I'm half way done with my life. I'm shooting for good health until I'm 90. I don't care what happens after that. After 15 years of marriage I'm at a loss to describe just how terrific Jon is. A better husband could not have been designed for me. I hope he maintains good health until he's 110, then I don't give a shit what happens to him after that either. My tune may change in 2051, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
So, despite my scale's serious breach of trust, I'm looking forward to the beautiful month of May. The adventure is now fully underway.
