A Fathelete Hopes She Dances...But Don't Try To Lift Her

...because she's too heavy to lift, apparently.

As Liz Lemon would say, Blurg.

 

I'm being melodramatic here, but when I started practicing my swing dancing for this upcoming "Dancing For The Stars" situation at the Kravis Center next month, I had hopes that I would lose tons of weight, like all those already skinny girls on "Dancing With The Stars." I was also hoping, as most little girls do, that I would make my dancing debut all girly and spinny, and get lifted up like a princess, or at least like Baby in "Dirty Dancing."

While I am not in the least bit skinny (nor do I want to be), I have knocked some inches off the old waist, making my big old butt stand out more, like a shorter, stouter JLo (I like this). But apparently, it's not enough inches or pounds to make me small enough for my partner, the fabulous Armando, to lift me without hurting his back.

I did not have the time of my life, I tell you that.

In all fairness, he's not a big guy, and we probably weigh the same.  The routine looks amazing, so far, even without the lift. It's just that no woman wants to hear that she's not tiny and graceful enough to be lifted like a figure skater. Everyone wants to be feminine, to be girly. And even though the physics bear this out - I am, at this point, about 160-something pounds of mostly muscle, plus a bunch of butt and chesticles, and Armando is about 5"8 and weighs about the same - it's still disappointing. Hilarious, in a morbid way, because I feel awesome. But no one wants to be the hippo in "Fantasia" flipping the skinny alligator around. No one wants to be the fat girl.

And yes, I am not fat. My friend Lauren has promised to give me a quarter every time I think this so I'll shut up about it.

But, you know...Hippos.

It's gonna look awesome, anyway. 

A Fathlete Fights The Orthotics...

...and so far, those suckers are winning.

I bought these Power Step thingees for the first time months ago, and every successive pair has been a disaster. The first pair worked beautifully - I pronate or, as we say on the streets, walk funny, so they lifted my arches and made me happy. But the last pair was too short, causing icky bumped toes hanging off the pad. My toes looked like they'd been in the woodchipper with Steve Buscemi after my relay portion of the Marathon of the Palm Beaches. 

Now the new pair I bought big and attempted to cut them down. They worked OK for the Race For The Cure, but badly hurt my arches in my next run. Dr. Chris Fox , my running guru, is gonna take a look at them tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. I have a race Saturday morning, and I would like an equal chance at sucking less.

A Fathlete Races For A Cure, and For Pat!

It has been my goal since returning to running last year to get my 5K times back under 30 minutes, or at least run faster than a 10 minute mile pace. I am happy to report that at Saturday's Race For The Cure in beautiful relatively freezing Downtown West Palm Beach, my official time was 31:01 minutes, which isn't under 30 minutes but is, and this is important to my petty record-keeping mind - a 29:57 pace.

Yes, that rounds up to 30. But not quite. And I'll take it.

Of course the most important thin was the thousands of people who rolled out in the relative freezing cold to run for their mothers, their sisters, their aunts and grandmothers. I ran for my cousin, the beautiful and talented Pat, who is having breast cancer surgery this week, and who I love very, very much. That's more important than a few tenths of a second. But I can't wait to show her the photo of me holding up her name. I look really bad in that picture. But that's really not the point.