Running more than 190 miles in the mountains of northern Georgia over two days with 11 other women (plus two more female navigators and two male drivers) leaves a lot of time for thinking (and questioning your sanity). While I owned only 23 of those miles myself, I reached a lot of conclusions during a beautiful, Fall weekend, a midnight run with coyotes and 36 hours in a van with my new best friends.
First, I am not alone. My experiences, while uniquely mine, are not all that different from the women running beside me. Chances are we are both suffering from mother-induced attention deficit disorder (MADD). This malady tends to strike mothers around the time their babies start walking and they are forced to begin multi-tasking like nobody’s business. It is no longer just enough to cook dinner. This simple task now requires stirring boiling pots with one hand while keeping young toddlers away from the hot stove with the right foot and at the same time paying rapt attention as the spouse recounts a terrifying tale of Parkway driving (because you care, you really do) with one ear.
It manifests itself as an inability to stay focused on almost any task. For example, I was asked to find a group of our runners in the hotel where we were meeting for our final Southern Odyssey relay team meeting (the above mentioned running extravaganza). While looking for them, I spotted a coffee station with hot chocolate and began making myself a cup. With hot chocolate in hand, I went up to my room to get a pair of socks I needed and was returning to my starting point, when I ran into the group I was supposed to be looking for but had completely forgotten to find…MADD.
Secondly, apparently I am not the only woman who is not crazy about camping. Our 12 woman running team (aptly named the Southern Bells—yes, B-E-L-L-S), consisted of one woman who had never bared her bottom in the great outdoors—much to the surprise of the other 11 women on the team. This was a lesson on being careful of what you say out loud. While on our mountain adventure, one of our minor exchange points did not have indoor plumbing and (you guessed it) this would be the one stop where our “I don’t do the woods” runner had to become one with nature. I have never seen such a look of accomplishment on anyone’s face as hers when she appeared back from her little “hike”. Although, even in her 30s, she was a little worried about what her mother would think (she was the “Southern” part of our Bells).
But, I could relate. My idea of camping out, as I often tell my family and friends, is a Holiday Inn by the woods. That is as primitive as I want to get and occasionally even that is a little too basic for me. “What do you mean you don’t have hair dryers in the room?!” I asked the desk clerk during a recent hotel stay. I like my cookies at check-in and my bed turned down at night. As a mother of three children and one dog, it’s the only time I get pampered!
During the 36 hours spent alongside these 11 women, I also learned that I am not the only one who doesn’t sleep at night. In fact, I don’t know many women who do. Ironically, a recent study showed that women who get more than six hours of sleep a night die earlier than those who get a perfect six. It turns out it doesn’t pay to be an eight or better when it comes to sleep. Well, that makes me and all my fellow moms catnap better at night!
It seems that once women start waking up every two hours for midnight feedings, our bodies don’t readjust to sleeping soundly through the night. And now, once the mind sees a sliver of wakefulness, it goes into full awake mode. One of my fellow Bells keeps a notebook by her bedside to write down the great ideas she conjures up during her nocturnal churning. I have written many of my columns during the wee hours of the morning as I lay sleepless in Huntsville. And my restless nights are the reason I became a morning runner. I was up so I might as well run. Why not?!
I also learned that I am not the only woman who can’t (or won’t) read a map. My husband, like most men, is a map guy. He gives me directions by drawing a very detailed picture of where I need to be. I, on the other hand, give my directions in complete sentences as in “turn right at the four way stop by the store with the pretty pink dress in the window.” Most women get this. I laughed out loud when our female navigator turned to our male driver and asked him to change the Garmin out of map mode because she couldn’t follow where to go. He did the male equivalent of rolling his eyes and did as he was asked. We never got lost after this strategic move.
We 12 Bells had many things in common and just as many differences. There were probably 12 different religions represented and just as many political views. Our ages ran the gamut from early 20’s to late 50’s. The older women (of which I was one), offered the young(er) runners wisdom gained from many tough life runs. Things like: real women do get epidurals during childbirth and “crying like a girl” is something to be proud of not a shameful thing to hide.
We each value our families whether they consist of our parents, husband, animals and children or just animals. We measure the worth of our friends by the deeds they do rather than the amount of money in their bank account.
While completing our weekend journey, we cheered loudly for each completed run with as many different types of bells as we had personalities (hence our name) and celebrated the accomplishments of all runners not just our own team members. We understood that it wasn’t about how fast or far we ran but rather that we finished (no matter how many other runners passed us).
And lastly, I saw that women don’t leave other women behind or alone. When the going got tough, we ran together because we are women and that’s just the way we roll.
