Marianne L. Hamilton  

Growing up in Sacramento, CA, I was always, always the very last one selected (very begrudgingly) for any athletic team. Pudgy, bespectacled, book-wormish, and painfully shy, I envied my classmates who could run, throw, catch, bike, swim, spike a tetherball and more...all seemingly so effortlessly. For me, every PE class was pure torture. I knew (as did everyone else in my class, including the nuns) that any attempts I made to participate in a sport would be clumsy and humiliating. Early on, I determined that my lot in life was to read books and get good grades...which I (mostly) did.

My sense of futility in the physical realm persisted throughout my teens, 20s and 30s. But then at one point, as 40 was looming, I started watching the joggers in my neighborhood. Few were going all that fast; it seemed that this was an activity that didn't demand tons of coordination or innate athletic skill. After weeks of deliberation, I secretly bought my first pair of Nikes and hit the road....and to my amazement, in a few months I was able to make it (slowly) through a few miles. With the heady sense of empowerment that came with that achievement, I registered for a 10K race. I didn't finish; as soon as the gun went off, my former fears kicked in and I psyched myself out. But I kept at it...and eventually I was able to complete the distance, and my first race. I will never forget the torrent of tears that poured from my eyes when I crossed the finish-line that first time. Never, ever in any remote corner of my consciousness growing up had I entertained the fantasy that the words "running" or "race" would creep into my vocabulary. I felt like I'd won the Lotto.

As time went on I continued running, and then started going to a gym and lifting weights. The weights made a rapid difference in my body that I relished; so much so that I became obsessive about hitting the gym - to my extreme detriment. I managed to rupture a disc in my neck, requiring the removal of the disc and a fusion of my vertebrae. The procedure was a success, but my surgeon delivered devastating news: I could no longer run, or do anything that would in any way stress my neck or spine. It seemed a death-sentence; my depression was profound.

During my rehab, I began walking - a little farther each day. As I healed, I began picking up the pace...until without realizing it, my body naturally fell into race-walking technique. Eventually another race-walker saw me and recommended that I train with his coach. Later, I was fortunate enough to connect with a two-time Olympic race-walker, who helped my technique improve dramatically. Since then, I have race-walked 8 marathons, 50+ half-marathons, and more 10Ks than I could ever remember. When a friend referred to me as an "athlete" not long ago, I collapsed into hysterics. But her comment gave me pause: impossibly, I had become what I never imagined possible. That sense of incredulity persisted in March of last year, when I entered (and won) both of the race-walking events at the Bay Area Senior Games at Stanford. My times were hardly world-class...but they were sufficient for overall golds, as well as firsts in my age-group. It was at that point that I understood that being an athlete isn't necessarily about being to the manner born. Sometimes it's a mantle you get to wear after many, many years of very hard work, and changing the way you think about yourself.

I turned 60 last November, which was momentous in many ways: One month prior, my husband and I had competed (for the second year) at the Huntsman World Senior Games in Utah. In 2011 I had taken age-group silvers in all 3 race-walking events; last year I crossed the finish-line ahead of all of the female competitors in all three races (pic attached). Each awards ceremony was more surreal than the last. Surely, I imagined, my mother (a journalist like myself, who'd shared my early-life aversion to anything physical) was spinning in her grave...but then writing a fabulous account of how proud she was of her daughter's transformation.