A Guest Blogger

NOTE: My daughter Jen is preparing to run a mini-marathon in September and is keeping a blog about her training and progress. I thought it's be fun to include one of her entries. Go to http://impossible-jen.blogspot.com/ to read the rest of her entries!

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2012

"earning it" or "deserving it"

By Jen Brett

there are 2 important things i learned this week: 1. no matter how tiny, always wear a sports bra. 2. taking a week off makes a huge difference. next time i feel under the weather, i'm running anyways.

this post is inspired by my valentines day, it's a little sad but don't worry, everyone is happy in the end.

all thru my youth i played soccer. i wasn't great, but i really enjoyed it. in high school i was on jv until senior year when i made varsity. my mom will argue, but the only reason i (along with 3 other girls) made varsity is b/c seniors weren't allowed to play jv. we hardly played.

the thing about playing soccer with old raleigh money in the 90's soccer craze was there were a lot of girls with a lot of their parents money and they all had name brand gear. adidas was stamped across everything. my gear was mostly from kmart or jc penny, my duffle was the bag my mom got for running (and completing!) the 5k cary road race. i was 12, what did i know about name brands, it all seemed to serve it's purpose. after 2 years of not making the junior high team and dealing with the new money cary mean girls, i knew.

by the time i was in high school, my mom had remarried and i was able to spend a little extra money on my gear. i had adidas cleats, snap pants and duffel, all purchased on sale of course. the one thing i did not have but desperately wanted was the adidas warm up. i had no real need for it, but i wanted it. that's where making varsity comes in. see, all the varsity girls wore the same green and black adidas warm up every game day. we tried to do the same on jv but were told that was a "varsity thing."

senior year rolled around, i had to make varsity. even if i wasn't good enough, school rules prohibit seniors from playing jv. so i had finally "made" the cut, the coach was less than pleased. we all worked just as hard, did the same drills and then happily took our place in the sub order. finally, a week before the first game, the warm ups arrived for us to try on for size. rather than the typical adidas warm up i had been looking forward to, there was a not so great looking all black reebok. turns out the coach decided this year she wanted to "go in another direction" with the warms ups. i couldn't help but feel like the 4 scrubs were part of her decision making, like we hadn't earned the right to wear them. paranoid maybe, but that's how we were made to feel in that situation. the following year, she wasn't the coach anymore and the team was back to the old adidas warm ups, i just missed the cut.

now i know it's not good to put importance on name brands (unless it's technology and then it's gotta be a mac) but not having that warm up stuck with me. it's weird but i kinda felt like i didn't deserve it. like i'd worked just hard enough to not have the coach fight the school board to get me off the team but not hard enough to earn the gold medal of warm ups. for years i never purchased adidas gym clothes. it wasn't like i was a gym rat or anything, i just felt i was probably better suited to the champion rack at target (great stuff by the way).

while at dinner after attending the grammy's (fab life name drop) i told my beau the story, it really upset him. he's never been in that position. he ran cross country in high school, i mean no one gets cut from the track team if you finish, much better system i think. he also grew up with more money and less mean girls than i did. this year for valentines day i dug into the bag from my new fav chocolatier and next to the box of dark chocolates were an adidas jacket and pants. he felt like i deserved to have them, that everyone deserves to have what they want. now, i just have to work on earning the 13.1 mile rep :)