Give me a bathing suit and point me towards ocean surf. No boards, please. That was, and still is, my idea of being “active.” But in my mid-twenties, living in Vermont, no ocean was nearby. I started running and found my land-based equivalent of active joy.
My running never grew into a desire to compete. Quite the opposite. Connecting me to the land-based natural world running became, frankly, one of my first spiritual practices. It is totally ironic that this practice spawned my financial success and exposure to the grit of the business world.
The further irony is that for me to start running at all was out of character, at least historically speaking. While I remember enjoying recess and dodgeball in elementary grades, by middle school, I was intensely uncomfortable in gym classes.
Perhaps I can blame this a bit on my mother, a woman from an entirely different era, who, in her wisdom, would intone:
“Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow.”
But then there were those “jock” girls in my school who relished gym and understood all those rules in field hockey, and were eager to get out on the tennis courts. They came rushing into the locker room, all grins and sweaty, talking loudly about serves and saves points and feints and blocks…and they intimidated me. It seemed to me I was somehow less for not getting the whole sporty thing.
When possible, I opted for Beginning Bowling as my gym class choice.
I didn’t like to glow.
So avoiding gym classes and the locker room, playing around in the summer ocean, doing some body surfing, and climbing the occasional tree, I defined my idea of being an active me.
Until I discovered the meditation of running, then my world did change. My body and I became more intimate. We glowed, we sweated, we gloried. I got to know my feet. I bought some special shoes for them. I learned what a hamstring was and how to stretch it.
When I started running – or “jogging” as it was referred to back then — I was just trying to get around an indoor track, a whole quarter mile. And it was tough! The day I made it all the way around, I felt like I’d won an Olympic medal! I was so proud of myself.
Fast forward a few years and many logged miles to my invention of the sports bra and creating a business around it.
I was clear the Jogbra was athletic equipment, not lingerie, so I eschewed traditional venues (think department stores, Victoria’s Secret, etc.) and sold it in sporting goods stores nationwide.
Sporting goods stores!?
Until taking my bra to such places to sell it, I had only been in one to buy my running shoes. The sporting goods industry was as foreign and intimidating to the woman I had become as those long-ago gym classes were to my girlhood self. But even more so. To me, sporting goods stores were rank with the culture of masculine competition; every time I went into one, I felt I was in a totally alien environment. Yet I smiled and played the part. And I sold sports bras. Lots of them.
One day, back in 1990 or so, I found myself at the very large national sporting goods show. We were quite successful by then and well-known in the industry. I recall walking around the noisy, people-filled convention center, exchanging waves with busy acquaintances, and nodding to others as I passed. The aisles were lined with booths aggressively selling everything from athletic clothing to fishing rods, dartboards, and beyond. Every athletic shoe manufacturer was there. The place was a sparkling mosaic of color, bustling with people and commerce.
And I wondered: How the hell had I ended up here? I felt like a complete fraud, with nothing in common with all these enthusiastic jocks and jock-ettes. The choices that brought me here had made sense then and, upon reflection, still seemed to stand true.
The ironies were not lost on me. They are not lost on me still. One of the most authentic aspects of myself, the meditative runner, had spawned this persona of sporting goods queen. Bra Lady. It follows me to this day.
The further irony is that I can no longer be that runner. Both my knees blew out. I’ve found no activity – not body surfing or even bowling – that fulfills me as running did. I miss it to this day.
But I no longer feel quite as much the fraud. Years ago, I read an article that purported that many who gain rapid success feel “like a fraud.” That somehow they are pulling off an illusion that could be “found out” by others. I know I felt that way – I wasn’t a jock! I didn’t run in races! Then, I wasn’t even a runner anymore! Egad!
The article made sense to me and served to alleviate my secret guilt. When I left the sporting goods industry, the altruistic young entrepreneur evolved; another business, further schooling, and new landscapes.
And as time passed, I gained perspective; these days, such an unsung blessing of the aging process. Or perhaps I am just a bit slow. But I realized that my invention of the sports bra had, in fact, helped many, many women and girls. I heard from them then and over the years since. The Smithsonian Museum of American History has memorialized Jogbra in its archives.
My not being a jock was and is irrelevant. I was never a fraud! What I was, and still am, is a Seeker. Of solutions, of understanding, of true beauty.
I am still seeking, learning how to accept and integrate all the disparate bits of myself, my authentic self: artist, businesswoman, spiritual healer — just a bumbling, glowing journeyer.
