Confessions of a Fat Runner

So I'm sitting, nearly naked, on the edge of the massage table, and the masseuse comes in to ask what kind of service I'll be getting today. "The Runner's Revenge," I tell her. Startled, she looks me over. "Why?" she asks. "Uh, because I run?" I answer, recalculating her tip in my head.

But when my hour was up and my deep tissues throbbed with contentment, I forgave the rube. After all, how was she supposed to know?

Most runners are ectomorphs: emaciated and square-jawed. Me, I'm an endomorph, possessed of a soft and thick body that looks as if it was stuffed to order at Build-A-Bear, not sculpted at an L.A. sports club. I look so unlike a runner that, when I first started jogging, passing motorists would pull over and ask if I needed a ride.

Twenty years later, defying all laws of science, my body doesn't look much different, even though I've run at least 10,000 miles.

Ten thousand miles? I pull out the calculator, because it doesn't seem possible that these thick thighs, slapping together rhythmically like a slow metronome, could carry me across the United States and back, twice. Solidly into middle age, I am more ham than hamstring.

But if the science doesn't work, the math does. Ten miles a week, 52 weeks a year—give or take a few rugged months while pregnant—equals 10,400 miles. And most weeks, I run more than 10 miles.

I'm not bragging, mind you. Ten miles is nothing for those long-legged ectomorphs who routinely cover that distance on their lunch breaks. The running magazines to which I subscribe regularly deflate my ego with headlines such as HOW TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL 10K ON ONLY 20 MILES A WEEK!

Only?

No matter. Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the fitness guru who coined the word "aerobics," says that if you run more than 15 miles a week, you're running for something other than fitness. Fifteen miles a week is great. But without a significant reduction in ice cream (a sacrifice I'm unwilling to make), it won't make you thin.