It may surprise you that I have been bullied in my adult life, but I have been. I was not willing to do a mediation session with this person, and their parents became involved trying to convince me to have mediation amongst ourselves. I am such a cold person in some instances, I need time to come around to willy nilly mediations, because in serious matters I am very serious. So, what his dad came up with was trying to accomplish the two hardest things that I had at that particular point in my life. With the pressure of him feeling like it was the difference between having a mediation amongst ourselves or not, he had to try to pass the Physics GRE without a calculator, and try to run a marathon in under three hours in hilly Maine. They had to really try to have a weekend in my shoes, and take it very seriously. In the end, he felt so bad about bullying me, regretting their actions that disrupted my life, I actually let his experiences be the mediation session. I think that person learned a lesson, became serious about the issue at hand, as well as gaining insight into having sympathy and empathy for other people as an adult. I forgave someone with a willy nilly mediation session, which was big of me…

Being serious can mean you have discipline and are probably really good at things, but I am not always serious I am fun too but there is no in-between with me… After being bullied I asked the person, ‘Do you know what you just did to me? Do you know what you just did to my life?!’ He did not, until he did, and then they were apologetic. For me to move on without spending a year in court worst case scenario, they really needed to understand how serious it was for them to disrupt my life and mean their apology. I sat in the bleachers while they were on the track trying run a marathon like me, and they got almost every question wrong on that test five hours later. They could not wing those difficult feats on a whim. However, they learned how serious my life is and not to bully me.

Some people are insanely jealous of professional runners and people smart enough to get stem phd's somehwere nice, like they would put glass in your shoes or tear the pages out of a text book because of competitivness. Others can make fun of you. I always had to be responsible being my grandmother’s caregiver, running professionally, having a job in software, being a professional marathon runner the past ten years. You would think being responsible pays off, making the responsible choices. Being my grandmother’s predominant care made running marathons well and school look like a fun pleasure, as is working in my industry using my brain in a way unnecessary whilst grammasitting. Nevertheless, I cherish the gramma responsibility and would not have wanted anyone else with her but me, my gramma turned into my baby. I really picked gramma over boyfriend and going right into grad school after undergrad, she is like my baby. However, I have had more responsibility than fun, and I do not know how there could have possibly been more responsibility in my life of 26 years…

Never mess up someone’s easy school or world major marathon, you’ll have to do what my bully did somewhere in the statute of limitations. It’s so bad that I was already in my safety net of life desires, and this bully found a way to make things even worse. There was nothing competitive or controversial about my marathon of choice in the spring or school of choice for grad classes in the summer, and the last thing I needed was an obnoxious bully. I could have dragged out my bully's consequence ten years, no dollar amount could make them get away with bullying me which they must not have realized, but I believed their sincere apology and let it go so we could have our lives. Yeah, I have been in a situation where an adult realized they did not have the luxury of disrupting my life without major consequence.

A way I enjoyed my daily life after having a bully was putting my hand over the bullying and staying on task. Yeah, my agenda is full with something for every hour of every day, but that’s not what I mean. Luckily my bully was never in my professional or academic circle, so I could drive to class and drive to work and drive home and not see them. However, I took a break from Facebook and other media like that. I also do not say where I am running on the blog before it happenes or while I am in a specific place. So it was helpful for me to know that I go to school and work with very specific types of people, and not my bully. Also, my bully sort of knew after negotiating not to really approach me, because it would be inappropriate. In the end, we both found a way to move on with our lives. Being organized and staying on task helped me move on from being bullied, it could have been worse even though it was quite horrible. I would never have to worry about seeing them at school or work or home, and that was the big thing for me. There are ways to live your life despite enduring bullying, at times I had to put my race blinders up but it all worked out.

I’m not a machine who can keep running hundred mile weeks for years on end to do the marathon well, but there is always something positive from the sport.