Bothell woman gets in shape for big event

Many remarkable weight-loss stories begin by some sort of life-changing event that spurs someone into action.

But for Carolyn Lockmon of Bothell, it was a lack of events, combined with her husband being surrounded by “beautiful, thin” women thousands of miles away, that led her to making a marvelous transformation.

“I had a lot of time on my hands,” Lockmon, 52, recalled. “My husband’s gone, kids left, what should I do? I thought, ‘Gee, maybe I should exercise.’”

The key to her story is that her husband took an international assignment in Taiwan, where the single women greatly outnumber the men. Especially after a visit to the Asian country a couple of years ago, she found herself in an emotional struggle trying to measure up to the petite Taiwanese ladies.

“It’s a beautiful place, there are a lot of women … their skin is beautiful, they’re very kind people. I visited a couple of times, and I loved it,” said Lockmon of Taiwan and its citizens. “But I also realized, here I am, 5-foot-10 and overweight like people of middle age can be. And I thought, ‘My husband is surrounded by these beautiful, thin, little women — I need to back and exercise.’ That really sparked my fire.”

Like those addictive potato chips, once Lockmon had her first taste of working out, she couldn’t stop. Exercise began to consume her days and nights, two nights a week soon leading to five. Then she began to change her eating habits, and immediately saw positive results.

“Between the two (diet and exercise), you could see the pounds melt away, and I felt better,” Lockmon said. “My husband thought it was great … and two years later, I’m in a triathlon.”

But ask Lockmon, who has worked for the past 24 years in the health-insurance industry for Premera Blue Cross, just how many pounds have “melted away” and she honestly won’t be able to do it. She sees her weight as nothing more than a number, placing a much higher importance on overall body image.

“I have never weighed myself — that wasn’t important to me, that’s not why I set out to lose weight,” Lockmon said. “You know you’re overweight, I don’t need a scale to tell me that. I could tell I was losing weight by the clothes I wore — I would put my pants on and they were big, so I’d go out and buy a new pair of pants in a smaller size. I’ve always been tall … and I’m big-framed, so it never bothered me.”

Danskin determination

The Danskin Triathlon, the longest-running multi-sport series in the world, has been held in Seattle every summer for the past 16 years. Held this year on Aug.17, it is a true test of a woman’s athletic ability — the event begins with a half-mile swim, continues with a 12-mile bike ride and concludes with a 5-kilometer, or three-mile, run.

For someone like Lockmon that has never participated in a triathlon before, it can feel like quite a daunting task to undertake. She was first approached two years ago with the idea of running the Danskin by one of her step instructors at the local YMCA, but she declined. Asked once again this year she was still on the fence, thinking that she’d sign up and decide later.

“But now that I’ve been training, I’m going to do it,” Lockmon said confidently.

Before she started her training regimen, she didn’t even know how to swim at all, not to mention the half-mile she would have to do as the first leg of the triathlon.

“I signed up for swim lessons at the Y — that was my weakest link. I swim two nights a week and I still take swim lessons,” she said of her training regimen for the Danskin. “I take the spinning classes, I got a new bike for my birthday so I can go out riding, and I run with my dog. I work full time, so my only free time is on the weekends and the evenings, but I do something every day.”

Being her first crack at a triathlon, Lockmon’s goal for the event is simply to finish and never walk during the final leg, the 5K run. She says she was inspired by Danskin spokesperson Sally Edwards’ book, in which she wrote that the only thing she thought of when she crossed the finish line at her first Danskin Triathlon was that “she should have trained harder.”

“I just want to see if I can — I’ve never been more fit in my entire life than I am now, and it’s a challenge,” Lockmon said. “Can I swim half a mile? I better, because I think I’ll drown. I can swim, I can bike and I can run, but can I do all three back to back and in a respectable time? I am competitive with myself, people will pass me and I know that, but I can’t do it half (-heartedly).”

Lockmon hopes to finish in less than two hours, citing a time goal of half an hour for the biking and running portions of the triathlon and a bit more for the opening swim.

“When you put them all together … it’s a stretch,” said the triathlete.

“I’d be thrilled if it was an hour and a half.”

Having been through both the emotional and physical ups and downs of weight loss, Lockmon sympathizes with all the women out there that may be struggling with their weight and self-confidence.

“Just do it — I think what I learned was that it wasn’t enough just to exercise, but when I started to eat better and cut out the ‘bad stuff,’ it was amazing what happened,” Lockmon advised. “Exercising, you can lose weight, but when you throw in the diet, the stuff just starts melting off, and you can’t stop … because you feel better and you’re seeing the results.

• For information about the Danskin Triathlon, visit www.danskin.com/triathlon.html.