Today my cross-training consisted of geek-bopping to Shake It on repeat for roughly half an hour. Sometimes I even included my cat. She wasn't feeling it quite as much as I was thought. She's such a priss sometimes.
I was telling a story to Chris today and although I probably shouldn't, I decided to share it with everybody. First of all, I think it's important for all of us to remember how far we've come. Secondly, I find endless comedic value in this memory.
When I was in high school, the thought of p.e. class was so appalling to me that I took correspondence p.e. Yep that's right - p.e. class through the mail. One of the requirements was to run 1.5 miles, fill out some worksheet with your run information, and mail it to the teacher. As tempting as it was to cheat on this task, I did actually run the 1.5 miles. Well, really I walked most of it. In any event, I completed the distance and sat down to fill out the worksheet. It had a chart with times. You were supposed to find your fitness level in the chart based on how fast you were. My time wasn't even on the chart. I was that slow. I kind of created a new fitness level somewhere below "super terrible awful shape" (or whatever they called the lowest level of fitness), assigned that new level to me, and mailed it off. A few weeks later I got the form back in the mail. My correspondence p.e. teacher had returned it to me with a big frowny face on it. How awesome would it be if I still had that worksheet?!
Luckily for my self-esteem I really didn't care at all. I just wanted my stupid credit so I could graduate high school.
Push-up test: done.
Crunches test: done.
I'll keep my results private. I don't want anyone to be jealous of my awesomeness.
I also just finished my third run of the week. I have Friday off now so I got up early and went to the lake assuming I'd have most of the path to myself. I forgot that Ironman (my least favorite annual event as I live right downtown and the loudspeaker announces the winners one by one as they cross the finish line...even the stragglers who roll in around 3 am Monday morning interrupting my sleep) is Sunday and spent much of my run dodging cyclists and marathoners who left me in their dust. It motivated me to speed up, though, and I was able to shave some time off of my average so, yay Ironman!
I was just sitting here thinking how tired I am and how I'm really not looking forward to today's run. Then I caught this story about a mother of 1-year-old sextuplets who still managed to train for and complete a marathon. Now I'm sitting here thinking that I'm a lazy bum who needs to suck it up.
I was just entering today's run in my training log and my eye happened to catch the follow bit of info:
Distance: 5.6 mi
Time: 51:53
I thought, "I don't remember doing a run that long recently. Way to go, me!" Then I realized that was for all of last week. Doh!
For those of you who might not have seen the recent comment discussions going on, I wanted to bring to light Chris's gracious offer to be my virtual training partner in an attempt to get me on a regular running schedule. It took minimal effort to convince Ama to do it with me, and *jen* has also joined in. I just wanted to send out an open invitation for everyone else. Our current plan is to run on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday with Saturday being our long run. I know a lot of you have your own schedule worked out already, but if you don't or if you just feel you could use some more accountability, we'd love to have you join us. Or if you don't feel the need to participate as a runner but feel comfortable dishing out guilt to me, now you know what days I'm supposed to run.
I went out of town briefly this week. If I were a more dedicated/less lazy runner, I would have ran despite not being home. I ended up not running and instead gave myself permission to eat my weight in Mexican food while laying in bed at the hotel. It was awesome.
Today, I am roughly 1 month soda free! I know what you're thinking - "roughly" can gloss over any number of sins, and you would be correct. For one, I'm 4 weeks soda free. I don't have a full 30 days. For two, I did have a couple "flavored sparkling water" beverages that some might consider soda. Some might be correct. I don't know. However, I have not had any Cokes, Dr. Peppers, Sprites, etc. at all, and since those were the types of drinks I was targeting, I'm going to grant a pass on the sparkling beverages that I did have. Also, it's not like I replaced 3 Diet Cokes a day with 3 of these other drinks. When I say a "couple", I really mean a couple. Ok, more like a few, but seriously not many.
Why the decision to cut out the sodas? Why not! (Aside from the fact that I love them, that is.) You hear a lot about how bad they are for you. It seems like a lot of it is contradicting, so I'm not sure what is exactly true, but the point is that you don't hear anything about them being good for you. So at best they'll do nothing for you and at worst they'll fizz away your bones and cause brain damage? Awesome deal!! Really I just wanted to see if I could do it. If I could, I wanted to see if I felt different. I've had a lot of soda in my days. At my lowest I was probably drinking 2-3 cans per day. At my highest, I was drinking 2 liters per day. EEK!
All this being said, I'm in no way committing to stay soda-free. We'll just see how it goes.
Last night I was faced with a decision - run or have a Bellini. It's not that I didn't want to run. It's just that I wanted the Bellini so much more. I blame Ama. After all, she did introduce me to them. For a split second I thought about having the Bellini and then running. Then I remembered that I have a business trip this week and a treadmill burn would probably not be a good look for me. Funny how running and then drinking did not occur to me. In any event, it was delicious. I have no regrets.
Big news everybody. It's NATIONAL DONUT DAY!!! OMG. It's like the perfect holiday. Well, except for those tiny details commonly referred to as fat and calories. I have much celebrating to do.
It's only been three, very hectic weeks. I'm not dead yet, Jlou, and I have three very good excuses (read: valid reasons) for my absence.
1. I've been around family for various functions and visits. Family means lots of delicious food that simply cannot be passed up. This might have happened (twice) and I might have done something similar with a jar (a whole jar) of bleu cheese stuffed olives. Don't worry, they were the baby ones.
2. It's been raining, every day for the past month (excepting maybe 4 random days). I don't like to leave my house when it rains, let alone run. I know this could be remedied by running on my treadmill, but it disappeared about a year ago in a freak 'I forgot to pay the storage unit bill and they sold all of your stuff' incident starring my dear boyfriend. I still haven't decided on a suitable punishment.
3. I'm lazy.
Today I went shopping for some new running garb. I was amazed/disturbed at how much of the workout wear in the store was white. Am I the only one who manages to ruin clothes with sweat stains even when I don't break a sweat? I can't even imagine what a white top would look like after I had a couple good runs in it. I probably shouldn't admit to any of this. Ya. I'm going to deny all this later.
P.S. I had a most outstanding 4 mile run today. Thanks once more to everybody who has encouraged and supported me recently. Now if we could only get a certain blogging partner of mine back in her running shoes :) (Love you, Ama!)
I haven't blogged much lately because I've been having something of a running crisis of faith. I've spent these past couple weeks doing some deep thinking in an attempt to muster up motivation or possibly even (dare I dream this big?) running love. So far the only progress I've made is the decision that my legs look way better in those short footy socks (see here for more background on that preoccupation). I think I should buy more this weekend. Yep, two weeks of introspection and this is my big realization. Go me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
