Random Wednesday

Random thoughts, explanations, excuses, reports and resolutions:

1. Explanation: about two weeks ago, Big Bit, in an excess of enthusiasm, swept my laptop (his name is George) to the floor, breaking the hinge, power link (not the right term, I mean that plugging it in now requires care and finesse), mouse and speakers. George is now on the isolation ward whenever Big Bit is awake, as further contact would be injurious to his health and he must linger at least until New Laptop arrives and George's memory can be transferred, thus transforming New Laptop into George and George into Empty Computer Shell. (This is particularly interesting if you have been watching as much Dollhouse as I have recently.) Since George takes more time and attention to use in his current state of malaise, blogging has sunk on the list of priorities.

2. Excuse: I have a Very Large Work Deadline on the 28th, and a Really Truly Enormous Deadline on October 5th. Hence, more sinking.

3. Thought: It is really interesting to me how easy it has been to run lately. Not that the running is easy, or even fun, but it is relatively easy to make the decision each morning, 3 days a week, to put on my socks and shoes and go huff/puff/gasp/pant around the neighborhood for half an hour. This is particularly odd considering how much energy I have put in, over the years, avoiding exercising in general and running in particular. (Running hurts. For a long time. And you have to keep running even though it hurts. Why am I still explaining this to you?) However, exercise is a decision you only have to make once. Three times a week, I have to make the decision to run and carry through with it. Dieting is so much harder! You have to make the decision and carry through with it over and over and over. You could have a cookie. No I won't. There's cheese in the fridge. No I don't need any. There's more bread where that came from. No this is enough. Over and over, a dozen times in the same hour, sometimes in the same twenty minutes! Restricting what I eat is so much harder than forcing myself to exercise, but -

4. Report: I have to start actually dieting. I have been going along the last couple of weeks, running my butt off but eating whatever. While I have not fallen into gross excess, I'm clearly not making good decisions because my weight has stayed virtually the same even though I'm burning tons more calories that I have been doing. Sugar is really and truly my downfall. To me, a sweet coffee at breakfast, ice cream at lunch and a (or 2 1/2) brownie(s) at supper sounds reasonable. Basically if it has been more than two hours since I last had sugar (or if the treat in front of me is particularly delicious), I will think that more sugar is reasonable. Clearly rules must be put in place, because logic, she ain't workin'.

5. Resolution: I will eat dessert on Sunday nights and one other week night and I will put the recommended dosage of coffee syrup in my latte. More than that I will not eat. I will leave excess desserts at small group on Sundays or send them to work with The Husband. If I do not see a difference quickly I will also start stepping down the coffee syrup. I have been doing well this week except for

6. Excuse: My birthday. Twice on my birthday I got a dessert because I could, not because I specifically wanted that peanut butter cupcake, that piece of tiramisu. In my defense, the tiramisu was enthusiastically shared by Big Bit and Little Bit, so I don't think I ate more than a third of it. I am undecided whether or not this day "counts" as my week day dessert. I only have one birthday a year and it seems like birthdays and exceptions go well together.

7. Report: Tomorrow starts week 7 of my couch-to-5k program. I am sorry to report that my dear little app has gone off the deep end recently. I ran the 3 5-minute sessions I worried about, didn't die and was congratulating myself on this fact, logging my workout when I saw the next day's workout: 2 8-minute sections. Up until this time, my app has always given me 3 workout periods to adjust to a new level, so I had been fully expecting to spend the week doing 5-minute runs. Fortunately I had the weekend to muster up, and I was able to do it. (But oh! The burn!) I limp back to the house, log the workout, and then see the assignment for the next day: run for 20 minutes.        

o.O    

The mind boggled, bounced and sank into sweet denial. How the Sam Hill could this stupid, worthless app expect me to run more than TWICE the time it had ever asked me to run before??? I am pretty sure that I had never run that long in my life. Not a trace of hyperbole here, people. I lifted weights in high school for my PE credits and generally slowed the treadmill back down to a walk whenever running started to burn. Which was never more than two minutes. And now - twenty minutes? Not possible. Not at all. Clearly I was going to collapse on the pavement, or maybe break an ankle stepping off the curb in my exhaustion. This was Not Happening.

8. Report: Except that it did. Ahem. And then this morning - twenty five minutes. Cough. Perhaps there's something to this app after all.


The number: 251

Does Fear Burn Calories?

I am seriously wigging out, y'all.

Tomorrow, according to my Couch-to-5k app, I will be doing 5 minutes of jogging at a time. Three times. There are no smaller amounts of jogging than 5 minutes in this workout.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Do you know how bone-crushingly slow my jog becomes when I'm in the last 2 minutes of a 5-minute jog? Aenemic hermit crabs would out-run me. The whole world narrows to the burn in my calves and my mind gasps out Dory's motto with each step: Just. Keep. Swim. -Ing. Just. Keep. Swim. -Ing.

I know there are some of you who jog this much at a time. Some of you (gasp!) might even jog ten minutes at a time. I am simply not there yet. At all. In any way. There are lots of steps between me and there. Tomorrow is just another step. Just another step. Just another ooo-maybe-I'll-wake-up-with-stomach-flu totally scary step.

The number: 254

Hello Again

No, I did not fall into a black hole.

2 weeks ago, I was jogging around a park's gravel path (which I don't really recommend, really boring) and there was a root. I had seen and sidestepped this root each of the previous 5 times I had gone around the track, but this time I was glancing at my phone and missed it. Lurching sprawl, bruised knee, sprained ankle. It turned all kinds of pretty colors.

I got up and walked the distance from where I was to my car and quickly concluded that further running that day was out. Even just finishing out the time walking around the track was out. So home I went and ice I got. Surely the next day - no. Or the next - no. Here we are, two weeks later and it's just barely strong enough to run on.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to resolve to run, muster the energy and will to run and then not be able to run. It actually made me look forward to jogging Friday.

Until I started, anyway.