1w, 3r, 1w, 5r, 1w, 3r, 1w, 6r, 1.5w = 2miles, eliptical
It's been a while since my last posting. The day after my last true run I had a back spasm while at work, and have been working through it. There was a lot of pain. I was on a steroid to kick the imflamation, and vicodin. I don't like taking vicodin because it makes me drowsy, and makes me feel distant from totally everything. The pain, myself, what's happening around me...everything.
On Tuesday I powerwalked with Dani, but it wasn't the same. I was dying to run with her, to push my body, to feel the impact of my feet on the concrete, but I didn't trust my back. When I went to fast I could feel that sudden shooting pain telling me to take it easy. The next day the pain was excrutiating, and I worried off and on that I might never get better. Lots of people live with back pain year round. I couldn't imagine how awful I would feel, how depressed I would get to be so limited. I'm sure I'd get used to it and try to overcome it in time, but that day the thought was more than I could bear. I went back on anti-inflamatories and by Thursday evening I was feeling capable of getting back into the swing of real exercise.
Today is Friday evening. When I got on the eliptical, I was holding a hot coal of anger tight in my chest. I wanted to beat my body up. How dare it try to keep me out of shape? How dare I let a little pain stop me from being who I want to be? I wanted to do the body equivalent of singing until I was horse.
It felt great. My longest run yet, and once again although the sweat poured down my face and salted my lips, though my legs feel like jello now, it didn't kill me. Could I have pushed myself even further? Maybe, but what I did was sufficient for now, and it sure felt like PLENTY when my breath was coming raggedly between my teeth and the muscles in my thighs were begging for a rest!
The elliptical is great, but it's not nearly the same experience as running with Dani. I like to hear the birds, I like seeing the other people on the path with us, passing dogs, pushing up that very slight incline on one side of the path. I love the trees, and on Tuesday the sprinklers turned on while we were there. How wonderful that will feel! All this besides the absolute best part, having Dani by my side.
She is the time keeper, and uses her phone to tell when to start and stop. I like that I can just look at her and know that yes, we're starting now or no, it's not time to stop yet! Even if I feel like I'm about to keel over from the effort, if SHE can still do it, then damn it, so can I! I worry a little that this time I have spent healing will have me too much behind her in our sets...but I managed on the elliptical alright. I just don't know how comparable the two experiences are. I'll be able to tell you after tomorrow morning's run though. :)
Being serious about weight loss and exercise is so exciting! I feel so...righteous? Vindicated? I don't know the right word. When I choose water instead of ice cream like i did yesterday. When I eat part of my meal instead of all of it as fast as I can (although I haven't done that at every meal, certainly!). I like looking in the mirror and although I don't like what I see yet, I see reflected in my eyes EXACTLY who I want to become. Someone strong, lean, energetic, flexible, capable, powerful, and downright EPIC.
I look forward to runs more than I dread them. I know what kind of pain, and what kind of pleasure, can come from what I'm about to do. I wonder that I didn't do this before, that I could live without feeling this kind of earned exhaustion.
Someday I will be who I am, who I am becoming.
- Maddie
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday - July 18th
Sets: 3w,3r,3w,5r,2w,3r,3w,5r,3w
where numbers equal minutes, w equals walked and r equals run
I am an overweight, out-of-shape, tv loving, lazy person. Or that's who I've been, most of the time, for most of my life. Sometimes it feels alright to be lazy, but most of the time my laziness and unfitness makes me feel sluggish, unattractive, and unhappy. There is, I have come to believe, a solution to this problem. To attempt to change.
I have tried to change before and been unsuccessful. Usually I fail and fall back on old habits because it's hard to maintain self-discipline. To push my boundaries. To make myself tired and sweaty. To eat smaller portions of more well rounded foods. It is much simpler to say "I will start tomorrow" or "I'll just treat myself because I had a hard day" or a thousand other things. I have used EVERY excuse on myself, and I have felt that lingering guilt later in the day, or the days following, when I know that I have let myself down.
I have failed at doing it on my own. It turns out I really do need someone to exercise with, and that someone had to be someone at about my fitness level, or a little higher. Someone who was also pushing themselves. Someone to compete with, in a way. That someone is my friend Dani, who has decided run with me every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
She was the one who suggested it to me. At first I hesitated...could I really do this? Would I flake out on her? We have been friends for a very long time, we know each other so well, and it would hurt me more to let her down than it would to let myself down. Realizing that, I knew this was a journey I wanted to take. It would be difficult, but in the end it would make my life so much better.
We began running three (two? I'm not sure!) weeks ago, and at the end of every jog I felt tired and sweated but ELATED to have strained my body and survived. There is a kind of masochistic bent to my exercising, I admit. I like to push myself and feel my poor, flabby body whine that it's not strong enough, it's too tired, and then for my mind to say to it "TOO BAD!" and push it just that much farther. Already, at only this far along in my journey, I have more energy during the day. I feel a little stronger. I weigh just a little bit less. :)
Dani is running with the goal of participating in something called warrior dash - a 3.5 k obstacle course. Together we plan to be able to run that far by the first week of September. I haven't signed up for the course yet...mostly because although it sounds like fun (there will be mud, and some not so safe things like crawling under barbed wire and repelling down a cliff!) I have to put 45 dollars into it. I am not running in order to compete in the challenge, although the distance is definitely my driving goal. Instead, I've started running and dieting in order to become the person I have always wanted to be, but not had the will power to become. A strong, fit woman.
I will be a strong, fit woman.
I plan to update every day I run with my completed sets listed, sometimes with descriptions of how I feel about my progress or the work out. My next post will be pictures and measurements, which I will retake on a monthly basis. I hope in the end to have one hell of an impressive before and after! :D
Watch this blog. It's going to be a fun and difficult run!
- Maddie
where numbers equal minutes, w equals walked and r equals run
I am an overweight, out-of-shape, tv loving, lazy person. Or that's who I've been, most of the time, for most of my life. Sometimes it feels alright to be lazy, but most of the time my laziness and unfitness makes me feel sluggish, unattractive, and unhappy. There is, I have come to believe, a solution to this problem. To attempt to change.
I have tried to change before and been unsuccessful. Usually I fail and fall back on old habits because it's hard to maintain self-discipline. To push my boundaries. To make myself tired and sweaty. To eat smaller portions of more well rounded foods. It is much simpler to say "I will start tomorrow" or "I'll just treat myself because I had a hard day" or a thousand other things. I have used EVERY excuse on myself, and I have felt that lingering guilt later in the day, or the days following, when I know that I have let myself down.
I have failed at doing it on my own. It turns out I really do need someone to exercise with, and that someone had to be someone at about my fitness level, or a little higher. Someone who was also pushing themselves. Someone to compete with, in a way. That someone is my friend Dani, who has decided run with me every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
She was the one who suggested it to me. At first I hesitated...could I really do this? Would I flake out on her? We have been friends for a very long time, we know each other so well, and it would hurt me more to let her down than it would to let myself down. Realizing that, I knew this was a journey I wanted to take. It would be difficult, but in the end it would make my life so much better.
We began running three (two? I'm not sure!) weeks ago, and at the end of every jog I felt tired and sweated but ELATED to have strained my body and survived. There is a kind of masochistic bent to my exercising, I admit. I like to push myself and feel my poor, flabby body whine that it's not strong enough, it's too tired, and then for my mind to say to it "TOO BAD!" and push it just that much farther. Already, at only this far along in my journey, I have more energy during the day. I feel a little stronger. I weigh just a little bit less. :)
Dani is running with the goal of participating in something called warrior dash - a 3.5 k obstacle course. Together we plan to be able to run that far by the first week of September. I haven't signed up for the course yet...mostly because although it sounds like fun (there will be mud, and some not so safe things like crawling under barbed wire and repelling down a cliff!) I have to put 45 dollars into it. I am not running in order to compete in the challenge, although the distance is definitely my driving goal. Instead, I've started running and dieting in order to become the person I have always wanted to be, but not had the will power to become. A strong, fit woman.
I will be a strong, fit woman.
I plan to update every day I run with my completed sets listed, sometimes with descriptions of how I feel about my progress or the work out. My next post will be pictures and measurements, which I will retake on a monthly basis. I hope in the end to have one hell of an impressive before and after! :D
Watch this blog. It's going to be a fun and difficult run!
- Maddie
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