A Brutally Honest Three-Miler

Other contenders for today’s post title included:

• How I’ve Let Myself Go
• Nobody Would Believe I Once Ran 13.1 Miles
• Oh, How the Once-Thinner-and-Fitter Have Fallen

The backstory for this post is that my work life has been, um, a challenge.  Let’s just say that my company is getting their money’s worth out of me and it’s killing my workout time. This past week, I only got one run in during the week, a frantic single-mile loop around my neighborhood before the sun even thought about coming up one morning.  I’m disappointed in myself for letting my balance get blown – again!  Argh.

As the weekend approached, I vowed to fill it with plenty of movement, healthy eating, and some sanity-time, otherwise known as FUN.

Yesterday, I worked on the movement and fun part with my partner-in-crime, the Rox-monster.  We did tons of walking and enjoyed a side trip to watch Blonde Bomber play in his company’s annual softball tournament.  My shelter girl is still a little shy around people so some socializing time is a priority right now.  What better place than a ballpark? 

She was a bit reserved at first and hid under the picnic table:

The owner of the feet behind her in the picture was quite gracious when Roxie decided to settle in for a little nap and … lay down on her feet.  Whoops.  That’s a little habit she’s recently picked up with us at home.  We’re pretty sure this pup is well over 60 pounds now, so I guess it’s a good thing our picnic-table-neighbor had a fondness for galoot-ish silly dogs!

Later that night at home, while the Bomber was resting his achy-breaky self after playing his annual role as kamikaze shortstop for his team, I opened up iTunes and worked on a cranking, no-excuses playlist for my run today.  It may have been the only reason that I didn’t just flop to the ground and beg for death because the humiliation factor of doing so while Satch, Sammy, Rob, James, and the rest of the crowd were wailing away would be simply too horrific to bear. 

I can hear the EMT now as he pulls my earbuds from my cold dead … um… ears?  Anyway, I’m sure it would go something like this:  “Holy $hit, you mean to tell me she couldn’t stay upright to THIS?  The woman’s clearly both a weakling and an idiot.  She’s not even conscious for this guitar solo! What a waste.”

Yes,I’m sure it would have gone something like that, so I managed to stay upright, moving in a forward motion (for the most part) and eventually did complete three miles. 

So that leads us to the brutal honesty of today’s three-miler.

Fact:  I have gained back every pound I lost last year plus a couple extra that seem happy to join the team.  And I am feeling every single ounce of the excess body weight when I run.  My cardiovascular levels and my endurance suck!  And can I say what horrors I face with the two-sports-bra routine when the last time they fit properly was ten pounds ago?  Oh, the humanity.  And the chafing.  Gah.

Fact:  I have not been stretching.  At all.  And the infamously tight IT band decided that the hilly part of my neighborhood was the perfect spot, dahling, to re-introduce what I call “the twinge of death”.  Any of you who have dealt with tight IT bands know precisely what I mean by “the twinge of death".

So I did it, but it was not pretty.  Even with a warm-up walk and cool-down walk, I still had to slow to a shuffle (fine, a fast walk) in the middle of those three miles.  It took me more than 50 minutes to do three miles.  Even for me, a proud penguin, that’s slow my friends.  Worse – it wasn’t FUN.  I love to run.  Except right now, I don’t.  It hurts, I feel huge, and other than my socks and my shoes, my running gear doesn’t fit well.  Any pace over a fast walk puts my heart rate into a bad place.

Excuse me while I go cry.

All righty.  Time to refocus.  Time for balance!  My almost-end-of-July resolution will be to blog daily, even if it’s only a snippet at a time, as a way of keeping myself honest to that goal.  Because I’m either going to have to tell you all that I was that idiot weakling again … OR … I’m going to blog that I hauled wide butt somehow, someway. 

Well.  The only way to change the current state is to work towards the new.  Starting now.