When the rain beats against my windowpane

It's fall. It's definitely fall. It's rainy and somewhat cold, though not quite the kind of cold where you can haul out your winter coat. It's still too cold to go out without any coat though, and just barely warm enough you can get away with a good sweatshirt. It's definitely cold in the mornings and at night, and that's when I tend to run.

We're all well aware that I don't have high-tech running gear. I have Skechers shoes from Marshall's and cotton shorts and useless sports bras. I don't have any fancy moisture-wicking temperature-regulating fuse-with-your-skin-and-make-you-aerodynamic running gear. And I hear that's what you need in the winter. Well, not need necessarily so much as strongly desire. Staying in shorts works for awhile because the body gets quite warm running. But somewhere around 45 or below that stops being an option. So then you break out the sweatshirt and sweatpants, and your body heats up like normal, and now your face is frozen and you're sweating through your clothes and the sweat is reaching the outside temperature and then pressing back up against your skin. So you're freezing and sticky and uncomfortable. Is that the sort of thing you roll out of bed in the morning looking forward to? Well I don't.

So I've decided to move my jogging indoors for the season. We have an indoor track at Western that is open during the general hours I tend to run, and its made of that nice cushy track material that's so much better for your joints than concrete. But the scenery sucks (a basketball court below; how marvelous...) and it's SO SHORT. It takes 10.5 laps on that thing to make a mile. The brain protests that sort of thing.

"Lucy," it says, "you've gone around this track four or five times. That's over a mile. You're tired. STOP!"

"No, brain," I say, "it's only been half a mile. Quit being such a wuss."

"Are you sure," my legs inquire, slowing down and growing heavy.

"It has.... to have been..... longerthanthat," sputter my lungs.

"Dammit." I'm suddenly exhausted. "You win."

So, there's that to contend with. But the other good thing about the gym is access to weight machines! I like being able to diversify what muscles I work. I love stairs and stair climbers. I went to the gym frequently in the spring and one of my goals then was to work up my arms and chest a bit and try to do a push-up.

That's been another goal of mine. A friend told me about the One Hundred Pushups challenge and I'm intrigued. I haven't decided whether to pursue that or not. If I do it, I want to really do it, holding myself accountable. One of the reasons I didn't do the Couch to 5K plan (aside from that I didn't hear of it until about a month into my running) is that I'm scared to apply myself to something that requires routine, when as a college student on any given day I might have to sacrifice a few things I'd planned to do in favor of homework, or sleep. I don't think I'm ready to take that on yet. Maybe in winter quarter, when I'll be taking fewer credits, I'll commit to something like that.

In summation (as though this was some big classroom speech) I haven't stopped running, but I've moved it indoors. It's a little easier to keep track of my distance progress that way, since I know exactly how long the track is, how many laps in a mile, etc. I think it'll work out well. I've made it this far.

The Jog of Shame

Ugh. In my last blog post it had been a week since I last jogged. This time it had only been six days (ONLY SIX DAYS? I'm still kicking myself) and I felt like I got worse. Maybe I didn't wait enough time again after eating. But yesterday I only jogged about .9 miles and I had to fight off strong waves of nausea when I finished. I was gasping for breath so hard on the last block that I wanted to stop. Now granted, it was a loop, and the first half was downhill, the second half uphill. But Mike and I have done this jog before with far fewer problems. I must've been tired, or had not eaten well. I don't know.

I was so upset when I got inside. It's official: college wants you to be unhealthy. I have been living the wake-up-go-to-class-do-homework-try-to-find-time-to-cook-go-to-bed routine for a couple weeks now. My dreams of jogging every other day are far from realized. I simply could not find the time until yesterday night around 9:30 PM to go out and jog for 10-15 minutes tops, and I almost threw up.

This quarter I'm taking 15 credits and working a part-time job. Next quarter I'll only be taking 11 credits with the same job, and in Spring only 10 with the job. So I'm in the roughest times of my senior year right now. My goal might suffer a little this quarter. But the thing about it is, this is a hobby for me. No, it's not the kind of hobby where I obsess over it and nothing else. It's also not the kind of hobby that I want to drop, leave behind, forget about. I'm frustrated that I can't find or make the time to do this as often as I'd like. But I will have more time in a couple of months. And I'm just going to have to live with that for now.

Even if I was jogging every other day, I don't think it's realistic to update constantly. I mentioned that in my last blog. I think 1-2 blogs a week is appropriate for what I'm blogging about.

I don't know when I'm going to get out jogging again. Next week is looking like a lighter week than I've had all quarter, so hopefully I can get some good time in then. Mike and I have been consuming produce at a much higher rate than before, which I feel good about, and it helps my peace of mind that if I can't exercise as much as I want, at least I can eat pretty well. RIDICULOUSLY well for a college student, at least, even on a pretty low budget. We're working on buying more in bulk, less packaged foods... other little cost-saving tips. I wish I could be a Coupon Queen who saves 80% every time she goes grocery shopping, buuuut I'm not.

I have no idea how to end this blog. Honestly, it's a Friday night and I'm exhausted. So: the end.

Oh right, I have a blog.

Oops. Hi there! I actually got up this morning earlier than I needed to. I don't think you understand the monumental status of such an event. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. And I had a good reason for it. I haven't jogged since last Friday.

Yes, I jogged a few times after my last blog post, but I figured that if I posted EVERY TIME I JOGGED you would get sick of me and I would run out of things to say. (Did you catch the pun there? Run out? I'm so clever.) Then Week 4 of school happened and I have been buried in mounds of deadlines since then, especially since my campus job recently started. I finally got a light homework evening last night, and naturally all I wanted to do was cook, bake and watch TV. All of those were very good ideas. (I made acorn squash stuffed with quinoa, hominy and bell pepper, topped with nutritional yeast--AMAZING--and then blondies--you know, brownies without chocolate?--with dried cranberries and flax seeds. My taste buds were writing me love letters.)

So this morning I don't have class until 11:30, but I woke up at 9:30 to go for a run. I can definitely tell that I haven't run in a week, which is why I insisted on going today. I felt like if I waited any longer I'd be back at square one. I only ran for about 15 minutes before I had to stop, but then after walking for 5 minutes or so I pushed it and jogged two blocks uphill before walking home. Morning air definitely has a terrible feeling in my lungs--oh yes, it's the cheese grater effect back for more. Blaaah. I tried to breathe in through my nose, as some had suggested, but I think that will work better when I get back to the condition I was in last week. This week I was so winded that nose breathing just was not delivering the oxygen fast enough.

Anyway, I still need to squeeze in a shower before class, but I just wanted to say hi and, you know, I haven't forgotten about you.

With great sameness comes great lack of things to say.

HELLO, my 9 loyal readers! It's been awhile! As the title suggests, I haven't been able to think of anything to say here recently. I haven't pushed myself to much longer distances, but I have definitely retained the benefit of the previous workouts, to where the same length and intensity workouts are much easier for me now. Mike is also improving, having a much easier time running and I'm pretty sure he's losing weight. We don't have a scale so it's hard to say for sure. Maybe he just appears svelte because I've been working out alongside him so I know the exertion he's going through!

I'm also fairly certain that my runners' legs are coming along nicely. I think it might be too soon to do a second set of pictures though. Yes? No? I'm not sure if I'm just perceiving my legs as looking nicer or if the effects would actually be noticeable in a photograph. Well, if you're dying for pictures I could oblige.

My blog just turned a month old on Saturday! And Mike turned 29 on Sunday! We were going to jog then; didn't end up doing so but we did go on a bike ride! ...A bike ride to get a burger. Hey, it was his birthday. And I had a veggie burger, because I don't do the whole meat thing, although it still left me feeling gross. I don't doubt they cooked it on the same grill as the regular burgers, but they must've also injected it with lard or something. It's a Gardenburger brand Gardenburger! How can you add fat to that?! I even opted out of the "special sauce." Me and fast food just don't mix.

So at this point we haven't jogged since Friday (although that was a nice urban jog of about 1.8 miles, the first half gradually downhill and the second half gradually uphill). It is of note that that's about .4 miles longer than we've gone before (at least as a consistent run without walking or stopping). I'm hoping to go out in about a half hour. It's rainy and cold tonight. Not sure where we'll go, but where ever it is, we'll certainly look dramatic with our wet hair and beads of sweat mixed with beads of rain on our faces.

My triumphant return!

...Okay, there's not much to triumph about. Basically, I haven't jogged in several days because I got a four-day promotional job that consisted of me circling Bellingham about 5739 times on foot, sketchy tricycle, and (first time for me!) Razor scooter, spreading the word about a giveaway for college students. But you know, cheap tricycles and Razor scooters are not really Bellingham-friendly modes of transportation. Both of them are just terrible on hills and in rain, both of which I encountered more than once during my employment. All of it was absolutely exhausting; I generally couldn't walk at the end of the day. I let myself stop jogging for the duration of the job because my legs retained (or gained?) plenty of muscle from all the work, not to mention all the calories burning from never stopping or sitting down! I have to give some credit to the Razor scooter, which I vehemently rejected in its popularity when I was a kid. MAN did I feel the burn in my quads from balancing on one foot while pushing myself furiously up sidewalks with the other!

So today, a few days after the job ended and I regained the ability to walk without cringing (thanks in large part to the second pedicure of my life--soooo relaxing), I finally ran again! I was worried that my jogging endurance might have gone down a little, but I did that 1.4 mile section of the trail near my house with no problems! It was even a surprisingly warm and sunny day, which we haven't seen many of up here recently, and which makes it a little bit harder to keep up the pace. I got a huge full-body blood rush when we stopped running. I almost needed something to lean on! It went away quickly though. Was it runner's high? Maybe I should look up exactly what this runner's high thing is supposed to be, anyway, before I keep going around claiming I've experienced it.

I was all set to jog back, too, but Mike wanted coffee (which is available for purchase in the park!) and we ended up walking the whole way back. I'm still glad we got out at all, though. Mike's breathing also seems to have improved a lot since we first started! It's much easier for him to jog the trail now. We're both doing this without walking or stopping: a straight 1.4 mile jog. Granted, it's a casual pace, but it's definitely jogging.

On Mike's aunt's recommendation, I entered a sweepstakes a few weeks back to try and win a pair of Vasque Mindbender trail running shoes! Eagerly awaiting the results of the contest now... I'm sure they're only giving away one pair, and hundreds if not thousands of people entered, but my chance is as good as anyone's, right?

Not much else to report other than that. School started up; senior year! We're going to try waking up early to run in the mornings before class. We'll see how that goes...  I am definitely not a morning person. Happy autumn, everyone!

A TMI post. Because there just had to be at least one.

In the last few days I have learned that PMS and jogging should never go together, at least not when you PMS like me. (I decided PMS could be a verb, too. Just roll with it.) My worst PMS symptom is sore boobs. Sore boobs + sports bra (see also: garment that is primarily designed to flatten, but in no way support, your chest) = very unhappy Lucy. If there is no one running towards me (since I look completely ridiculous doing this), I end up flattening my chest with my fists as I run, just so I can stand to jog without wincing. If anyone knows of a miracle sports bra to fix this problem, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, TELL ME! I'll probably have to wait awhile to be able to afford it... but it'd be good to know about.

Despite my... predicament, Mike and I braved the ever-greying, approaching-autumn overcast skies and drizzle to jog along the South Bay Trail again. Mike has a (distant) history of asthma and smoking, so in our first few weeks as runners, he's been having a rough time with his breathing. We're both breaking down barriers all the time, though, and we were able to run the whole 1.4 mile course to the park without stopping! Then we walked around the park and half a mile back down the trail before running the last mile. This is definite progress for him, and quite good for me too, since I haven't done anything like my three-mile jog of frustration lately.

I am now completely wiped out. I meant to eat, do dishes, shower, and go get some groceries--in that order--after we got back from the jog. I ate a little bit, and then my body disabled my brain and decided it needed a shower (dishes be damned, apparently). I didn't realize I was supposed to do the dishes first until I turned off the water at the end of my shower. I'm so clean now that I can't bring myself to do the dishes! And my legs hurt so much that groceries are going to have to wait, too. Plus it's still raining. But the progress is good enough for me.

I wear my jogging shoes at night.

So last night, after a rather uneventful, gloomy, rainy day, Mike and I decide to go jogging. In addition to it being gloomy and rainy, it was then also dark. Normally I would protest, as even though I'm a native Seattleite, I've never gotten used to cold and rain--still hate it. However, the thought of the exercise spreading warmth through me, the same way a nice mug of hot chocolate does, put a smile on my face. I figured if there's anything I could enjoy in the rain, especially after dark, it would be jogging.

Face-sweater?

Sure enough, the rain pouring down my face as I ran was refreshing. It also made me feel like I was working harder. I'm not a face-sweater. ...Face-sweater? Hmmm that didn't come out like I wanted to; it sounds more like a robber's mask, or a sweater someone's grandma knitted Santa's face onto. No, what I mean is that during physical exertion I sweat from my armpits and back. That's usually all the sweating I do, so I don't get the dramatic Gatorade-ad style dripping face syndrome (especially not in bright green), which I typically associate with someone who's really pushing themselves. The rain provided that illusion for me. Anyone I passed last night must've thought, "There goes a brave, hardworking American." Okay, maybe not.

But the rain also adds to the idea that I'm in the midst of a cinematic masterpiece, running towards my long lost love, or away from a serial killer. A little imagination is always good for your endurance, I think. Anyone I passed might also have thought, "Go! Keep going! Don't stop! You can achieve your dreaaaammm!" They probably stopped right there on the sidewalk and applauded, tears of admiration streaming down their faces and mixing with the cool September rain. Or, you know, not.

I've noticed, though, that running at night seems to be harder on my lungs than daytime running. It must be the cold air, or maybe it's the dampness, but I get lung cramps instead of side cramps or anything else. I can push through them, though. I have to stop for side cramps, but the lung pain is just a nuisance. I also get an increased presence of the lovely cheese grater effect in my esophagus, or wind pipes, or whatever. I'm going to have to figure out how to remedy this, as fall and winter are a-comin' and nothing--including my sobs and futile attempts at harnessing the sun and pulling it closer--is going to stop them. I'm certainly not stopping my running just because it's cold out. It's going to be a game of chicken between me and the weather. Who caves first? Stay tuned. 

Back from Outer Space.

Okay. I'm back. I had to take a few days to retreat into my little cave of self-pity. The housing issue has been quite stressful. Where I smartly used my running to combat stress last week, I avoided it for supposedly the same reason this week. I sort of regret it, but at the same time, sanity is important, and the sidewalks and trails will always be there when I'm ready for them.

I had become so worried about the whole situation that I think I was worrying myself sick, as two days ago I started to get a scratchy throat and became unusually tired in the middle of the day. I resigned myself to bed and family comedy ("My Wife and Kids" on DVD) for the rest of the day, throwing in fresh fruit and Emergen-C for immunity. The next day the scratchy throat was gone (yay!) but the tiredness was in full force even after 10 hours of sleep (boo!), so I stayed at home all day and did absolutely nothing. That turned out to be a brilliant plan, as I feel perfect today.

I baked a vegan chocolate cake! I have a vegan friend who is always cooking and baking delicious things, and the first time I had her vegan chocolate cake I was hooked. "VINEGAR?" I sniffed, as I watched her bake. "VINEGAR cake?" "You can't taste it," she assured me. She's right. You absolutely can't. And if you're a dark chocolate maniac like I am, vegan chocolate cake is definitely the way to go. Something about eggs, or milk (is there milk in regular cake? See how much I know about baking, haha) makes conventional chocolate cakes seem milk chocolate-y, but veganize it and you will be amaaazed by how rich, moist, and black-coffee colored the cake will be. I also then made a broccoli-cheddar soup, which Mike and I both adore. I used unsweetened soymilk (but still regular butter and cheese--I'm not vegan, I just try not to eat a lot of dairy) and it still came out fantastic. All in all a good food day.

Speaking of food, I think I should address that a little bit. I'm vegetarian. I have been for nearly nine years now. It was a personal choice based on my own ethics, not diet or religion or anything else. I'm not the best vegetarian in the world, though. I don't mean that I cheat and eat meat (it completely stopped being appealing to me after a few months), but rather that I just don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. I probably don't eat a lot of protein either. Processed foods are enough of a trap for the average American, but for vegetarians, it's just so easy to eat frozen tater tots or tortilla chips all the time. Who wants to take the time to stir-fry up some tofu or make your own veggie burgers? I'd like to be a lot better about how I eat, but both Mike and I are basically poverty-level. I haven't had a job since last November. I have a job lined up on campus for the fall, FINALLY, but it's still very part-time, and I'll be a full-time student as well.

You can't deny produce is expensive. You also can't deny that anything the "average American" considers expensive is EXTREMELY expensive to me. Tofu used to be $1.00 or $1.50 for a one pound box; it's now usually double that. Those recipes that "feed a family for around $3.00 a serving" don't impress me. Bring it down to about 75 cents a serving and we'll talk!  I'm exaggerating a little bit... but there's a reason the Rice and Beans Diet or the Ramen Diet are staples of college cooking.

Ahem. Anyway, my point in going into all that is that even though I've taken "before" pictures showing my weight, it's entirely possible that I won't lose much or any weight in this venture. I simply don't have the income or the time right now to eat as well as I would in an ideal world. I'm eating broccoli-cheddar soup, for goodness sakes. It's got broccoli in it, but it's no health food. (By the way, the recipe says it takes an hour to do? I'm slow and it took me about 30 minutes. So don't believe them.) But then, as I addressed in the first post, I'm not overweight. I don't need to lose weight. I've read that the way you eat is much more impactful on weight loss than exercise. But I can at least get my body in decent working order. This is not a weight-loss goal. This is an "I can do anything if I just commit myself to it" goal. This is an "I can run past people without getting winded" goal. Any weight I lose would be merely by coincidence. I'll document it all the same.

SO, tonight I finally ran again! It'd been I think four days--maybe even five. Ugh. But we jogged about .8 miles on the sidewalk in the dark. I had an unusual new pain: the fronts of my shins. As in, my shin bone. How does THAT work? I have no idea... it was kind of bizarre. But I pushed through it and it's not bothering me anymore. I've noticed my right calf is a bit tighter than my left, but I think it's my dominant leg and I probably push off harder with it. I'll just keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get any worse.

Thanks for putting up with my lull, which was followed by this extremely long and possibly boring multi-topic blog.

Dramatic Running

Had a good run this evening. I've been having some housing-related frustrations that I won't really elaborate on here, but with school starting in just a couple of weeks, it's gotten me really stressed out. I decided that the best remedy, besides doing expensive things that I would ordinarily do (like go out for food or drinks, or browse around clothing stores), would be to go for a long run.

This of course made me think of all the dramatic running scenes in various movies. I thought this video was pretty cool. It was kind of like me, except I was running to The Grouch and Eligh, I was not in spandex, and I was not in a marathon. Okay, so it wasn't like me at all. I was by the water, though!



Or maybe it was more like this:



(Just wait for it, the song takes like a minute and a half to really start.) Maybe someday I'll have Mr. Gump's endurance.

Anyway, I went on the trail that Mike and I took three days ago. It's really close to my house, and it's flat and relaxing, with a great view of the water. I started running from the same spot. I got a little tired before I'd even made it to our original stopping point, but I just kept slowing my breathing when it got too labored. I kept closing my eyes and breathing, focusing on the music. I pushed through, and the struggle went away. It was easy to keep going. It felt so good. I made it the extra half-mile or so I needed to get to Boulevard Park (which is absolutely beautiful, by the way). I had jogged about 1.4 miles without stopping or even slowing down! This was a new feat in itself. When I slowed upon entering the park, I experienced what I think is the famed "runner's high."

It was basically a headrush that made me smile. My legs felt extremely heavy and exhausted, moreso than when I had been running. But my breathing slowed to normal in just a minute or two, and I felt relieved from the exertion, instead of just fed up and disgusting like I tend to feel after runs. I must be making progress all the time. I felt better about what had been stressing me out, and I was motivated to keep going. I went out for a long, dramatic, "I'm running away from my feelings" movie montage run: 1.4 miles wasn't going to cut it. So I circled the park on a slow walk, pausing at a dedicated bench. Unfortunately the memorial plaque had a damn typo on it (really? You can't get its/it's straight for a commemorative bench?!) so I had to get up quickly. I cannot deny the editor in my bones.

When I'd made the loop of the park, I started up jogging again. I passed a lot more people on the way back than I had on the way to the park. I got to be the jogger passing everyone on the trail! I'm meeting new goals all the time... Without fail, they would all turn their heads back to see me about 2 seconds before I went past. I don't think I imagined a look of congratulations on an older man's face--he seemed to be glad to see a college-age person staying active. I feel like a lot of college students in Bellingham jog or bike or go to the gym on a regular basis, but I was glad for the glance anyway.

I've used the gym at WWU many times, but I don't think I've ever really pushed myself there. Running on an elliptical machine and running outside are two very different things--and ellipticals never get me to break a sweat. They really don't. I'm not sure what it is, but I just can't get a good workout on those things. I never breathe as hard as when I'm really running.

I made it all the way back to my starting point without slowing or stopping as well, making a total of about 2.8 miles run! It's only been 4 hours and I'm already sore, so I hope tomorrow can be a "sit around and do nothing day" as much as possible. Except I need to go to the grocery store. And Value Village's Labor Day sale is on. I did labor pretty hard today, after all.

Happy Labor Day, everyone

Cramping My Style

After a day's break, Mike and I decided to try for a run yesterday. We were busy cleaning the house and grocery shopping, among other things, so we wanted to fit a run into a specific time slot. The time slot happened to be very soon after I had stuffed myself with a cheap cheese pizza. I figured maybe I would get a gross sloshy feeling from the food bouncing around in my stomach, but nothing major.

Well, five minutes in I got a twinge in my lower abdomen on the left side. Three seconds later it escalated to one of those pains that translates as "If you don't stop running now, you're just going to fall over." I walked it off for a few minutes but it came back after another minute of jogging. Again and again and again.We only had this small time slot in which to run, and my digestive system was not having any of it. My legs were fine--in fact, they were itching to run. My lungs had no complaints. It was just this one little part of my intestine that said, "Oh no you don't, missy; you slow down to a boring walk. No elevated heart rate for you!"

So we made it just a bit into the north end of the arboretum, exited to campus, and went back home through campus. A total of about 7 minutes of running. That would have been okay if we had been going up those killer hills, but no, it was flat. I wanted to run again later, but between cleaning and dinner and company, it didn't happen.

What I did accomplish, though, is taking pictures of my laughably bad shoes! 

Skechers--it's teh suck.

I bought these years and years ago, probably for high school gym class. I never wore them outside, because running shoes have never been part of my "personal style." I like how they look only when paired with other designated exercise attire. So these are still in good shape; however, I'm pretty sure they're mostly for show. I will say they have a good bounce in the sole, but the primary fabric is this strange meshy material that provides very little support. The ankle thing in the back there rubs up against my skin all the time. And the plastic details around the lace holes are just for show. I'm pretty sure no one goes out shopping for running shoes and comes home with Skechers.

Nice bulbous heel. Wut?

Buuuuut like most things at the moment, being a college student, it's not really in my budget to go get a gait analysis and custom fit shoes. Plus, it would be advisable for me to keep running for say, a few months, to make sure I'm actually going to stick with this. I don't want to be like the people that buy ice skates, use them once, and then stick them in the back of the closet, passing them on to their children 30 years later. If I buy running shoes, or anything else that's an investment, I want to get a good return. Which brings me to my leg pictures. I don't think I can fairly call them "before" pictures anymore, so I'll just call them "early on" pictures.

Any muscles you see here are already an improvement.

 

 

So I've got these new thigh muscles. Those are the ones that felt like they were going to burst through my skin while jogging the hills, remember? Yeah. And my calves were previously about the thickness of a normal person's arms. They've already gotten a bit better too. Oh, and note what I call the awesome tiger tan on my feet. That would be from my sweet cage sandals. I usually don't like trends in fashion very much, buuuut those I dig.

I think I spy a little bit of tone in those calves... WIN!

I'm about to go on a really long jog. I've run into (no pun intended!) some very frustrating situations today, and I'm not satisfied from the crampy run we did yesterday, so it's on today. No mercy. There will be a blog about it. I'll see you there.

Brief Update

I am not sore today. This only adds to the miracle that was our 1.5 mile run yesterday: I did it without getting winded then, or sore now. Let me assure you, as if the cheese grater metaphor and the muscles-bursting-through-skin image were not enough, that I was suffering on the days after each of our little uphill jaunts last week. I felt like one of the frozen cuts of meat Rocky Balboa beat up till he bled.

This must mean I've gained endurance. It only took a week?? It was a terrible, awful, why-am-I-doing-this-to-myself week, but it WAS only a week.

We didn't run today--Mike is extremely achy and groggy. But I feel like I could've run, which is just about as good to me. 

Thanks for reading! I got a lot of support and great feedback from my very first post and I'm so excited. I don't think I mentioned in the first post that my major at WWU is English, specifically Creative Writing. Blogging is a really good way to get yourself out there as a writer now, seeing as we all just sit around on our computers or smartphones all the time anyway. I was sort of inspired by watching "Julie and Julia" the other day. I loved seeing how Julie got her start, with her only readers being her mom and a few coworkers. From there, she made it all the way to a book deal! I could only dream of such a thing...

Upcoming soon will be "before" pictures of my legs (well, sort of before... I've already been running about a week and have seen a bit of improvement in muscle tone) and a discussion of my laughably bad running shoes.

Uphill Battle

So, I want to run. I have always hated running, and loved the idea of running. I watched enviously as runners deftly sped past me on trails, sidewalks, campuses... They never seemed to be experiencing any stress, shortness of breath, muscle fatigue, or anything. How long have these people been running? Did they just run right out of the womb?

In gym class I watched the tiny preppy girls lap me. They would complete the dreaded mile run in 6 minutes or less. I lagged behind, wheezing, clocking in at 11, 12, 13 minutes. My muscles ached, and I felt some sadistic chef had drug a cheese grater down my esophagus and through my lungs. I hated those girls and their bouncy ponytails.

I think it's important to add here, though no offense is meant, that I am not, nor have I ever been, overweight. People don't realize that overweight and out of shape do not always go hand in hand. Just as there are "overweight" people who eat healthily and exercise, there are also "normal weight" or "underweight" people who just generally suck at all things physically strenuous.

I'm raising my hand. I'm one of them. I'm very nearly 5'6" and at my heaviest was probably 136 pounds. I am now about 127. I'm not trying to lose weight by running. I'm just trying not to lose my breath running for the bus. I want to be a runner.

I want to speed past bewildered citizens on the trails of Bellingham! I want to have the coveted runner's legs. I want them. I have skinny calves. I have friends who complain they can't wear those hot knee-high fall boots because their calves are too big. Well, they don't fit me either. They make me look like Spinelli from Recess.

I would really like to see her with her shoes off. What are those, size 15 mens?

So my fiance and I have started the journey small. Three times now we have run about 2 blocks uphill. It takes us ten minutes round-trip and we get the cheese grater-on-lungs effect hardcore. My leg muscles feel like they're going to burst through my skin, Alien-style. I feel like the weakest person, huffing and puffing, skin still warm from having just left the house. But it must be working, because today we ran flat on a trail for about 1.5 miles. And I wasn't winded. Such a feat has NEVER happened to me. Ever. I have the endurance of American Apparel underwear. (Which is to say, none. I bought a pair once and the elastic came out of the stitching on the first wash. Just stay away.)

I give you my humble introduction into my silly little venture. I want to be a runner, just to see if I can. So here's my dorky unflattering "before" pictures. I should have some of my legs probably, too. But this post is long enough already.

Oh yeah. No sucking in the gut here. Sexy.

I'm a sadface because I'm still a wuss.