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.

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.