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.