I Can't Wait

to be able to pull up my knee-high socks without grunting

to sleep on my stomach

to run without people getting mad at me

to run and actually pass someone

to not have to wear plus-sized clothing

for my thighs to no longer touch, again

to be able to eat fruits and vegetables with no consequences

to sit by myself and not have people staring at me

to go on a diet (now THAT'S a statement that has never come out of my mouth before!)

to put on pants without a major balancing act

for my feet not to swell

for people to stop asking me, with a patronizing smile, "how are you doing?"

to have my brain back, such as it is

to run again

It's amazing!

I finally caught up with the NYT crosswords. Of course, I DID skip some. But I am now in February and almost finished with Saturday's!

Hurray!

Now for doing the same with the rest of my life!

It Better Be Soon

I can't run.

Most of the time, I can't really sit up without needing to barf. So the pool and the exercise bike are the only elements of exercise I can really do. When I actually try to do them.

It's true. I've metamophasized into a 1st-class WHINER.


Whine.


Whine.


Whine.

I've been whining so much, I could barely fit in 50 minutes of swimming on Tuesday.

Will I lose all of my fitness? Probably.

Will that be the worst thing in the world?

I have to remember that the answer to this is "no."

Will I be able to eat vegetables again?

Yes. Eventually.

Right now, I'm eating basically an all-white diet. Sugar, ice cream products and white bread. Most other things don't go so well.

Sigh. The diabetes. It looms.

So who knows when I will post again. Maybe when I get less nauseous and more motivated.

And after I finally get my homework done!

I Even Let Her Touch My Feet

And my Toes.

I'm that desperate. And I have no idea what these magical "pressure points" are for encouraging things.

After all, nothing else is helping.

But, seriously, why would ANYONE want her feet touched?

A mystery to me.

Creativity

No running. Sigh. My doctor family would kill me.

Apparently, I am alone in thinking that traveling and running are both great ideas.

Stuck, then, with being semi-creative.

Friday, I walked to Trader Joe's. I'd never been to one with a wine and beer section! Sorry, Story Finder, but I was tempted by the bottles of wine for $3.99.

Saturday and Sunday, I biked. And stacked two woodpiles worth of wood. And cleaned 7 bathrooms. And seeded part of my parents' lawn. And squatted over paint buckets while filling them with sawdust and mulch, the better to dry the old paint out.

Nothing. Humph. Folk remedies are a lot of hooey.

Maybe if I had been able to persuade my father to let me split the wood, too.

Laying around in bed reading didn't work, either. And didn't do much for my studying.

So today was an aqua-jogging day.

Still nothing.

I am trying a massage, later. If that doesn't work, I'm just giving up. Maybe laziness and massive weight gain will help.

You never know.

I'm Glad I Worked Out Alone

My bladder isn't what it used to be.

I had to waddle to the bathroom mid-jumping jacks circuit.

Other observations on doing a work-out tape in this condition:

Doing the modified push-ups, as I've been neglecting my arms and had to downgrade to the wussy version, my stomach hits the ground before my arms bend into the full push-up postion. Awkward.

Burpees? Yeah. Maybe in quadruple-slow-time. And my knees crackle.

Switching back and forth from the floor to running in place: I don't have to do nearly as many of any of it. That's what happens when you have to pull yourself up via the tv stand.

Jumping in general - pretty hilarious.

On the plus side, this silly bootcamp work-out tape - you know, the one that I could do while barely breaking a sweat, before? - currently kicks my rear.

Again, I'm glad I worked out alone.

A Different Person

I was struggling to put on my running shoes. To put them on and, then, (groan) to tie them.

Gripping that black refridgerator handle and leaning like a circus elephant balancing on the top of a 4-square ball, my eyes fell on one of the few running certificates I've saved.

I don't save many. I like the medals: who wouldn't like shiny, jingly, sparkly things? But those pieces of paper usually get recycled.

The rules: my last marathon and my last half marathon get to stay. Boston is up there to remind me why I really shouldn't want to do Boston again - every time I look at it, that imagined 35-mph crosswind makes me shiver.

Oh, and I re-posted the Philadelphia postcard I got from my first marathon. Average pace: 10:16.7

I didn't even post Birmingham. That was the last half that I did. Last year. Last year, this weekend.

But I did keep the NYC half marathon certificate. Though the Speedy Blonde totally smoked me that day, I broke 1:30 (by a mere 15 seconds) for the first time ever.

That was almost 2 years ago.

Looking at that piece of paper, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to run an average 6:51 mile.

It wasn't me who did that. It was a whole different person.

I shook my head, finished off my shoes and went to meet History for a jog up to Columbia Heights.

While running through the Zoo and the Rock Creek Park Trail, a fellow runner turned to us and said, "Wow. We're really booking it. We were running a 9:15 for the past 2 miles and now we are still doing a 9:50!"

A different city. A different mind-frame. Maybe different goals? A whole different person.

About 7 miles. It's better not to know the pace I was keeping!