The journey from fat to fit. Road trip, woo hoo!

I met the neatest woman today at the pool.  DD9 and a friend were at “open swim” and I was the only person in the observation room, doing my proofreading for work.  Another mom came in, and she was so petite and fit that I was instantly jealous of not only her tight body but her really cute sandals and wavy hair.  (We biked to the pool, so I was wearing clodhopper nikes and helmet head, cute!)

She was very friendly, started to chat about how many kids were in the pool, small talk, which was a nice way for me to get out of the boring proofreading I was doing.  She appeared to be a little older than me, and I think that was confirmed when she told me her oldest child is 29 (get out of town!).  We compared kid age spreads… hers going from 29 to 12 and mine from 21 to 9.  Compared kid activities, she heading home from golf camp with her boy, me prepping up for girl scout camp with my girl.  Typical mom pool chatter.

Then she mentioned that she runs.  Like seriously runs.  40-50 miles per week.  9-15 miles on her “quick morning runs” and 20 miles on her long weekend runs.  I sat there dumbstruck and in awe.  I told her I was a very novice runner trying to make it to five miles.

She told me she couldn’t run one mile when she started, and she just built up gradually to a 5k, then a 10k, and fast forward to, oh my god, she’s run the freaking boston marathon multiple times.  Again, me with the dumstruck awe.

I was just lamenting this weekend about my inability to move from 4 mile runs to 5 mile runs and that maybe I should just give up that goal and be happy with 4 miles.  And now this 5′1″ 90-lb woman has me ready to beef up my running schedule so I can join her marathon group when they start training in April for the next marathon season.  It’s amazing what a little pep talk can do for my motivation!

Of course, here is where reality sets in, when she tells me the marathon group starts out with newbies really gently, just running four or five miles the first week with a 10 or 11 minute mile, working up from there.  And even when you get to marathon distances with the beginner group, they don’t ever push you longer than five hours.  HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.  Um, yeah, a 10 minute mile is like my wildest dream right now.  A 12 minute mile is a dream, actually.  And five hours of running?  Well, frankly that doesn’t even sound like fun.  I didn’t mention that though, just entertained the fantasy of joining a marathon club and training and doing something that cool and powerful and athletic.

So my 5k to 5 mile training is BACK ON.  GOAL: Run this week Tues, Thurs and Saturday, goal of 4.25 miles each run.

Breakfast: a popcicle

Lunch: JC meatball sandwich, can of diet coke

Dinner: JC mac and cheese, small pc. of smoked sausage, 1/2 a snack pack sized bag of Funyons, can of diet coke

 Snack: six strawberries, another can of diet coke

Exercise: biked 3.3 miles — half with DD9 to VBS and the other half home without her whiny ass!  I thought I was going to have to leave her to fend for herself.  This is the second bike ride that she’s whined through.  Not sure what to do about that!  I have waited and waited and waited for her to get on two wheels so we could bike together (and seeing that she is 9.5 years old and JUST got on two wheels this summer, that’s a hell of a wait!).  But she’s ruining my biking fun for me!  And the other day when I was shopping for a basket for my bike, she said “Bike, bike, bike, that’s all you talk about is your stupid bike!”  Made me feel kind of like Pee Wee Herman.  This attitude and her uncanny ability to know EXACTLY when DH and I might be getting romantical and knock on the door at that EXACT moment are why we have fondly nicknamed her “The Ruinator.”  That’s my girl, the ruinator, but I vow that my biking fun shall not be ruined this summer!

I posted a “stock” photo of my fab new bike, but here’s my actual bike, complete with fenders, front basket and rear rack, and my cool new helmet to boot.

I learned something new tonight.  The community center where I work out and take DD9 swimming has a policy whereby during public swim the parent has to be on site but not at the pool.  So I took DD9 and a friend to the pool for public swim and went to the gym and got on the treadmill for the first time in, um, forever.

I finally got my faux-pod to charge, and I used my long-ago-created running playlist for the first time successfully!  I hit the 5k mark at 39 minutes (yeah baby!) and then continued on for about 15 more minutes.  Finished up the run at about 4.25 miles total run, then walked about five minutes.  Then hopped in the shower then the pool for a few minutes.  Talk about wonderful, stretching out in the pool.  If only there weren’t so many pesky children about, haha.

It felt look a good makeup for the friend chicken incident earlier today.  But I came home hungry and made a salad, which which unearthly delicious, thanks to the fad-laden garganzola cheese, croutons and smoked almonds.  Oh, and I chugged down a beer with the salad (and a bottle of water at the gym).

 Run details on my 5k to 5 mile page if you truly truly truly have nothing better to do with your time : )

OK, my flake-out friend is on-again for pole dance class tonight (taught by her 24 year old daughter, no less!) and so we finally are going to try it!  She has flaked out on me a couple of times that we were scheduled to go, so this time hopefully it’ll be a go.  Wish me luck.  It’s salsa pole dance… should be interesting : )

 UPDATE: OK, so we went to the class.  It was salsa night, so not only pole dance, but salsa pole dance.  Picture salsa dancing with the pole as your partner.  Interesting.  Not very raunchy at all, and a pretty good workout.  I know I will feel it tomorrow!  Not sure if I want to make it a weekly thing, we’ll see.  I’m also supposed to be taking a tap dance class with another girlfriend starting on Saturday, which I am really looking forward to, so I might limit myself to being enrolled in one class at a time. 

So, all in all, a fun class, and if you have it available in your area I’d say definitely check it out : )

I bought a new bike.  It is a Diamondback Wildwood, turquois and silver, the same one in the picture except mine has silver fenders on it … so cool!  I need a rack put on the back but Joe’s was out of the right rack, so I am waiting for that to come in.  In the meantime, I love my new bike! Oh, and I need a cool basket for the front, but the ones they had in stock were not cool, so I exercised self control and didn’t buy just to buy.

I went to the store, Joe’s, and sat on a couple of bikes, and this one was SOOOOOO comfortable.  Talk about nice.  It felt good to go into the store and try out bikes and not be self conscious and worry about what I looked like on the bike (i.e. a giant tubolard who is going to break the bike).  In fact, when I started looking at the women’s bikes the bike guy came over and said, “You’re pretty small, I think these are too big” and directed me to shorter bikes.  I know, he meant small as in only 5′1″ but I’ll take what I can get!

I went on a run this morning (3.65 miles, which I thought was 4 miles until I got home and remapped it, oh well).  Anyway, a girlfriend of mine called me and said, “I just saw you jogging down Columbia Blvd.”  And I said, “Oh, yuck.”  And she said, “You totally looked like Charlotte.”  And I said, “You’re deranged” and “I’ll call you back when I can breathe” and hung up.

Now, if you are not a SATC fan, you don’t know what jogging like Charlotte means.  But if you can imagine the cheeziest circa mid-1980s VHS aerobic exercise tape you’ve ever seen, and fast forward to the “jog in place” segment, that’s the look.  Very pert and perky and knees high, shoulders back, etc.

So, I was totally cracking up that my friend said I jog like Charlotte, because Charlotte is the perkiest little jogger you ever did see and I am so the opposite of perk that it just makes me still laugh right now an hour later.

I know, I am simple minded, I know.

I ran my Virtual 5k this morning, a little late but I think (hope) that’s okay.  I set out at 7:30 a.m., which is an early run for me, and it was nice to be on the path with a lot less foot traffic.  Unfortunately, the path runs along the river and one side and a road on the other.  When I usually run, the road is virtually traffic free.  But at 7:30 a.m., it’s really busy, a lot of truck traffic and, yuck, exhaust.

 As a result, I deviated off of my pre-mapped out exactly 3.1 mile route and ended up running 3.5 miles.  My total time was 44 minutes 57 seconds.  Using my fourth-grade math skills, I figure I hit the 3.1 mile mark in about 39 minutes, so I am declaring my 5k time to be 39 minutes.

It was a nice morning, the heat hasn’t set in yet, and the river is serene.  I forgot to bring my iPod, so I jogged alone with my thoughts, which can be dangerous and somewhat scary, but was actually pretty calming this morning.  I started out with a comfortable jog, which based on my treadmill experience I would estimate is between 4.5-4.8 miles per hour.  I stayed there for the entire run, no speed bursts, no recovery walks.  Nice and steady. 

The morning trail people are much more friendly than the afternoon trail folk.  Or that could just be my perception since I forgot to bring a hat or visor and I was actually making eye contact with people.  When I was about 1/2 mile from my finish line I said good morning to someone, and realized I wasn’t having any heavy breathing… not even my usual lamaze-esque jogging breathing.  So I probably should have pushed it a little more.

But it felt good to be out, it felt good to be running.  My shadow looked very svelte in the morning sun as opposed to short and squat in the evening sun.  All in all, a success.

Thanks, Wee, for organizing this virtual 5k!

Just an update: I am going to do my virtual 5k early Monday morning.  Hopefully outside, but if the thunderstorms continue, I’ll do it in the gym.

I went for a short run and a longer walk Friday and a long walk Saturday, and my left hip really started to bother me.  Weird.  It hurts when I walk, not when I run.  It’s hard to isolate the pain, but it’s kind of an achey joint and kind of a sore muscle, and kind of the region from the hip down through the quad.  It’s not a bad pain, but when it’s there, it’s there, so I decided to rest it on Sunday.  Feels fine now and I’ve googled up some new stretches that are helping a lot.

So, 5k for me in the a.m.  I’m going to go read about everyone else’s runs now!

I have this thing that I do, it’s kind of a chronic disorder.  I buy stuff.  When I decide I NEEEEED something, I can’t rest until I have it.  It’s a sickness, it really is.  I become obsessed and distracted and I spend way too much money on things that I later regret buying and don’t use.  I am the ultimate impulse shopper.

In my quest to tame my inner shopping beast, I’ve decided to be reasonable about my purchase of a new bike.  I’ve been looking at potential bikes all day, and had my heart set on an Electra or Felt.  But I gave myself a reality check and, really, I cannot spend $400+ on a bike if I don’t even know truly that I want to be a bike rider.  What if I buy a new bike and going up hill still sucks?  Then what? 

So I’ve decided to keep my new bike purchase to under $200 and keep it simple, stick to the guidelines the bike shop gal gave me… a simple 7-speed cruiser.  I’ve narrowed it down to two different Shwinn models, both 7-speed cruisers.  One is pink and glorious and the other is red and fabulous.  Now I need to pick.

I’m proud of myself for not having gone out today and purchased a $750 bike that I might not ride.  You don’t even know what kind of impulse control that took!

So what do you think … pretty in pink or wicked red?