onward, upward

Am I the only person who quite frequently finds a pen or a pencil shoved through their ponytail? I suppose I do this unconsciously; one minute I’m writing and the next I’m playing a game of OH MY GOD WHERE IS MY FIRE TRUCK? NO THE OTHER FIRE TRUCK! NO THE OTHER FIRE TRUCK! and then an hour later I’ll realize I’ve got a Bic sticking out of my head. I suppose it’s simple grace that’s kept me from this until now.

That, in case you can’t tell, is ink. From my hair. And I, in the spirit of all mothers before me, reached for the obvious — baby wipe. It’s the standard mommy go to tool. Gunk on your kid’s face? Baby wipe. Blood on his leg? Baby wipe. Zombie Apocolypse? Baby wipe.

I’ve had a good day though, in spite of Ink Explosion 2010. I managed to get right at it this morning, rousing the three year old and the puppy and getting them into the running stroller and onto the leash (respectively) and then headed out for Couch25K W1D2. Which promptly kicked my ass.

It’s frustrating, to have lost 40 pounds and have gained most of it back, to have finished two half-marathons and now be starting over with a beginner’s running program. It’s humbling. It’s emberassing, even, but it’s real. This is real life. This is the nitty gritty. It’s hard and it sucks, but I can’t look at where I’ve been, only where I’m going. Onward and Upward, right?

In that vein, here is what I’ve decided.

August 14 – Summer’s End 5k Fitting, since this was my first ever 5k, three years ago. Also, August 14th is NOT the end of Summer, not in Georgia anyway.

November 5 – Zooma Atlanta. I’ve been talking about Zooma for a couple of years. I’ve wanted to run a women’s series race, and I’ve heard this one is brilliant. Besides, this year it’s being held about 4 miles from my sister’s house at a beautiful vineyard. If I spend the night with her I can even sleep late that morning! Well, late for a race day.

So there it is, in black and white. No backing down. No giving up. Onward. Upward.

(For the sake of posterity, I also did The Fitnessista’s Summer Shape Up workout today, which, ow.)

imperfect me

There’s something so satisfying about being sore. Not in that  post marathon oh-god-I-may-never-move-again way, but in the way that happens after you start working out again after a break — your body waking up again.

My good friend Lauren has been showing me some new whip my legs into shape moves and I put in a tough workout with them yesterday. I was a little disappointed when I woke up this morning and didn’t feel the slightest bit sore. I spent the morning running errands, came home and made lunch and then sat down on the couch with the laptop to plow through my email. I stood up about an hour later and ahhhh, there it was, that long, slow burn in my thighs that lets me know exactly how hard I worked them yesterday. It was brilliant.

I’ve been thinking today about that awareness, that sense of actually existing within my own body, and I think that’s one thing that’s missing when I’m not working out and eating properly. I’m not taking care of myself. I’m detached from my body. I dealt with it in a huge way following cancer treatments; my body had betrayed me, so I betrayed it. I was furious and I treated myself terribly, and it’s there that I get into trouble. I’m not uninformed, I’m not ill-educated. I have all of the knowledge I need to have the body I want. I just haven’t been making it happen for myself.

I was at the grocery store this morning and I overheard two women talking. One of them was said that her doctor told her to lose 40 pounds, and she didn’t know what to eat for snacks. She said, “I don’t want to eat celery, or vegetables or fruit, or any of that.” The other women said, “Oh, get those 100 calorie packs of cookies. Those are a good snack.”

OK. I don’t want to knock a good cookie every now and then, and I don’t want to make it sound like I think there is no place in a person’s diet for sweets but seriously? A 100 pack of cookies is not a substitute for “celery or vegetables or fruit or any of that.” Hearing that discussion made me so frustrated and I had to walk quickly away and then I thought, wait. Is that any better? They’re misinformed. I’m purposefully ignoring what I know. What right do I have to be frustrated?

For me, this battle with weight and food and everything that goes along with it, it’s not a matter of connecting my brain and my stomach. It’s a matter of reconnecting the wires in my brain and understanding, really knowing, that it isn’t a battle at all. This is my one body. This is all I’m going to get. It isn’t me against her, it’s us against the world and for all we’ve been through, I think it’s about time I started treating her like the treasure she is.

Love Your Body Already

2 // w1d1

In the spirit of positivity, of moving forward and all that other rot I shall tell you simply that I finished Week One Day One of Couch 2 5k. I shall not tell you how it kicked my ass, how it took twenty minutes for my feet to feel like they belonged at the end of my legs, how I spent the entire 31 one minutes so furious at myself I didn’t enjoy a single minute of the run.

Instead, let me introduce you to my running partner.

Yeah. That’s Her Lady Grace, Dame Evelyn of Athens. Because she is a kind and generous sort, she allows us to call her by her nickname, Evie Bevie Dumbface.  Worst running partner ever. She chases squirrels, cats, birds. Shadows. She stops for random bits of hamburger in the street. She almost broken three legs today. But when I look at that face, I sort of don’t even mind.

1 // Here I Go. Again.

Productive day today. Cleaned the kitchen top to bottom, including emptying and scrubbing the fridge, got some meal planning done, three loads of laundry. Had a quick workout during Hogan’s naptime — abs, squats, lunges, calf raises. I ate well, though I did splurge on a couple small handfuls of M&Ms, and I logged my food on my handy dandy Fitness Pal app on the ol’ iphone. Oh, yeah, and I started blogging again.

I’m trying to get myself set up for success; next week I’m returning full force to my training plan. I’m absolutely appalled at myself and how far I’ve let myself fall from the ING last March. I am out of shape, out of excuses and out of patience. Time to hold my feet to the fire.