You can't always get what you want
I think today was a success. I think. I jogged four continuous miles on the rubberized track, which is further than I've ever jogged. More importantly, I think I could have kept going for another mile if it hadn't been so damn boring on that track. But it was. I have got to get some different music or something, because that just about killed me, and I'm going to have to keep doing that, and at longer distances. But today excites me because I know I can work up to 6.2 miles by March 17th, provided I really go at it. Admittedly, they will be a slow as fuck 6.2 miles, but I never claimed I was going to be good at this.
The indoor/outdoor thing is going to be a problem. Right now I'm running on the track indoors, which is bad A. because it's yes, boring, B. completely flat and so not preparing me for the actual races, and C. I do actually need to prep for weather somewhat. But the high these days is not hitting above freezing and dammit I am not prepared for that. I don't have the gear for it, I can't afford the gear for it, and even if you do have the special pants and jackets etc. you still have the frozen face and misery. Fuck it. At some point in February I'll have to run the course for the 5k a couple times, just to get a feel for it, but it won't be happening this week.
Much much more daunting and/or impossible is that I agreed to do the Mini at the end of April. Oh my god what the fuck. If you had told me a year ago that I would have actually agreed to jog 13 miles with someone I would have laughed my ass off and walked away. 13 miles. I can't jog 13 miles. If there were rabid dogs after me I would get eaten. By the end of April, apparently, this must no longer be the case. All I can hope for is to injure myself, because otherwise, I am so fucked. The person I am doing it with was like "we can walk part of the day." She's not going to want to walk part of the way. She's going to want to run it because that's the kind of intense person she is. I am going to get my ass kicked by a 60 year old, it is so not fair.
I've been stretching this week! I'm not so concerned about it (although I should be) when I'm on the arc-trainer, but if I'm going to be jogging, with all the impact on the body, I have to be seriously stretching myself out. I know how easy it is to injure yourself if you're a runner, and I can't afford to do that.
On top of everything else I ought to be doing, I really have to get myself back into the Ball/Core class. I need my belly to GO AWAY and it is not doing it with 30 sit-ups a day. Yes it's getting smaller, yes it's better, but I need the 20 pounds I want to lose to come from my middle. I haven't even tried to take that class since I had my knee injury, so I would think (hope) I'd be better at it now than I was a few months ago.
The plan will be to make tomorrow a "hard" day at the gym. Do the ball/core class, maybe cut out a little early to take a break, then do as much of high impact extra-tough as I can get through, eat, jog, and watch Grey's Anatomy on the arc-trainer. I'm not sure I can do all that, since I haven't really taken a break day in a while and that's a 1500 calorie burn, but if I eat well and stay hydrated, I can do a lot.
I'm trying my best to get back to the really good behavior I showed in core, diet-wise I mean. Which isn't to say that I haven't been eating better than I was before, but I was drinking too much beer, not getting in enough vegetables, and ignoring fruit entirely. I was calorie counting instead of letting nutritional value dictate what I was supposed to be doing. And I was letting my excessive exercise pick up the slack for bad behavior. There will be no more of that folks. If I lost weight last week just because there was nothing in me, then that's not going to work at all. Today my diet was almost perfect: breakfast was a scoop of protein shake with fruit mixed in, for about 300 calories. Then came lunch, 450 calories. I had a great harvest muffin for a snack while I was working out, 230 calories, and then soup when I came home, another 250 calories or so. Just over 1200, which is about as little as I'm allowed to eat without experiencing malnutrition. And that's how I've been eating the last couple days, except that last night I ate too much vegetable soup too late at night. I don't think it's going to hurt me in the scope of the 12 week plan, but I have to learn not to eat late at night. Which is not hard to avoid as long as I don't work out until closing. I always eat after I work out. I try to eat my biggest meal earlier in the day, but I always have something when I come home.
I realize I think too much, and I realize this sounds crazy to the reader, but this is not a pet project, this is a lifestyle. This *is* about the rest of my life, and trying to develop good habits. I never had them before, but I have to have something good to ground myself on as I try to fix the rest of my stupid fucking life.
In other news, albeit still gym related, it became obvious to me today that the trainer and I are going to come to a head and it's not going to be pleasant for me. I find myself completely paranoid that I'm overstepping my bounds into his life and he continues to look at me like I'm loony. Which I am. I keep my locker key in his box because I always lose it and he offered. But that was something he offered *once* and I do it every day. So today I checked to make sure it was still okay with him. And he was like "I said you could. Why would I have told you to if I didn't want you to?". And I had no real logic other than I thought I should check, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't suddenly becoming a burden to him. And the urge to smack him and yell "It's because I like you you fucking idiot and it makes me insecure!" was very much there. Doesn't he understand that it makes it worse that he encourages me and tells me he's proud of me and has never said a negative thing to me in the seven months I've known him because still I cannot get from him what I actually want? Because I don't know the motivation behind anything he does.
At some point I might discuss this with Corey, another trainer friend of mine who seems like he's not particularly gossipy, but we do tend to discuss relationships a lot. We're both sort of burned at the instant, and he's going to be leaving for New Hampshire soon, so he's a good person to talk to. And he respects Ryan, and they're friends, but I'm certainly closer to either of them than they are to each other. Which is weird in and of itself. But then again, I've been around longer than Corey has and I'm probably there more hours a week than he is. And... Ryan is a hard guy to connect to. If you want him to open up, you actually have to crack him a little, and Corey is really nice, really fun, but he's another one where you really have to wait for the right moment to actually see inside. I like spending my time investigating them, but I can see how they wouldn't bother with each other.
But Ryan and I are going to have to have a talk. And I don't know that I'm going to make it the originally planned 12 weeks. I need to be able to feel secure around him, one way or another. Is all I'm saying.
The indoor/outdoor thing is going to be a problem. Right now I'm running on the track indoors, which is bad A. because it's yes, boring, B. completely flat and so not preparing me for the actual races, and C. I do actually need to prep for weather somewhat. But the high these days is not hitting above freezing and dammit I am not prepared for that. I don't have the gear for it, I can't afford the gear for it, and even if you do have the special pants and jackets etc. you still have the frozen face and misery. Fuck it. At some point in February I'll have to run the course for the 5k a couple times, just to get a feel for it, but it won't be happening this week.
Much much more daunting and/or impossible is that I agreed to do the Mini at the end of April. Oh my god what the fuck. If you had told me a year ago that I would have actually agreed to jog 13 miles with someone I would have laughed my ass off and walked away. 13 miles. I can't jog 13 miles. If there were rabid dogs after me I would get eaten. By the end of April, apparently, this must no longer be the case. All I can hope for is to injure myself, because otherwise, I am so fucked. The person I am doing it with was like "we can walk part of the day." She's not going to want to walk part of the way. She's going to want to run it because that's the kind of intense person she is. I am going to get my ass kicked by a 60 year old, it is so not fair.
I've been stretching this week! I'm not so concerned about it (although I should be) when I'm on the arc-trainer, but if I'm going to be jogging, with all the impact on the body, I have to be seriously stretching myself out. I know how easy it is to injure yourself if you're a runner, and I can't afford to do that.
On top of everything else I ought to be doing, I really have to get myself back into the Ball/Core class. I need my belly to GO AWAY and it is not doing it with 30 sit-ups a day. Yes it's getting smaller, yes it's better, but I need the 20 pounds I want to lose to come from my middle. I haven't even tried to take that class since I had my knee injury, so I would think (hope) I'd be better at it now than I was a few months ago.
The plan will be to make tomorrow a "hard" day at the gym. Do the ball/core class, maybe cut out a little early to take a break, then do as much of high impact extra-tough as I can get through, eat, jog, and watch Grey's Anatomy on the arc-trainer. I'm not sure I can do all that, since I haven't really taken a break day in a while and that's a 1500 calorie burn, but if I eat well and stay hydrated, I can do a lot.
I'm trying my best to get back to the really good behavior I showed in core, diet-wise I mean. Which isn't to say that I haven't been eating better than I was before, but I was drinking too much beer, not getting in enough vegetables, and ignoring fruit entirely. I was calorie counting instead of letting nutritional value dictate what I was supposed to be doing. And I was letting my excessive exercise pick up the slack for bad behavior. There will be no more of that folks. If I lost weight last week just because there was nothing in me, then that's not going to work at all. Today my diet was almost perfect: breakfast was a scoop of protein shake with fruit mixed in, for about 300 calories. Then came lunch, 450 calories. I had a great harvest muffin for a snack while I was working out, 230 calories, and then soup when I came home, another 250 calories or so. Just over 1200, which is about as little as I'm allowed to eat without experiencing malnutrition. And that's how I've been eating the last couple days, except that last night I ate too much vegetable soup too late at night. I don't think it's going to hurt me in the scope of the 12 week plan, but I have to learn not to eat late at night. Which is not hard to avoid as long as I don't work out until closing. I always eat after I work out. I try to eat my biggest meal earlier in the day, but I always have something when I come home.
I realize I think too much, and I realize this sounds crazy to the reader, but this is not a pet project, this is a lifestyle. This *is* about the rest of my life, and trying to develop good habits. I never had them before, but I have to have something good to ground myself on as I try to fix the rest of my stupid fucking life.
In other news, albeit still gym related, it became obvious to me today that the trainer and I are going to come to a head and it's not going to be pleasant for me. I find myself completely paranoid that I'm overstepping my bounds into his life and he continues to look at me like I'm loony. Which I am. I keep my locker key in his box because I always lose it and he offered. But that was something he offered *once* and I do it every day. So today I checked to make sure it was still okay with him. And he was like "I said you could. Why would I have told you to if I didn't want you to?". And I had no real logic other than I thought I should check, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't suddenly becoming a burden to him. And the urge to smack him and yell "It's because I like you you fucking idiot and it makes me insecure!" was very much there. Doesn't he understand that it makes it worse that he encourages me and tells me he's proud of me and has never said a negative thing to me in the seven months I've known him because still I cannot get from him what I actually want? Because I don't know the motivation behind anything he does.
At some point I might discuss this with Corey, another trainer friend of mine who seems like he's not particularly gossipy, but we do tend to discuss relationships a lot. We're both sort of burned at the instant, and he's going to be leaving for New Hampshire soon, so he's a good person to talk to. And he respects Ryan, and they're friends, but I'm certainly closer to either of them than they are to each other. Which is weird in and of itself. But then again, I've been around longer than Corey has and I'm probably there more hours a week than he is. And... Ryan is a hard guy to connect to. If you want him to open up, you actually have to crack him a little, and Corey is really nice, really fun, but he's another one where you really have to wait for the right moment to actually see inside. I like spending my time investigating them, but I can see how they wouldn't bother with each other.
But Ryan and I are going to have to have a talk. And I don't know that I'm going to make it the originally planned 12 weeks. I need to be able to feel secure around him, one way or another. Is all I'm saying.