you will do it and you will like it, dammit

I am in full on fool myself mode here. Since I am in exile in SC, I have all of my and Brian’s music on a hard drive and finally figured out how to load it into my Itunes (actually, he told me – I didn’t figure anything out). Brian has over a month’s worth of music and I have about 20 minutes, mostly consisting of Fergie songs. For a while I thought my songs weren’t loading in and then I realized that I just literally have 1/1000th of the music he has…anyway, it took me an hour and a half to make a Houston Marathon playlist with a second little playlist of music that makes me feel good to listen to on the plane. I’m not going quite as far as to say it’s music I want to hear if the plane goes down, but I did just to happen to call most of my loved ones today…just in case.

It’s not that I am a firm believer that something bad will happen; it is that I think if I take every precaution and throw it out there into the universe as many times as possible, it will not happen. So, at 11:11am this morning when I looked at the clock, I wished that I would have a good [fun] time in the marathon…and-not-die-in-a-plane-crash. Am I the only person who makes a wish on the clock like that (2:22, 3:33, etc) and then always tries to jam in a second wish? Usually I wish for something and then tack on something about not dying so that I am not on my deathbed thinking, “WHY DID YOU NOT WISH TO DRIVE TO THE BI-LO WITHOUT GETTING HIT BY A SEMI-TRUCK, YOU DIPSTICK?!” Not sure if that qualifies as superstition, paranoia, or something else entirely.

Also contributing to my positive mental attitude is drinking some Michelob Ultra with the hopes of falling asleep sometime before midnight tonight. My flight is at 5:30AM and as you might surmise with my recounting of absolutely no long runs for the past couple months, it’s not a time of day I’ve seen in a while. The gas station attendant totally tried to poo poo my out of state license. She was going to sell it to me, changed her mind, and then got the manager to come over and okay it. I was like, woman, do you see these fine lines and wrinkles? Do you think this is a freaking sting operation? There is a line of five people behind me. I am 28 years old. Give me the mother loving light beer and let me get out of here because my reheated frozen pizza in my crappy apartment is getting cold.

Perhaps this is also a good time to admit that today I was cruising around being kind of bored/lonely and I thought, hmm, I kind of like it here. [screeching tires] What? There is absolutely nothing to do, but I also never feel like I should be doing something else. I don’t feel rushed. There are not zillions of college students everywhere. I kind of like driving down Irby Street every day and seeing the same weirdos, waving at the lady dressed as a blue M&M, homeless black dude with super white beard riding a bike, mental man who is always speed walking with his mouth open. Today there was someone dressed as a dalmatian outside of a vet’s office. Never been to a place that loves to employ people dressed up in ridiculous outfits to wave at traffic like Florence, SC.

Okay, time to pack. See you in the future with my tales of triumph, woe, misery, and various unsavory characters in the southern USA.

prepare to be unprepared

Chevron Houston Marathon is this Sunday and I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how to up my mental game while knowing my physical game isn’t quite there. I’ve been running, but not “marathon training” since Ridge to Bridge at the end of October and my body is definitely not in as good a shape. I am still running, working out, etc but taking a closer look at the miles I have run the past couple of months solves ye great mystery of why I don’t feel as fit as I felt six months ago. It’s probably been said over and over for the past couple of months, but finishing grad school/out of state move/starting my dietetic internship were obvious priorities over long runs most weekends and weekdays. It is what it is – I know some people who despise that phrase, but I like it. Simple, basic. Nothing to it.

So, the world and I are in agreement that I have not scientifically coordinated my training to culminate in ultimate physical prowess this Sunday in Houston. Now what? Now my question is, what can I do? Do I start at what feels like a reasonably safe pace until I feel like I’m going to yarf and then slowly deathjog it in? This is actually my usual “strategy,” so maybe I need to downgrade to starting really, really slow…and tapering, as the saying goes. Then I wonder, how slow does my finish have to be to rank as disappointing or acceptable? Certainly I will be very happy with any finish and I don’t think it’s a given that you will always finish because you never know. I don’t think I’m in any worse shape than I was for my first marathon, but now the difference is that I know better! I know that 13.1 is not really halfway through, “only 10k to go!” can mean an eternity, and they can find some real bastard hills to slow up the last tenth of a mile, possibly even in flat Houston. One single goal: have funskies. I am going to try to start extra slow for real; unfortunately lately even running slow does not feel that slow which is kind of a concern. Also, the weather forecast is calling for chance of thunderstorms and has not broken this information down into hourly predictions yet. Harrumph.

Other complaints: I hate flying and haven’t flown anywhere in over five years. I panic and sweat and cuss and grip the armrest and think about what a dumbass I am to be in some POS aircraft 40,000 feet off the ground. I can’t think about it right now or I will not go – in historic 2010 when I entered the lottery for the race, I thought I would either be living in Houston (my second choice internship was there) or sitting at home doing nothing if I didn’t get matched to a DI and I would drive out there. Flying wasn’t on my mind. The worst is going to be when I get there and realize that I have to fly home. The good part about that will be that I won’t be expected to run a marathon shortly thereafter and I am plenty old enough to have a drink on the plane.

Tomorrow is the last day of my first internship rotation in food systems management. It’s been real. I start a new rotation at the hospital Monday morning. I am sure I will make a great first impression when I can barely descend stairs, still have salt crusted to my eyebrows, or can’t write anything because I have fingers the size of bratwursts. Whee!

I gotta feeling

Today we finished early enough that I drove over to run on the rail trail instead of from my apartment or going to the YMCA. It was so good and relaxing and quiet. I run without music 99% of the time and it was peaceful to be mostly in a little wooded area instead of listening to cars zooming past me on the sidewalk. I did three out, three back in a little bit of rain. Ah, [deep breath]. The trail goes from sidewalk to paved trail to gravel/dirt to grass to regular dirt trail to grass and back to sidewalk. It is alright for mixing it up, but I really just like running on regular sidewalk or concrete best. I guess I am not that outdoorsy.

I finished my six and was standing by my car in the parking lot when an older man with a kid in the car pulled up and said, “how are you wearing that?” I was wearing shorts with a long sleeve and a vest and was not sure if he thought I should be cold in the rain or thought I looked like a hooch in running shorts. Never can tell. So, I just told him I was sweating which maybe doesn’t make the most sense. He asked how far I ran and then said, “oh, g-d love you.” Asked how long it took and repeated that again. Pretty funny. Kind of made my day because he was all stoked about it. He was missing his front teeth. I wasn’t tired yet, but didn’t really have anywhere else to go so after unsuccessfully attempting to find another part of the trail system I went to the YMCA and used the elliptical and listened to NPR for a while. One thing I have to say for South Carolina is that their public radio is AWESOME because I can always find a station that comes in clearly and they always have programs on whereas ours in Athens alternated with a classical station for most of the day (blech). I finished with some weight machines, but people were on all the ones I wanted for my arms, so they will have to remain dinky for the time being. Then I ate the heck out of some kale and potato for dinner. Feeling alright today.

another one bites the dust

Another week in Florence down. The time here is passing a little quicker than I expected, so far. Take that with a grain of salt considering the holiday this week and snow days last week, but I’ll still take it.

Let’s see. Running is going…okay. I ran at the YMCA twice this week, my first time on a treadmill since last summer. Horrible! Boring, oddly tiring, and my headphones kept falling out. It was more enjoyable when I just took off the headphones and stared into space. I used to like it, but am not accustomed to it yet (and have gotten a lot slower since I used to run on the TM regularly…for all the complaints about them, I think they are massively helpful for increasing speed). I supplemented the three or so miles I eked out each day with spin class one day and weights the next. Last night, I went to a “cardio max” class with my roommate. This class consisted of STEP AEROBICS and circuit training. Holy crap. The class started out with a 70-something looking woman doubting my choice to use two risers on my step, never having done a step class before (I don’t feel I should be ashamed of that, either). She thought I couldn’t hang, but I got the last laugh when she used no risers and then left the class after 25 minutes while I continued bumbling along about five beats behind everybody else. My lack of moves were apparent…they have actual routines for these things and I could not follow it to save my life. I don’t think I’m uncoordinated, but I am not good at mimicking or following steps. Thank g-d the step part ended after 30 minutes and we moved into a circuit of jumping jacks, shoulder presses, mountain climbers, etc for the rest of the hour. I almost died, for real.

I ran four miles yesterday before going to that class. I knew waiting and running at the Y would lead to certain disaster (aka quitting after 10 minutes). Weather was perfect and it repeated again this morning for another short run. Next week, I vow to find better places to run than where I am going now. I’m going to my parents’ house later today. It’s massively hilly over there compared to pancake flat Florence, hopefully I can drag myself up a hill or two over the weekend. I am always a little sad when I visit their house without my red dog.

home sweet home

I am home for the glorious MLKJ Day long weekend and it is GOOD. It seems I forgot what it was like to be surrounded by years of carefully cultivated stuff…and animals assaulting you every five minutes. To Georgians’ credit, there is a freaking ton of ice still here whereas it was pretty much gone when I left South Carolina. All the lawns and the pasture behind our house is a solid sheet of ice atop old snow. My favorite activity has been watching our dogs try to walk in the backyard and slipping around…maybe tomorrow I will actually venture out to leave the house. My only trip today was to walk down the street to the gas station to get a cup of coffee. Tragedy is waking up 200 miles from your coffee maker. The roads in our town are icy and without sidewalks, I opted not to run today partly because I would be walking through ice patches and partly because I don’t want to get hit by a car. Also, partly because I am a bum, but that is usually a given.

My roommate in Florence and I went to a spin class on Wednesday. I had the feeling it would not be my favorite class in the world when the first three songs were all by Creed, followed by some MJ, that “celebrate good times” song, and then repeats of Creed and MJ. Well, not everybody has superior taste in music, I suppose…or a full hour’s worth on their mp3 player. The good news was that the class itself was a butt kicker, music be damned. The YMCA had nice spin bikes, but they don’t have clip in pedals (?!) so that was a bummer.

Brooks put some new spring apparel on their website today and being the glutton for apparel that I am, I bought this EZ Racer Back tank top. I used to be somewhat of a connoisseur of the EZ T’s sartorial cousin, the tri-blend tshirt at American Apparel (freaky website alert), so I am all over a tank version of the EZ T. PS – I promise that I do not wear mom jeans, leggings, or thong leotards with my tri-blend shirts (or EZ Ts).

Two weeks of DI down, 24 to go!

and we can try, like, super hard

I’m closing up my first week of monk-style living in Florence, SC. Other than wishing I were home, I’m not really any worse for the wear. Major cabin fever from the snow storm (feel free to imagine air quotes if you live in a hardier climate that owns a snowplow or three) made going to Wal-Mart this afternoon a huge source of enjoyment. I got to Florence (you can call it “FLO” if you want to) last Wednesday, ran a half marathon here on Saturday and met new buddy Amy Lauren, and signed up for the Florence YMCA on Sunday (waived sign-up fee day! no contract! boom!). Other than that, we’ve been stuck in our apartment more or less since and I’ve familiarized myself with the fitness center here, spending some time on the mildly ghetto elliptical machine (no incline change, only resistance change). I am not a huge elliptical fan, but it’s better than running on ice or not running and I was able to get a little enthusiastic about it by pretending I was running on a spin bike. That and a little America’s Funniest Home Videos. Whatever it takes.

AT&T is a huge failure and hasn’t connected our internet (much to the horror of the customer service rep who called to check on our satisfaction today, promised to call back in 30 minutes with a status, and must have gotten into a horrible accident because she never called back…surprise) so I am borrowing someone else’s and that’s all I’ve got for now!