I'm a bit sore from yoga on Friday but I'm loving every pain and ache. It means I'm getting my lard-ass into shape. Slowly but surely I'll get there.

Did my LSD yesterday and it was awesome. I was supposed to meet with the Boy Toy again but he backed out on account of too much partying the night before. Oh boy, what a surprise. He's just as reliable as he was when we were dating. Me thinks I dodged a bullet with that one. Anyway. 5 miles I did, trying to keep my pace between 11:30 and 11:40. Nice and slooooooow. And here's what happened:

Mile 1: 11:43
Mile 2: 11:35
Mile 3: 11:21
Mile 4: 11:15
Mile 5: 11:09

Hmmmmm. Interesting. I didn't feel like I was going faster at mile five than I was at mile 1 and, in fact, mile 1 seemed like I was working a helluva lot harder than mile 5. Maybe it just takes me 5 miles before I start to feel good. Quite possible.

I've been eating well and have been rewarded with a deficit of a few of the old LB's. That's always nice to see. I'd like to lose about 50 more but, yeah. One step, one day at a time.

When Dostoevsky wrote "The Idiot" he was writing about me.

Ran with the Boy Toy today. This is a new development in the never-ending saga of my romantic life. Not that there's really all that much to tell. I saw him Sunday running the marathon, or rather, we both saw each other at the exact same moment. So I texted him later in the day to congratulate him on his PR, one thing led to another, and the next thing I know, we're meeting for a run in the park today. I was apprehensive because:

• I was 15lbs lighter the last time I saw him
• I'd told him I was sick over the summer and that's why I hadn't been running, so naturally when he asked what I'd come down with, I blurted out "depression and anxiety" which I immediately regretted because I fear he thinks it might have had something to with him since we broke up in the middle of all that, but really it had nothing to do with him at all. Le sigh.
• And because I haven't been back to running for all that long, I still suck wind the entire time so I looked like a total douche trying to keep up with him and talk "comfortably" all while clocking 10:20 miles (again, still not fast but I'm not quite back to that level yet)
• Oh, and the whole ex-boyfriend issue.
• It didn't come up. We just talked, caught up, yadda yadda.
• and we're running together again on Saturday.
• Am I a masochist or what?

So that's my running experience for today. I had fun running with him today. I really did. However it's a bit confusing to go from boyfriend/girlfriend to just "friends." I'm doing my best not reading into it but...meh. Whatever. Boyz r dum. But hey, I got 4 miles out of it at a 10:20 pace and I didn't die so that's good, right? I don't think he even broke a sweat. Grrr.

YAY!!!!!

Day one of Goal Marathon 2009 yesterday with a total of 3 miles with an average pace of 10:48. This makes me very very very happy. It's neither far nor fast but I'm proud of myself nonetheless. Since the middle of September I've been running about 10 miles a week struggling for every step, it seems. My pace was usually somewhere around 12:00 miles but yesterday, ah yesterday...for the first time in a very long time I feel like not all is lost. That the 4.5 months I spent (and am still currently spending) getting my brain healthy did not totally kill everything I worked for physically. I'm actually looking forward to winter and running in the cold and snow and under armor. Yay running!

It's coming back, ya'll!

The Columbus Marathon from the sidelines

As most of you know, I've been on sort of an unwanted hiatus from "serious" running since about April. My brain wasn't functioning properly and therefore my body couldn't either. I've recently started running again and it feels like I'm starting all over from scratch. This is incredibly frustrating. After I've sucked wind for two miles I beat myself up with all kinds of "should" statements. I should be running faster. I should be running farther. I never should have quit running when I had my mental breakdown. I should not be such an idiot.

However, it was suggested to me that I might consider letting myself off the hook every once in a while. I know I was sick and I know it was very close to life threatening and I know that for every mile I run now I can praise God I'm still alive. I should let myself off the hook.

Today I watched my dad run the Columbus 1/2 Marathon and he did great, a fantastic PR by about 10 minutes. After he finished I went to another part of the course (mile 22) where the marathoners were still going strong and I cheered for each person until the last runner went by. I know how tough those last few miles can be and, being a back-of-the-pack'er myself, I know how lonely I get. I hope I was able to offer encouragement to some of them with my sign:

YOUR FEET HURT CUZ YOU'RE KICKING SO MUCH ASS!!

God willing, I'll be back there next year.

4 miles.

Check.

And so what if they were run a day late? I got them done didn't I? Actually, the only reason I did them at all is because I have this paper to write and I'm not really feeling it. It's due tomorrow and while I already have a pretty shitty rough draft down on paper, I have a feeling it's going to be a long, long night of revisions. So what do I do? Put it off for an hour and go for a run.

Ah, college. I love it!

I will run.

OK.

I'm going to run today.

I AM going to run today.

I am going to RUN today.

I am going to run TODAY.

I am going to put on my shoes and my shorts and my shirt and my little black visor that is the best little black visor a girl could wish for. I'm going to strap my Garmin to my left wrist, charge my ipod, and step out the front door. Then I will run. I will run for 4 miles. And then I will stop. I will stop running, come back to my apartment, take a shower and report my accomplishment.

Sometimes it takes a little visualization.

Running. In a skirt?!

To think I almost passed up on the $30 road bike makes my brain hurt a little. It is quite dazzling. It did, however, need new tires which I was happy to get and even got a little carried away adding accessories. I'm a sucker for bikes. This thing is great. 10 speeds, super fast, and it's blue so it matches my other bike. I'll post a picture soon, when it stops pissing rain in Ohio.

And I've actually be running. Hurrah! Maybe not as many miles as I would like or as fast as I would like but I could probably say that for most days that I train. I found some running skirts at Target on clearance so I've been trying to get used to the idea of running in a skirt. I have to admit when I put it on and stepped out my front door I felt as though the world had suddenly gone cattywhampus. Running? In a skirt?!? I felt entirely too dressed up. I'm not quite sure about the whole idea of running in a skirt but I guess female tennis players do it and they're pretty kick ass, right? Hmmm....jury's still out on the skirt issue.

Nothing exciting.

It's late on Sunday night and I'm trying to gear myself up for the week ahead. I wasn't able to run at all last week, ahem, I should correct that. I didn't run at all last week. It's difficult for me to get my butt out the door when my schedule is so cattywhampus and running is not my highest priority. However, I'm still on my health kick and feeling much better as a result of that. My insides feel clean, if that makes any sense.

I recently made another impulsive bike purchase, only this time it was only $30 and it's a road bike. Wahooooo! Riding it really makes me think about doing a triathlon someday, something that would have been ridiculous on my 1972 Schwinn Suburban. Even if it is schweet, it's not ideal for road racing. This new one is. I've been zipping all over town this week on it. You may have seen me go zooooom because it's that fast. Now my house has more bikes than people. Hee hee.

So to the land of dreams I go. Another week over and a new one just begun.

Slack

I wish I had better numbers to report for this week but I just don't. Plain as that. Lots of biking but that's implied by now, right? That's my main mode of transportation so...yeah. Lots of biking.

My excuse for this week is that I had family in town visiting: my cousin, her little baby girl and my aunt. They are a lot of fun and I spent more time with an 11 month old than I think I ever have in my life. Seeing her almost makes me want to have babies of my own. Almost.

School continues to rock my socks. My writing professor is giving us lots of prompts and mine yesterday was a prescription bottle. This is what came out of my noggin:

Prescription bottles always remind me of my grandfather. I have 12 medications of my own that I take every day, however whenever I see an orange see-through bottle with a white cap, I don’t think of the 12 of them I have lined up on my nightstand at home; I think about my grandfather’s veiny hands struggling with the childproof cap. The pharmacist often offered to replace the childproof cap with an easy-open snap off cap, but my grandfather wouldn’t hear of it. My mother, his caretaker, would sigh and continue to be available to him at all times in case he couldn’t get a bottle open. “Why, I do believe they’ve given me a broken bottle,” he would say. He would tell my mother to call the pharmacy and complain, but she never did. Instead, she would read the auxiliary labels to him explaining what each one meant as she went along. “Take with food or milk.” “Do not drive or operate heavy machinery while taking this medication.”

My mother bought him a pill organizer one year for Christmas. It was a large rectangle box organized by day of the week and time of day. Each individual plastic day, containing four separate boxes (Morning, Noon, Evening, and Bedtime), could be popped out so that he would only have to carry one day’s worth of pills around with him. Each morning he selected the appropriate plastic day and placed it in his breast pocket, along with two gold pens and a comb.

Every Saturday night my grandfather would meticulously arrange his pills for the week. Each pill was dropped into its correct box in precisely the right order. One day he dropped his heart medication in before he dropped his thyroid medication in and had to start all over from the beginning. When he eventually became unable to perform his Saturday night ritual on his own, he instructed my mother, watching her with a scrutinizing glare in order to make sure every pill went from bottle to box in precisely the right order. After several weeks of practice my grandfather felt confident enough in my mother’s pill dispensing abilities to relinquish control over his pill box.

When my grandfather died I took the pill box for myself, not that anyone else in my family particularly wanted it. I saved it from the “Throw Away” pile and took it home to my nightstand where it sits empty. I have 12 prescription bottles lined up on my nightstand table and a pillbox in which to organize them, however I have yet to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps and create my own Saturday night ritual. The boxes have not been opened since his final Saturday night ritual and I’m afraid opening them now would allow tufts of him to escape, tufts of him I want to keep on my nightstand table.