Tag Archives: running

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: It doesn’t have to start with a marathon

Leave a comment

image

Unless you are that famed persona of the film, I really can’t imagine that anyone starts off running marathons. I mean, you can start with a goal of wanting to run in a marathon. It’s not really my cup of tea, but most humans don’t go from tuber-hood to marathon-runner immediately.

That’s the thing that people keep saying to me. For those of you following along in my struggles, rants, embarrassments, and victories, you know I never saw myself running anywhere (unless something really nasty was chasing me). Several friends have expressed the desire to get into some sort of fitness routine. When I talk about my running habit, they say things like “I wish I could do that,” or “I could never run,” or “Wow! I don’t think I could ever do that!” Honestly, it’s spectacular for my ego, but it is absolute hogwash.

As of now, I’ve managed to get to a point where I’m running (elliptical, remember the knees) 40 minutes almost every day. On the elliptical, that usually averages close to 5 miles. On the beach, it is considerably less… mainly due to sand and such making it slightly more of an effort, but regardless of distance, the effort is still there. I’m still sweaty and generally feeling it in my legs and backside. That’s really more of the point, no matter what anyone thinks. The effort in the exercise is really what matters. I’m happy that I’ve improved my time and can actually get good distance in those 40 minutes, but I’m not in a race against anyone but myself. What my friends with their comments don’t seem to recall is that I did not start there, and I certainly did not get here very quickly. I had my physical fit over a year ago, and I’m still struggling.

When I first decided to join the gym, I half expected that I would let that lapse like I had before. I would have spent my money and find every excuse on the planet not to go. I’m as surprised as anyone that I’m still going… and regularly. I was also fairly certain that I did not have enough coordination to be on one of those machines without causing myself (and likely anyone in the near vicinity) bodily harm.
What was absolutely zero surprise was that my first efforts were laughable. Quite literally. Grace is not my middle name. However, once I mastered the not-falling-off-and-killing-myself part, the next big hurdle was to actually keep up movement for 10 minutes… in a row. I mean, really? Ten minutes does not sound like a huge amount of time, but when you are trying to coordinate your arms and legs and looking at a timer that is viciously sneering at you… it might as well be a marathon. It was sad. By the time the digits went up to the 10 minute mark, I just stopped. I was out of breath, struggling, muscles weak and hamstrings screaming “What the hell are you doing to us?!?” I had been talked into this by a friend who said, “You need to do the ‘cooldown’ minutes, now.” I won’t repeat my response to that.

From there, I really only had a goal of being able to finish the 10 minutes without dying. I wanted to see if I could get to a point where 10 minutes didn’t seem like an Olympic event. And you know, it actually happened. I got to a point where I could do the 10 minutes and the3 minute cooldown. Not bad. Then, I happened to notice that I was close to a mile at the 10 minute mark. I made it my mission to break my 10-minute-mile.

And I did.

Little by little, I found myself decreasing the amount of time it took me to get to that mile. From there, I had to increase the distance to get in more time. I pushed and before I realized what I was doing, I was at 15 minutes, then 20. I was almost in shock when I looked one day to realize that I had been running for 25 minutes and had 3 miles registered on the machine. That’s where I settled for a while, actually. It was enough, I thought. However, I started throwing in a little cooldown period after my resistance training. So, another 5 minutes or so after weights? Now, I was up to 30.

I felt like I was plateauing again. I was looking for results and not really seeing them. A friend and one of my fitness support group started talking about changing my routine and said something about increasing my run to 40 minutes. What the actual…? Is he insane? I can’t run 40 minutes. I’ll die. And out loud I said, “Do I have to do all 40 minutes in a row?” He said that I did not, but that I needed to keep moving and do my resistance training, weights, whatever in between if I was going to break it up. Ok… I’d give that a try. So, I did. I started with 25 minutes before, did my resistance/strength stuff, and then 15 minutes before heading home. Not too bad, actually. It hurt a lot less than I thought it would. After doing that for a while, I decided to increase the before time to 30 and do 10 minutes afterward. One day, I just decided to do both in a row, and voila! I was doing 40 minutes consecutively. No break. Just straight through. I didn’t die. Crazy, huh?

Psychologically, that 40 minutes looked just sooooo unachievable, but somehow I managed to get through it. I managed to fool myself into seeing it in smaller chunks and it wasn’t so insurmountable. My body appears to be much more willing to accommodate the activity than my brain. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to be running any marathons in the near (or even possibly distant) future. I don’t think that every trick I know to fool my brain and body could accommodate 26 miles, but who knows? I didn’t think I could run a mile when I started. I still occasionally feel a sense of shock that I run at all. So, it doesn’t have to start with a marathon. It starts with a step.

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: Back from the Dead

Leave a comment

‘Tis the season, not of good will, but of cold and flu. Yes, it is true. Despite the best efforts to improve physical health, the athlete can be felled by organisms invisible to the naked eye.

Sadly, I am one of the victims. Not long ago, I found myself feeling a bit like death would be preferable to the sorry state in which I found myself. I survived the plague. At least that is the medical consensus. However, despite my alleged recovery from all the more active symptoms of illness, it seems my body and spirit requires more recovery time. I don’t bounce back from injuries and illnesses the way I used to do.

The truth is that I was angry; angry that illness had disrupted  routine that I have taken months to create, angry that the unscheduled break had potentially undone all the work on increasing endurance and speed. I was also worried. I know myself well enough that I was concerned that I would go back to some nasty old habits of any excuse to avoid a workout.

Prior to my attempt to reenter the world of workouts, I reached out to my support network. Yes, I have one of those. Not one of the places where we only go by first names or bare our souls to each other. These guys are the ones that give me ideas, help me modify various workouts to avoid injury to my no longer young joints. They are the ones that I went to when the plague was being insidious about derailing my new lifestyle of physical activity.

What was most valuable was that all of my friends told me to take it easy. I was going to have to learn to walk again before I started to fly. I needed to give myself a break and take things slow if I didn’t want to cause myself injuries or set backs. So, they told me:

  • Slow my run time
  • Decrease my run duration
  • Decrease my weights
  • Take it easy on the reps
  • Stay well hydrated
  • Rest days in between for a while

Well, in truth, I’ve stumbled a bit on my path back to the gym. I did manage to get my sorry self back to the gym. It is frustrating. Actually, it is a few mega-levels beyond frustrating. The part that makes it so maddening is that all of the difficulty and struggle and lack of elasticity in my physical bounce back is that it is one more fact in evidence that I am not so young as I used to be. Ooooh that stings.

Anyhow, my muscles ache again. My endurance officially sucks. My knees remind me that it’s been a while since I ran more than the few steps to the necessary room. However, I’m back at it. I have faith that my muscles and joints will eventually forgive me for my momentary lapse and will start responding in a more appropriate manner. For now, it seems, I am back from the dead.

Body Image, Health

Physical Fit: Battling the Summer Vacation Doldrums

1 Comment

Summertime when I was younger was a time when I could get up early and enjoy long days of sunshine, swimming, climbing, running, playing, and generally expending an enormous amount of caloric energy while the adults around me chased me around trying to get me to sit still long enough to replenish said calories with something resembling nutrition. Yes, I was one of those kids that felt that eating was primarily just a waste of my time that could be better spent on other adventures or completing my chores in order to have more time to spend on other adventures.

I miss those days. Now, summertime is a time when I can sleep late (if I am on vacation… not that it ever happens, but it technically could happen), enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee while I sit on my rather sizable back side and check the internet and social media to see what outside looks like from friends posting pictures, and eating goodies and treats not always available to my wallet or local eateries.

What the heck happened? When did I stop enjoying physical activity? When did lethargy and inactivity enter my unwilling spirit? Well, as you know, I have been making the effort to change my outlook, health, and general wellbeing through the deliberate expenditure of energy in what might be considered in a generous heart as physical exercise. Those of you who have been following my progress since my maniacal fit of madness will know that I am probably the most surprised by my perseverance. I am completely astounded that I have not argued away my own ardor for the gym and instruments of torture.

Does that mean that I have become a paragon of physical virtue and health? Um, I think the technical answer to that might be… Hell, no! There are absolutely days when I look at my workout bag and think to myself, “Oh my goddess, I do not want to do this today.” However, that particular epithet has presented itself less frequently than I might have expected. More than that, I am currently finding myself on vacation. This was possibly the greatest challenge to my new healthier habits. My general habit on vacation is to wake up naturally (meaning without an alarm) and lounge around drinking my favorite caffeinated beverage until I feel compelled to consume some food. Eventually I will wander down to the ocean to sit and read all day until the afternoon thunderstorm and/or sundown drives me back into shelter for refreshing beverages and more food. You see a theme here, right? The point being that I stood a significant chance of losing any possible advances I had made on healthy habits.

Recently, I had achieved a goal I never expected. I broke the 10 minute mile that I could barely even finish when I started. I not only broke it, I shattered it into pieces and went so far as to run my mile in 8 minutes and 43 seconds. What?!? Me? The woman who always said, “If you see me running, try to keep up because whatever is chasing us is bound to be bad”? Yep, that woman. I recklessly set a goal for myself for vacation. I wanted to run a mile on the beach.

I know this does not seem like much of a goal, but to someone who resembles some sort of vegetation during vacation, this is a pretty steep hill to climb. I packed a pair of running shoes and clothes that would be appropriate for a morning run. I still was not entirely certain that my inner slug would not surface with the usual excuses and rationalizations to remain on my generous posterior instead of getting up and moving about.

It didn’t happen. I actually ran a mile on the beach. Granted, I did not set in land speed records (running on sand is very different). My body protested and whined the whole time, but I did it. I ran on the beach. I ran a mile on the beach. I did it for two days in a row. Like I said, I am as surprised as you are. So, what was the difference? What changed my habit?

I blame it on the fit of madness. I blame it on a stubbornness that did not want to lose ground from what I had accomplished. I blame it on something that feels like… dare I say it? Pride. I actually am proud of myself for not giving up. Not that I have been transformed bodily into a picture of middle age sexiness… That definitely has not happened, but I do feel healthier and stronger. That is what is important (so, I’ve been told).

For those of you who may also be struggling with new healthy habits, I will make a few suggestions:

Keep a log of your journey – This can be something on paper or typing a journal (include pictures when possible to remind yourself of the before, the after, and the journey), but there are also a number of applications available out there that help (I like LoseIt and Runtastic, but there are a lot of others out there, too).

Reward yourself – It is ok to have a treat now and again. All things in moderation, but it is actually ok to reward yourself with things that you enjoy. In fact, restricting yourself from things that you love is one thing that can derail a plan faster than anything. Your new healthy living should be enjoyable, not a punishment. So, you really need to keep some of the things in your life that you enjoy (while adding new things you enjoy).

Share your progress with your support network – What? Support network? Yeah, those people who like and love you, who want you to be healthy and happy, who make you laugh and keep your spirits up, and who cheer you on. Tell them about your successes. Heck, tell them when you trip and stumble. The point is that they will help you celebrate the wins, they will hold you accountable, and they will remind you that you can try again tomorrow when you fall. Everyone needs a cheering squad.

Anyhow, this entry is a bit different than my usual tone for these pieces, but I know I’m not the only person who struggles to stay positive and making good choices all the time. If anyone else reads this, consider me part of your support network. I’ll tell you that I have definitely been there, and no one can be gung ho all the time. Every day I overcome the doldrums is a win. Now, to reward myself with a tasty beverage and the beach.