Oh, hi.

I’ve found it REALLY REALLY difficult to get back on track since my miscarriage. I have never really ever hit my stride as far as workout consistency goes (but I bet you like my running puns, huh? DO YOU? stride? track? Bueller?)

Anyway, yeah. I had a miscarriage, got really depressed, and took a raincheck on a lot of things I normally love. I just had no desire or strength to do anything, really.

I painted a little; something sort of modern with triangles and pinks, blues and yellows that I had been planning on painting for the nursery, and a painting of gladiolus. I wanted to do a flower painting sort of in memory of the baby we lost, and the gladiolus is the birthday flower for August. The baby was due August 6. Painting really helped with the pain.

I’m trying to get back into running and it’s really hard. My body is totally rebelling. It got used to sitting on the couch playing videogames and now it just wants Cheez-its. I want my clothes to fit again. Body and I… we’re in negotiations.

I’ve tried to hop on the treadmill, and for like three days, I was sticking with a beginner’s running program. Then I got my period and got really depressed again because.. I wasn’t pregnant. Fast forward to two weeks later, I decide to try the treadmill again, and it’s SO HARD. I couldn’t even run for five minutes. I was SHOCKED. It was so discouraging.

After my two minute attempt, I’m sitting on the couch crying because I’ve gotten so out of shape and my husband realizes he set the incline on the treadmill to like, 4. Of course I couldn’t run for five minutes.

One week later, I hop on, hoping I will be able to run for just five minutes. Nope. Still too hard. I ran for three minutes, a whole quarter of a mile. Woo-hoo.

Tell me this is going to get easier again.

 

 

 

 

 

IT IS SUPER COLD OUTSIDE

It’s been SUPER COLD in the northeast the last few days. Thank God we have the treadmill, or I wouldn’t be doing anything! Gary and I have been trading off time on the treadmill. I am pleased to announce I am now 10.25 / 458 miles on the way to Rivendell. It’s sort of frustrating being so slow, because I really want to get there faster! I would love to log like, 4 miles a day, but I would have to set aside like an hour and a half, and that’s just not in the time budget. Outside, changing speeds when I feel like it, I can run a 15 minute mile, but it’s way different on the treadmill. I’ve been logging more like 19- 20 minute miles, but I think it’s my own fault – I have a tough time gauging what speeds I’m capable of so I just usually hit either 2.5 mph – 3 mph for the walking bits and 4 mph for running. Awesomely enough, 4 mph used to be hard for me when I’d run on the treadmill at work, but now I can push it up to 4.5 comfortably and even 5 miles when I did a ladder workout two weeks ago. I am trying to get used to changing it up based on how I feel.

I bought a new running app – Zombies, Run! I know, I’m a little late to the game, but I really struggle with spending money on ANYTHING for my phone. I found one majorly awesome thing about it and some slightly not-so-awesome things. First, the not-so-awesome – between the bits of dialogue, there is a lot of silence where they play music from your phone. It’s not-so-awesome if you don’t have music on your phone, because then you’ve got like three minutes of complete silence. I wish there was some generic rock music track – I don’t think my old iPhone has enough space on it to put music! I believe I can plug in an iPod to the treadmill to play music, so that might be a good work-around. Also slightly inconvenient: if you’re running on a treadmill, it doesn’t keep track of your distance, even if you set it to count your paces or tell it what speed you’re running. I can enter it manually on the website, but I have to be on a computer to do it – can’t do it on my phone.

Now for the majorly awesome- while I’m listening to the dialogue, I’m not paying any attention to the time ticking slowly by on the treadmill display. I’m not waiting anxiously to see the tenths of a mile tick away slower and slower. I can just run. It’s the first time I can just run and have fun on a treadmill!

I am not sure we are still doing the fitness challenge at work – we were supposed to start a biggest loser challenge. The person organizing it sort of neglected to tell me that the buy-in changed, and one of our co-workers recently experienced an awful tragedy, so I kind of want to put any money I can toward helping them. Although I can see that everyone is making changes, sort of like that one episode of The Office where each branch was competing against the others in a weight-loss challenge… people are eating healthier, working out more… it’s unnatural.

I’m starting another six-week challenge on Nerd Fitness. My goals are: BE MORE CONSISTENT, STAY HYDRATED, WALK/RUN TO MORDOR, and FINISH WINTER PROJECTS. More on this to follow.

Ramble On

I am just getting over a cold- my second this year! I just don’t get it. I never get sick like this. At least I had Thursday and today off to recuperate a little.

I tried to keep running during my quarantine but it’s so hard to run when you can’t breathe. We just started a Biggest Loser competition at work, and it was the tail end of a February Fitness Challenge I was doing through my friend’s coaching page on Facebook, so I felt a bit guilty but sometimes you just have to cut yourself some slack!

In other news, at my first weigh-in for the Biggest Loser challenge, I determined I had lost six pounds since my doctor’s appt the week before. Score! Take that, doctor!

I ran on Thursday and Saturday on the treadmill with Netflix keeping me company. My current running must-have is Murder, She Wrote.

I also found this amazing website: neilarey.com. Awesome workout programs. Saturday, I did the “Hunger Games” workout.

I could only do one set before I got too lightheaded. Today, I found a Hero workout program on that site – four workouts, 100 reps. It was so tough! I took many breaks. I did 50 and was about to call it a day … But I had to push myself! Managed to do the whole thing but I can barely lift my legs now!

11.5 miles / 458 miles on the road to Rivendell. According to the Eowyn Challenge website, I had a frugal supper in a birch grove, and am on my way to Stock Road. Dammit, I knew I should have tracked my mileage through IKEA to add to the total.

Feelin’ Good

One of my oldest friends is hosting a fitness challenge via Facebook. She was probably one of my first friends ever! For February, it’s about heart health and we’re checking in each day with our heart rates both resting and during exercise. I’ve not been able to work out every day, but the challenge is giving me great motivation to try to do at least half an hour of some kind of activity each day.

Wednesday: I wanted to work out, and I was just itching to run, so I geared up and drove to the nearby borough at about 9 PM to go for a quick run. There’s free parking, it’s quiet, and there’s not a lot of traffic so I can run on the road if I have to, which I did, because I guess some people don’t clear their sidewalks too well. Only had to misstep once to feel that slippery feeling under my feet, and I took to the street. Once around the block is .84 miles. I don’t know the neighborhood too well and it wasn’t the right time for exploring, so .84 miles was good enough for me. My lower back really started to bother me towards the end. Not sure what’s been going on with that, although I am guessing it’s because I put some weight on in the past few months since Gary’s dad was really sick.

I had a physical yesterday and lots of work to do, so no workout for me. I saw a different doctor than last time, who was much more awesome. I had an EKG, which was super weird, since I’ve never had one before, but they said all was normal, so that’s good. Apparently, I have strong lungs and a strong heartbeat. The doctor told me I had gained a little weight in the past two years, and I told her that I do work out regularly but the routine had gone a little haywire in the past few months since my father-in-law passed away. She was like, “why did you stop running? are you depressed? do you need medication?” …um, nope, I’m good. She also said she would give me a referral to a nutritionist, and I told her I didn’t want it. I said, “I know what I would need to do to lose weight, sometimes I’m better at eating healthy, sometimes I’m not. If I gave up soda and switched to water, that would probably make a big difference, but I run and I like it, and I don’t want to change.” She seemed shocked. In the end, I told her she could give me the referral so if I changed my mind I could call. While I was checking out, the receptionist was gathering the doctor’s notes, and I could see pages with information about “OBESITY” and I was like, “you can keep them.”

I went into this appointment telling myself, “I am going to stand up for myself and be strong and tell them that there is nothing wrong with the way I am. I will not let them bully me.” See, they checked my vitals and everything was totally normal, and if there is nothing medically wrong with me, don’t tell me to change anything. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I understand that there could be problems in the future due to being overweight, but I am fully aware of how my decisions affect me and I am happy with who I am.

I got home from work later that night to find that my husband had bought a treadmill! As the winter drags on and ice covers the world, I become so desperate to run that I consider going back to the treadmill.  and the one he got is WONDERFUL. We set it up tonight, threw on Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring) and I ran a mile and a half. I am in love. I can see this totally changing my workout game.

 < Me with the new treadmill after its inaugural run!

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve decided to walk (& run) to Mordor. Yes, the choice of workout entertainment might have slightly influenced that decision. Thanks to Eowyn Challenge, I’ve got my road map. The whole trip is 1779 miles from Hobbiton to Mount Doom, but I’ll start with the 458 mile path from Hobbiton to Rivendell. It’s kind of a tall order for me but I’m going to pad my mileage with long walks on the treadmill watching Lord of the Rings, and I’ll start tracking mileage hiked while geocaching. So far, 7.08/458.