a little spring in my step

I have spent my weekend filling myself up with as much frozen yogurt as possible. not realizing I wouldn't shit for another week. oh well.

after running alone last week, I took a spinning class alone. I like doing things solo. but not when everything I do is solo. the next day I met up with my friends for a short run. a short run at 5pm right when spring is starting to get hot. ginormous buzzing bugs fly at your face and you do the limbo to avoid them. fresia permiates the air in a bad way. birds fly low while frolicking and I imagine their beaks stabbing my eyeball in some freakish running accident.

this was not going to be fun.

then, whilst getting over my 'running while hot' jitters, my friends tell me they want to run a half marathon.

now let me tell you how I felt in as many words as possible.

premature disappointment in myself.

on to page 2. mermaid 5k photos are now available!

like a polaroid picture

before jumping to other topics, I offer a follow up to yesterday's mental debate. husband was unavailable for an afternoon jaunt. so after hyping myself up to run alone, I realized I hadn't packed my socks. once I finished cussing myself out, and got over the deep disappointment (with some secret happiness somewhere), my friend offered her extra pair of socks for me to use.

3 + miles alone, while a personal feat, was not fun. revealing that I have more hurdles that I thought.

on to other, more exciting things.

a friend of mine has created a public playlist of some tunes online that I find myself visiting every day at approximately 3:42pm. people think I'm on the phone, so they leave me alone. unless they see me sit-dancing. then they know it's just headphones and I obviously don't care what anyone thinks of me. call me crazy but Electrolane deserves a good, solid, and committed head-bobble and air bass drum.

if this song existed, and was played at that one part-rave party I went to 5 years ago? I just might have tossed my inhibitions aside and climbed up on that kitchen counter to shake it like a polaroid picture (even if it does sound completely un-dance-able - I could still throw some moves together). instead, I now sit in my ergonomically incorrect chair and head-bobble my life away.

mid-life crisis, here I come.

http://www.mitchtai.muxtape.com/

talking out the miles

months ago, when I first told myself I wanted to be able to go for a run and enjoy myself rather than feel like I was suffering through some evil mind / lung game, I realized the first thing I needed were running friends.

people that could either suffer with me, or watch me suffer and push me along.

first customer? the husband.

the husband, at that time, was busy hibernating and avoiding all contact with sunlight. no matter how much I begged, it was not going to happen. Fall and Winter are evidently designated as couch-warming, beer-sipping months for the male that I selected to be my life partner. and Spring and Summer, albeit good running months, are for him to push himself and leave the slower-paced wifey in the dust.

second customer? coworker.

she eats yogurt, fruit, and trail mix every single day and avoids ALL sweets and sugars ALL the time. surely she can help me out. and she did. for 2 months. she did my first 5k with me and has been on injured reserve ever since. (me secretly thinks she is pregnant and is avoiding all sorts of impact exercises but she has not admitted to this as of yet)

third customer? previous coworker / hiking companion

sure, he wants to actually GAIN weight so running probably isn't the best thing for him but, he can never turn down a friend. so we run together for a couple months before pains in his leg force him to buy new fancy shoes. different pains arise before he finally heads to a doctor to find out his tendons didn't want him to run afterall. he is now slowly turning his running back on but tis going to be a slow process.

fourth customer? friend I spoke to while drunk at a party

she's a marathoner / constant runner that can go weeks without running and still spit out a solid handful of miles no problem. we run together every weekend, adding a mile every time until finally I do my first 10k with her and it was awesome (minus the chafing). I continued to plan early Saturday runs with her but then cancelled several in a row due to negligent Friday night alcohol consumption. sad, but true. I haven't planned another one yet for fear I would cancel again and feel even more horrible.

fifth and sixth customer? old high school friends

one that just had a baby and one that wants to get in to running for the first time. the 3 of us hit it off really well on the trails and visit them 3 sometimes 4 times a week. we ran a 5k together over at Shoreline and we all did really well. now one of them has pulled muscle groups and has been light on the running. the other is fine.. but this leads me to...

today.

no one is available. the ones that aren't hurt are busy. and it's brought me to desperate measures. I have asked my husband to run with me.

last time we ran together, I did fine. he was not so fine. but he did it anyway. the time before THAT, he was pulling me along in the dead sun (which I am allergic to when it comes to exerting any sort of energy) before he said "come on! you HAVE to pass that old lady!" and so I stopped. time before that, I believe he used the word 'pathetic' when I struggled to run in the sun. my husband is not mean - he is a nice, loving, hilarious, and happy person. but he isn't the best at motivating or.. being available for someone else in a positive way. quite frankly, he intimidates the hell out of me.

the question is, which is more intimidating? running with him, or running solo.

too much fuel for my fire

yesterday, I added another 4 miles to my legs. but not to my stomach.

because as I have noticed over the past couple of months, I am consuming 75% of the food that I buy for my husband and myself. my mouth thinks I need more fuel than I really do. so while my thighs get more toned (but not my calves because they're cankles at heart) my stomach can fill a tiny little pot. maybe one for dessert sauces or a small amount of melted butter.

after my run yesterday, I looked down to check out my cool mermaid 5k shirt I sported and spit on and I could not help but notice my little pot takes up more horizontal space than the boobies. uh oh.

time to add some crunches to the work out. and I'm not talking about baked chips.

throw it away. throw it away.

add another 3.1 miles to the DONE list. as well as a pantry cleaning raid and refridgerator wipe-down.

I had signed up for a 5k weeks ago that took place over at Shoreline in Mountain View just this morning. the training leading up to it just plain sucked for me. there is no better or more clever way to put it. the two or three times my two friends and I went to Shoreline to attempt the race route, my brain shut my body down saying "too much wind!" "where is the turn around point?" "I really don't think you know where you are going" "is that goose poo I smell?". basically, I did not do well. which led me to punish myself at the gym the days I was not at Shoreline.

I threw in a short run at my local trail (which again, took a good stab at my high spirits thanks to the high-noon sun and heat) and then headed to the hour long spinning class. the day prior to the race I hit the gym again doing weights and running an easy yet methodically dull 2.4 miles on the tready. half way through my running-in-place I heard a thump and turned to find a woman who had fallen while on the treadmill. "what am I doing here" I thought. I was punishing myself with exercise, to try and make my brain feel better.

I also surprisingly held back from a ridiculous amount of wine consumption the night before the race. some friends came over for dinner and while everyone laughed over crown royal and chianti, I sipped my iced tea. yummy yum yum.

after 8 hours of no sleep, I threw my running garb on and did 80 on the freeway to Shoreline (waking up as late as possible for any event and still making it on time makes me happy). and as one of my friends took off and went out of sight, I found myself paired with my Tag partner from grade school and I couldn't be happier. I pushed her and she pushed me the entire way and while we used to hold hands when we were 7 in order to run faster together, it wasn't necessary this time.

then I came home and threw out all the old shit that was in the pantry. and wiped down the shelves in the fridge.

good times.

what do I do

I paid a lot of money to get my hair done a couple of days ago. highlights and a cut. and I feel like I'm having a lot of personal issues with my hair since then. a couple days prior to my appointment, I could not help but notice my hair is thinner than normal. for those who may not know, I have had thin hair my entire life thanks to my dad. thin as in 1. don't have a whole lot of it and 2. the individual strands are thin and break easily.
it is hard to work the sexy face when you don't have the hair to back it up.

the ponytail has been my best friend for years.
I digress.

after noticing the super-thin-ness, I head in for my appointment. I am completely self-conscious about it this time around after checking myself out in the mirror the day prior. sitting under that heat lamp with my hair wrapped in foil frizzes made my paranoia exponentially grow. "THIS is not helping. I think I can FEEL my hair falling out" etc. and then to top it off, there's an article in the latest gossip mag about women's thinning hair.
it could be a sign of hypo-thyroidism or other problems. or it could just run in the family. the age to start worrying about either one of these scenarios? 26-30. I'm almost 27. and now I'm officially freaking out.
the entire rest of my appointment I spent focusing on individual hair folicles. personally, I thought the lady rubbed my scalp too hard when shampooing. followed by far too many brush strokes and blow-drying. and there was really no need for those extra spritzes of hair spray at the end (which would just end up tangling and ripping out later).

and let me just admit, I exaggerate everything. my entire blog is honestly an exaggerated public journal. but this story? NOT EXAGGERATING. I do not feel good about this. and I was not happy during this entire hair experience.

I come home and my hair has grown twice in size thanks to the hair lady and her blowdryer (I don't like big hair). after a night of sleeping on it, it flattens a bit and I like it better. then, while hanging out with my husband and a friend, a hair growth commercial comes on. they both comment on it. "just SHAVE your head" one says. the other brings up our other friend who has sexy, thick, long, herbal essence commercial hair. and BOOM I'm back in the salon again not wanting to be seen and seriously considering doing something about this.

and my birthday is around the corner. wonderful.

the downside of the uphill

my buddies and I have hit the trail two days in a row now. going on three. during Monday's run, I could tell I not only hadn't run for 3 days but had a good amount of thin mints and irish car bombs inside of me. toxicity.

when we got to the trail yesterday we decided to change our route. Instead of hitting the slow and steady incline of the one my shoes are most familiar with, we opted for a route that 1 of 3 of us had run before years prior. so this thing was entirely new to me and I was flipping out for the full 5 minute walk to the starting point becaaaause, our friend described it to us as one big-ass hill in the beginning and then a slow downhill loop after that. a downhill loop of which she had no memory of how long it took her years ago.

and thus we embarked. my mission? don't stop. go as slow as I have to but, don't stop. OH - and don't look up.

I made it up the entire hill and pretty much just let my body fall down the rest of the way. it was nice. show me a downhill marathon and I'm all over it.

we clocked the distance on mapmyrun.com later... I estimate about .5 miles of extreme uphill. felt like more but, it's hard to tell. afterward we were conversing about it and my friend said "hard hill but, beautiful view" me: "view? there was a view?"