Confessions of a non-runner

Back at the end of March I found myself tired, cranky and generally unhappy in my mommy body with clothes that just don't fit.  Being nine months post-partum, I decided that saying I had recently had a baby, or that he wasn't sleeping through the night, or whatever, were excuses rather than reasons why I had not returned to a healthy sized and strengthed me.

I signed up for a program online called Healthy Wage.  You lay down some cash and have 6 months to lose 10% of your weight, and optionally one year to get your BMI healthy.  Succeed, and you get more back than you put in.  Sweet.  I signed up for both.  I figured it would be pretty easy since I was still above my pre-pregnancy weight.   I did great for about a month just by cutting out some of my crappier food habits.  Then crappy food habits crept back in and although I didn't gain any weight, I stopped losing, and was still way far from my goal, and my cash payment.

Enter the need for exercise and being forced to admit that Mike is right and having more activity is going to be important.  He is always professing the power of running on maintaining/losing weight, being stronger, feeling more energetic, blah blah blah.  I hate running.  I resisted.  Another month sneaked by with no change.

Then track season for Lawrence ended and I realized that without organized sports, he was going to turn into a couch potatoe who has hobbies like "reading", "watching TV" and "playing games online" like me!  Ugh, parental resposibility and guilt add to the pressure to get off my ass already.

So, after months years of making snarky comments to runners on why I do not run such as "I only run when chased, and only when it's by something very fast and dangerous, like a rabid cheetah" or considering this bumper sticker as a must have,

I realized I was never going to feel healthy, energetic and strong at the rate I was going.  Plus, I was being a crap role model.  I realized I was probably going to have to run.

I am aware there are other forms of activity, but minute for minute, on paper running looks as calorie-efficient as it is painful and boring.   Plus, I hate gyms.  And mirrors.  And all the damn mirrors in gyms.  Honestly, step-aerobics is embarrassing enough without having to see myself from every angle possible.

 

So in an effort to both practice what I preach to Lawrence and to win my bet with myself on Healthy Wage, I started a couch-to-5K program this week.  And, I signed up for a 5K in a month to make sure I stick to it.

 

I realised my roadblocks for running were: thinking people are laughing at me when I try to run/stop running, hearing my own gasping due to crap cardivascular health, and just plain hating running.

 

I'm going with "distraction" as my method to overcome some of that for right now. I downloaded an app called "Zombies Run 5K" and am a whopping 2 days in.  I'm still pretty sure everyone is laughing at me, and they have been two of the worst lunch hours of my life.  Which is sad since over the half the time I was walking.

 

Day 1:  48 minutes, 2.9 miles (admittedly, mostly walking.)

 

Day 2:  36 minutes, 2.9 miles (I actually did some running this time. I had music to drown out my death rattle breathing)

 

Tomorrow is a day off.  We'll see if I can move by Friday.  It takes 21 days to cement a new habit, but only one to decide it can't be done.



Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a variety of layouts and cover options to choose from.

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

You'll love Shutterfly's award-winning photo books. Try it today.

Crappy catchup post

Bah.  It's been two months since I posted.

Our holiday trip was busy but wonderful, except for the 10 hour detour at the beginning.

Lawrence is getting straight A's, runnig cross-country, and still completely video-game-crazy.

Ellsworth just popped out a tooth and can almost go from laying to sitting.  He loves his jumparoo.

Mike is still in school, trying to stay one step ahead of the demanding grad-school syllabi.

I am working and going to school. I should have my MS done at the end of summer.

And we are all sick.  It took getting sick and being too tired to do anything cool to get me to logon here and post something.  Mostly life is just the little things, the day-to-day smiles and tears that make up parenting and family.  Nothing extraordinary is happening, and that is how I like it.

the piles are closing in!

I officially give up.

I cannot work fulltime and go to grad school fulltime and parent fulltime and maintain the house fulltime.  Turns out there is only one of me.  Instead of doing anything well, I am doing everything poorly.

Not sure how, but something has to change.

Maybe I can take ritalin.

You can't always get what you want

I am in a funk.  Officially.

I had this beautiful vision of me staying at home, at least part-time.  Of homeschooling Lawrence through the tumultuous middle school years and getting to enjoy watching my baby grow up day-by-day.  I knew it would be hard.  Pennies would be pinched.  Sacrifices would be made.  Tears would be shed and everyday wouldn't be the idyllic perfectly executed science lesson for Lawrence while Ell played gleefully on a blanket in the grass.  Hell, we might never have seen a day like that.  Even though I knew it wouldn't be easy, I was excited.

But now I am back to working, fulltime.  Ell is in daycare, fulltime. And Lawrence is discovering day-by-day that he is a little bit different from the other kids and in anguish about being/doing/looking "wrong" even if he can't articulate what he thinks 'right' would be.  He is stressed about grades and generally overwhelmed with how to organize a locker, a binder, a life.

Bah.

Plus, I have all kinds of unexpressed anger at my husband.  Why did he feel the need to talk up middle school and talk down homeschool?  Why am I expected to be able to study while watching the baby, but he can't?  Why is my money bill money and his money fun money (granted, fun for the whole family)?  Why should I drop everything to help him finish an assignment that requires a partner, but I have to nag him everyday for a week and then stand over him to get help with mine?  Why why why am I so annoyed with all these stupid things to the point that I have to think hard to remember that he occasionally cooks and cleans, brings me flowers, is always great with the boys, and came to rescue me when the SUV got a flat (I couldn't find the spare - turns out it is UNDER the vehicle, as if  was looking there.)  He is a good guy, I know because I've been with some bad ones.  I don't think any of it is intentional, and I was bitchy enough through the last bits of my hormonal pregnancy, that I feel likeI just need to 'get over it' and go with the flow now.  But I can't and so I sit, depressed and guilty and no good to anyone including myself.