Last night, after an soul-suckingly unproductive day at work, I went to the track to do my first 800s workout. 4x800. I admit, I was nervous, but kind of excited to sprint out the frustrations of the day.
Fail fail fail.
My target pace was 4:22/800, which is about an 8:45 pace or so. I couldn't even manage that. I got 4:33 for the first one and 4:32 for the second. And then I was done. I just couldn't do any more. 2x800 crap.
It's either my body or my mind that betrays me. I'm not even sure which. But as I was jogging slowly to the start of the lane, giving myself a pep talk that if I could "just do one more, just one, then you can stop" I found myself just walking away. Through the gates, towards the road. And jogging off into, quite literally, the sunset. It's like my mind, through the pep talk, always just makes my body do what it wants.
It took awhile to get my breath back. I walked for a bit. Cursed myself. Wondered if I should just give up on running. If after a year of regular running and exercise, a 9 minute mile still feels like a dead sprint to me, it might just be time to find a new hobby. I'm not exaggerating - a 9-minute mile feels like a DEAD. SPRINT. I'm beginning to wonder if the only reason I did so well in my last 5k is because the course was incorrectly measured.
Anyhoo, I'm walking home all Debbie Downer and blowing my nose on my Ronald McDonald House tech shirt, when I decide on a whim to take off my shoes, jump the short sea wall, and do absolute-top-speed beach sprints barefoot. About 25 seconds each, jogging slowly back to the start, I think I did 5 or 6, and the sun was setting and frankly, it was amazing.
Just what I needed.
Showing posts with label navel gazing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label navel gazing. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
all in good time
I have again been very remiss in blog posting, and blog reading! Thank you for the comments on my last post - they meant a lot. I've really been wanting to catch up with your blogs, but I have not had internet at home for a couple weeks and I've been trying not to blogread at work (despite the fact that it is 10am and I am most definitely blogwriting at work).
Let's keep it short & sweet & bulletpointed.
-I may be the only woman in America who loses eight pounds because the gym is closed for a week. I had to go to the doctor for something, and they put me on the scale as usual, and did not seem nearly as concerned as I was about this rapid weight drop. The assistant who weighed me, in fact, said "That's good, isn't it?" and if I hadn't been so exhausted and depressed from the previous two weeks and hearing the door open and close at 6am as my roommate D left forever, I would have given her a choice piece of my mind. It's attitudes like this that make me want to kick society in the butt really hard with pointy shoes.
-To add injury to insult, I fell down pretty hard on the sidewalk last Friday, which left me with a painful and kinda gross hand injury that pretty much prevents me from lifting weights (hence the weight loss, I'm assuming). I miss the iron. Wah. I was getting really good too - right before this happened, I was regularly lifting 60lbs over my head. Now I'm going to have to go back down to 40. This is going to be a slow healer.
-My slackage on running makes me worry if I'm going to be able to finish Falmouth this weekend. Luckily, my friend Megan is joining me and she hasn't run more that 3 miles, so I can run with her and pretend I'm being nice.
-My friend Amy has just about convinced me to run another half marathon. In 9 weeks. It might not be the best idea ever, but I may just be crazy enough to do it.
Non-fitness bulletpoints
-A long friendship ended last week, the same day my roommate left. I know it's over because I'm not necessarily as angry as I could be - just done. In a way, I'm almost glad it's over - kind of like the situation with my roommate. The relationship just wasn't healthy for me anymore. It's been sad, and a lot to deal with, but a week later and a nice 5-mile tempo last night and I'm calm as the nighttime ocean again.
-I finally got my act together and wrote an e-mail to the program director of the program I applied for last winter and was waitlisted for. No reply yet, but at least I did it. Better late than never.
-When one door closes, another completely unrelated door opens. My cousin and her awesome boyfriend just got engaged. And a close friend of mine is pregnant. Excitement and newness all around.
Let's keep it short & sweet & bulletpointed.
-I may be the only woman in America who loses eight pounds because the gym is closed for a week. I had to go to the doctor for something, and they put me on the scale as usual, and did not seem nearly as concerned as I was about this rapid weight drop. The assistant who weighed me, in fact, said "That's good, isn't it?" and if I hadn't been so exhausted and depressed from the previous two weeks and hearing the door open and close at 6am as my roommate D left forever, I would have given her a choice piece of my mind. It's attitudes like this that make me want to kick society in the butt really hard with pointy shoes.
-To add injury to insult, I fell down pretty hard on the sidewalk last Friday, which left me with a painful and kinda gross hand injury that pretty much prevents me from lifting weights (hence the weight loss, I'm assuming). I miss the iron. Wah. I was getting really good too - right before this happened, I was regularly lifting 60lbs over my head. Now I'm going to have to go back down to 40. This is going to be a slow healer.
-My slackage on running makes me worry if I'm going to be able to finish Falmouth this weekend. Luckily, my friend Megan is joining me and she hasn't run more that 3 miles, so I can run with her and pretend I'm being nice.
-My friend Amy has just about convinced me to run another half marathon. In 9 weeks. It might not be the best idea ever, but I may just be crazy enough to do it.
Non-fitness bulletpoints
-A long friendship ended last week, the same day my roommate left. I know it's over because I'm not necessarily as angry as I could be - just done. In a way, I'm almost glad it's over - kind of like the situation with my roommate. The relationship just wasn't healthy for me anymore. It's been sad, and a lot to deal with, but a week later and a nice 5-mile tempo last night and I'm calm as the nighttime ocean again.
-I finally got my act together and wrote an e-mail to the program director of the program I applied for last winter and was waitlisted for. No reply yet, but at least I did it. Better late than never.
-When one door closes, another completely unrelated door opens. My cousin and her awesome boyfriend just got engaged. And a close friend of mine is pregnant. Excitement and newness all around.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
confessional
It's been awhile since I've felt compelled to write here, or maybe moreso known what I wanted to write about. When I started this blog over a year ago, it was out of a desire to keep myself accountable as I began this seemingly impossibly running adventure; an adventure that I'd attempted to begin time and time again with no success. It started as somewhat of a running log for me, but the knowledge that it was public and could be read by anyone somehow kept me on track and accountable. And it really worked. I like to remind myself from time to time that I once struggled to run half a mile and now I feel weird if I run less than five.
I've been online journaling for years now, since before it was cool. I have a Livejournal (yes, a Livejournal) that I've written in for close to TEN YEARS. Back when I started that, it was more acceptable to write in diaryform, to be more confessional and angsty (and at 19, I'm pretty sure we were all confessional and angsty), and today that same Livejournal still serves the same function, with a dash of maturity and wisdom. But just a dash. I enjoy being able to "lock" my entries and know who is going to be able to read what I write. And knowing SOMEONE is going to read it makes me more conscious of the way I write, forcing me to weave a more compelling story with fewer details. I consider myself a private person, yet I throw handfuls of details about my life out into cyberspace for all to see. Maybe it's not so much privacy that compels me, but control - the desire to project a certain image of myself.
There's been a lot of topsy-turvyness in my life lately, most of it not so bad, but I've been leaning mainly on the Livejournal as my outlet, and let this blog slide. Back when I started the LJing, the targeted blog wasn't so popular as it is now. Now, everyone has a "running blog" or a "cooking blog" or a "photography blog", and even the personal blogs are so well-written and controlled and targeted, from what I've seen. And me? I'm all over the place. I say I want to be a writer - and am waitlisted to the best professional writing & publishing graduate program in the country right now - yet I can't seem to force myself to write a coherent and interesting bunch of sentences.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that lately I've been having trouble deciding where I want this blog to go - what do I want it to be? What does IT want to be? What do I want to say, and to whom?
In tandem with that, lately I've been a bit burnt out with the running. I've had what feels like it might be a stress fracture, and it's been bothering me for months. I never seem to get any faster, I keep stopping and walking, I sweat too much, my nose runs, and I KNOW it's not supposed to be easy but keep feeling like some day I'll just tie up my shoes and FLY. So as I dabble in other areas of fitness, I wonder if I'll eventually give up running. If the numbers I've collected on my wall will someday just be enough; if this is just one of my myriad infatuations and that I will just tire of it eventually. And that thought made me sad. It made me profoundly sad. I want this to be part of who I am. And still, like any chronic quitter, there is a part of me that is terrified that one day I will just STOP all of this, and not be able to start up again, because now I know how truly hard it really is.
The gym is closed all week. And it's birthdayweek - I'm 29 years old today - so since last Friday, everyone wants to buy me food and drinkies and cakes and candies. And if I don't exercise, I just don't have the appetite to eat all those things, and it seems like such a waste. Not to mention my mind is all over the place, I'm both jittery and exhausted, and I feel like a slug.
Last night after dinner with a good friend, I took the train home, stuffed full of delicious pumpkin pancake and sangria. I came home to the empty apartment that I share with two boys who were strangers less than a year ago, one of whom is moving across the country in a week and who I am already missing much more than I thought I would. I came home to this home, this lovely home I kind of never want to leave, and I lay down on the floor in the living room and watched the ceiling fan spin, and wanted to do nothing but lay there and stare and let my pumpkin pancake settle.
But somehow, I found myself getting up, tying up my Nikes, and heading out into the dark.
On the eve of my 29th birthday, I flew. I flew along the shore, where the water was flat as glass, the boats barely bobbing, the dark sky collecting up light from the skyscrapers and spreading it out, dimly, between the clouds. I ran by the water, on the most beautiful night this summer has seen, and I didn't stop. I wiped my face on my shirt and blew my nose on my sleeve and I didn't care, and I kept on flying. The night fishermen I passed on the causeway were silent, but they watched me, curious and benign. The city skyline lit up and I turned and breathed it in as I rounded the back of the island. And as I finished those three miles and slowed into a brisk walk, taking off my shoes and jumping the short fence to the sandy beach, I realized : This is really part of me now. This is who I am.
I've been online journaling for years now, since before it was cool. I have a Livejournal (yes, a Livejournal) that I've written in for close to TEN YEARS. Back when I started that, it was more acceptable to write in diaryform, to be more confessional and angsty (and at 19, I'm pretty sure we were all confessional and angsty), and today that same Livejournal still serves the same function, with a dash of maturity and wisdom. But just a dash. I enjoy being able to "lock" my entries and know who is going to be able to read what I write. And knowing SOMEONE is going to read it makes me more conscious of the way I write, forcing me to weave a more compelling story with fewer details. I consider myself a private person, yet I throw handfuls of details about my life out into cyberspace for all to see. Maybe it's not so much privacy that compels me, but control - the desire to project a certain image of myself.
There's been a lot of topsy-turvyness in my life lately, most of it not so bad, but I've been leaning mainly on the Livejournal as my outlet, and let this blog slide. Back when I started the LJing, the targeted blog wasn't so popular as it is now. Now, everyone has a "running blog" or a "cooking blog" or a "photography blog", and even the personal blogs are so well-written and controlled and targeted, from what I've seen. And me? I'm all over the place. I say I want to be a writer - and am waitlisted to the best professional writing & publishing graduate program in the country right now - yet I can't seem to force myself to write a coherent and interesting bunch of sentences.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that lately I've been having trouble deciding where I want this blog to go - what do I want it to be? What does IT want to be? What do I want to say, and to whom?
In tandem with that, lately I've been a bit burnt out with the running. I've had what feels like it might be a stress fracture, and it's been bothering me for months. I never seem to get any faster, I keep stopping and walking, I sweat too much, my nose runs, and I KNOW it's not supposed to be easy but keep feeling like some day I'll just tie up my shoes and FLY. So as I dabble in other areas of fitness, I wonder if I'll eventually give up running. If the numbers I've collected on my wall will someday just be enough; if this is just one of my myriad infatuations and that I will just tire of it eventually. And that thought made me sad. It made me profoundly sad. I want this to be part of who I am. And still, like any chronic quitter, there is a part of me that is terrified that one day I will just STOP all of this, and not be able to start up again, because now I know how truly hard it really is.
The gym is closed all week. And it's birthdayweek - I'm 29 years old today - so since last Friday, everyone wants to buy me food and drinkies and cakes and candies. And if I don't exercise, I just don't have the appetite to eat all those things, and it seems like such a waste. Not to mention my mind is all over the place, I'm both jittery and exhausted, and I feel like a slug.
Last night after dinner with a good friend, I took the train home, stuffed full of delicious pumpkin pancake and sangria. I came home to the empty apartment that I share with two boys who were strangers less than a year ago, one of whom is moving across the country in a week and who I am already missing much more than I thought I would. I came home to this home, this lovely home I kind of never want to leave, and I lay down on the floor in the living room and watched the ceiling fan spin, and wanted to do nothing but lay there and stare and let my pumpkin pancake settle.
But somehow, I found myself getting up, tying up my Nikes, and heading out into the dark.
On the eve of my 29th birthday, I flew. I flew along the shore, where the water was flat as glass, the boats barely bobbing, the dark sky collecting up light from the skyscrapers and spreading it out, dimly, between the clouds. I ran by the water, on the most beautiful night this summer has seen, and I didn't stop. I wiped my face on my shirt and blew my nose on my sleeve and I didn't care, and I kept on flying. The night fishermen I passed on the causeway were silent, but they watched me, curious and benign. The city skyline lit up and I turned and breathed it in as I rounded the back of the island. And as I finished those three miles and slowed into a brisk walk, taking off my shoes and jumping the short fence to the sandy beach, I realized : This is really part of me now. This is who I am.
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