Pet Peeves

This may be a fairly negative blog, just so people are forewarned. I'm pretty sure nobody reads this anyway, but just in case somebody does, negativity is abound.

Pet Peeve Number 1: New Year's Resolutioners.
That is right. I've had up to here with you people! Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with setting goals for yourself. You should have goals! By all means, try and make yourself into a better person, try to achieve something physically or mentally that you have not done before, or have not completed before. It's good for you! But I mean really, do you need a special date on the calendar to say "I need to fix this about my life... this is what I'm going to do"? Ummm...NO! I have to admit, I am writing this for purely selfish reasons. The reason you people drive me up the wall is that you march into the gym (my gym, yes, that is right, I do not share the gym) with your shiny and bright new exercise shoes and your never-been-worn workout outfit with the idea that you are going to get fit this year. You will be buff, ripped, muscley...whatever. You will be the thin swimsuit model you have dreamed of being since you realized your thighs were too fat, your stomach too big, and your butt disproportional to the rest of your body. Well I have news for you bucko! If you think a few weeks at the gym is going to give you this body, you have another thing coming! This takes a lot of work! And mind you, this is coming from someone who has plenty of experience with the whole "I want a better body" crap. So, do me a favor, if you are not serious about this goal, pick another one that you can accomplish to your satisfaction. Because let me tell you, nothing makes me crankier than the first couple of months of the new year when people start coming to the gym and taking up my favorite machines (see? selfish reasons, but these are peeves after all). I have a limited time to workout, and when I have to wait to get on a machine I want, or I have to workout on the crappy stair-stepper, I become somewhat frothy at the mouth. Especially since I know you people aren't sticking with it. How do I know this? Well after a month or two, the gym goes back to the normal population of regulars (for the most part, kudos to those who actually stick with it). So save me the grief and stay home if you really don't want to change your life. If you do plan on doing the whole exercise thing, and you are serious about it, by all means come to the gym and enjoy yourself. I will welcome you in March when I know you plan on staying.

Pet Peeve Number 2: Misusing the exercise equipment
This relates to Peeve Number 1. Now, obviously someone who has not worked out ever, will have problems figuring out how to use the cardio machines properly or how to lift weights correctly. This is what the nice people sitting at the front desk are for. They will teach you how to do things properly. However, this also applies to people who are regulars. I do not want to hear weights slamming against each other. This loud noise is obnoxious and rude. It's not good for the weight machines either. Plus when it happens, it scares the bejeezes out of me, thus making me frothy at the mouth again. This behavior does not make you macho Mr. Six-pack. It makes you lose gold stars in my little gym etiquette grade book, which...oh boy, you REALLY don't want to do! I mean, what could be worse than pissing off quiet, polite, and mostly nice little me? Also, stand up straight when you use the darn cardio machines! They are not for draping your entire upper body over! They are not trees for leaning on! They are calorie burning monsters. If you want the full benefits of their power, don't lean on them! Move your entire body weight around! You burn more calories that way! Plus, I don't have to listen to you complain about your sore back the next day!

Pet Peeve Number 3: Not wiping equipment off when you are done.
This irritates the crap out of me. Hey guess what?!?! Did you know that sweat is a dilute form of urine? Oh yes, true story! You are essentially peeing through your pores...all over the exercise equipment that must be shared between hundreds of people. Do I look like the kind of person that wants to get your dried up urine on me when I touch the exercise equipment? I most certainly am not that kind of person! It takes but a few seconds to spray some disinfectant on a paper towel and wipe down you freaking machine when you are done! As Nike would say "Just do it!" I mean really, if urine is not enough to deter you from cleaning your machine, think of all the germs that are being spread around. Do you need the flu? Do ya?! In fact, just clean up after yourself in general. There is a lady that I always see swimming, and she takes equipment out, and she never puts it back when she is done! Really? Is it that hard to put something back where you got it? The people who work at the gym are not your mother. Clean up after yourself. Not a hard concept.

So there you have it. A blog full of negativity. Hopefully this will not happen again for a while.

Body Image and Exercise

I have something to admit...I  had/have a body image problem. People who know me well enough are already quite aware of this. People who don't know me well enough can probably guess this about me. It's something I've dealt with since high school. In high school I had a brief bout with eating too little and exercising too much. I'm still not entirely sure why I started doing this, and it is something I will deal with probably for the rest of my life. I guess I started realizing that other girls had skinnier legs and a smaller stomach than me, and I was insecure in the first place. Maybe I thought I would be noticed more if I was skinnier, as I equated being skinny to being beautiful. I was also having issues with depression, and it wasn't until quite a few years later that I realized other people just didn't feel like that on a regular basis. For lack of better words, I'll call this eating disorder anorexia. I never saw anyone for it, and my mom made me see how I was being destructive to myself by threatening to make me see someone, and me, just wanting to be fairly normal, found myself terrified of being some mental freak. I look back on it now and think I wish I was more concerned with finding out who I am than trying to be what I thought society thought I should be. That, however, is in the past, and my views on many things like getting help when you need it are vastly changed.

As of now, I still have body image problems. If I let myself, I can look in the mirror and criticize every little thing about myself. The old familiars are "look at that stomach, it sticks out. It should be flatter. Your butt should be smaller. Your thighs are too thick and your hips are too wide, you stupid ugly girl. What is wrong with you? You fat ugly cow!" Would I ever say anything like this to another person? Absolutely not! Why on this God forsaken planet do I say this sort of thing to myself? I have no fucking idea. I always set the bar high for myself maybe? I do set a high bar for myself, but criticizing myself like that is awful. I am trying to get better about this, really I am.

For those of you who know, I am a bit of an exercise freak. I love exercise, and I'm happy to admit I have a healthy addiction to it. Those of you who do not exercise and are going to get critical about this, you can stop reading now because you will never understand. You will think this is me trying to reach some sort of perfection in my physical appearance that is not possible for me, and considering what I wrote about before with my body image and low self-esteem, I can understand why you would think that. I started exercising because I wanted to look better. I wanted to be a skinny waif of a girl. That is not why I exercise now. I exercise now partly, yes, to maintain a healthy body weight, but also because I feel damn good when I'm done. Endorphins are a marvelous thing. I feel good about myself when I exercise. I feel strong when I exercise. I feel like I do things most other people wouldn't ever try doing when it comes to pushing one's body to the limit. I can easily do 10 miles of exercise in one day as a normal regular work-out. I am proud of this. Many other people cannot do this. That is why I exercise.

Now, when I look in the mirror and find myself becoming critical of imperfections that seem larger to me than to other people, I tell myself what I am capable of. What my body can do that others' bodies can't. How amazing is it that I can swim more than two miles in an hour and a half? I can run marathons for God's sake. I can work out on an elliptical for an hour and then still have energy to go on the treadmill and run some miles. I can go to spin class for an hour and then get in the pool and swim for an hour when I'm done with that. I am fucking amazing! Maybe my body isn't as perfect as I think it should be, but it has done everything I have asked of it, and it will do more than this in the future because I love pushing myself to the limit, and I realize now that if I am going to push my body like this, I have to give it the fuel it needs. I eat like I need to now; no more starving myself.

I am writing this because of something I saw on television the other day. I was watching Beverly Hills Brides. It is basically rich women going in to find the perfect over priced wedding dress for their perfect over priced weddings. This one episode had some B grade movie actress ( I had never seen her in anything before) who was one of the skinniest people I have ever seen. It was very obvious she had a problem. Her arms were basically just bone. Her collar bones protruded way too much. Her face was gaunt looking. (Her friends actually told her one of the dresses she tried on made her hips look wide. She had no hips to look wide, and no wonder she was so small with people telling her shit like that.) The point of this is, I looked at her and saw she was unhealthy, whereas before, I would have looked at her and wished I could attain that level of skinny. I saw her and thought to myself, if I had that body I would not be able to do all things I do now. I would not be able to run marathons or swim long distances. My body would not be able to handle that amount of exercise. I would be a weak woman on the brink of disappearing. I came to realize I am happy with my body. I love my body and what it is capable of doing. I realized I am happy with me, and that is kind of a big deal for me, so I thought I would share. If you have negative thoughts about yourself, think about all the things you can do, and you will realize how amazing you really are!

Monster Dash

Well, today I completed the Monster Dash Half Marathon in St.Paul. My foot had been feeling really good at the end of September, so I decided to give the race a go and see what happened. I was a little worried about it before I started because I've only been running a couple of times a week. I've been doing other cardio stuff like swimming and the elliptical, but those aren't quite the same. I also only had two ten mile runs as my longest training runs, and I didn't do any speed or hill workouts. So basically I was way under-trained, at least in my opinion. My last ten mile run before the race was absolutely terrible, so I didn't have much confidence going into the race. It was not the pace I was hoping to run the race in and I was super tired when I finished, but I figured if I could run 10 miles, I could certainly run 13 or at least finish a half marathon.
We got down into the cities last night, and it was very stressful driving. There were a couple of accidents and traffic was backed up a couple of times. It felt like I had five heart attacks because of some of the the crazy driving down there. It was dark out too, so that just made us more stressed out, but we got to our destination safely. We stayed with Bronson's cousin and his wife, and they made spaghetti for us, which was super nice of them. We basically went to bed right after we ate because we were so tired.
Race morning we got to St. Paul much faster than we left it the night before when we picked up my packet. No car accidents = easy driving =) yay! It was super cold out though! It was only 25 degrees when we left in the morning. That is a temperature that I don't usually run in anymore. My feet were numb by the start of the race and probably through the first mile of it. I was lucky that I deep a pair of gloves in my running jacket or I would have been is sorry shape. Needless to say the first few miles of the run were pretty miserable for me. I was cold, and if you know me, you know I don't get along with cold very well. It's a relationship that will always be pretty bad I think, mostly cuz I hold grudges. So I was unhappy to be outside for the first portion of the race, but when the sun started shining on me, I started warming up some. I decided to try and enjoy myself then. I mean, I may as well being as I had to be out there for over two hours.
The course itself had some pluses and minuses. We ran through some pretty ritzy looking neighborhoods, so we say some amazing houses, and the trees down there were still very colorful and beautiful. It was pretty scenic for most of the run The race was also mostly down hill, so if your looking to run a pr, it's a decent course for that if it's not to crowded. The negatives: there were not enough volunteers. The water stations did not have enough people to pour water, so you basically had to stop and wait for them to pour the water into a cup for you. There were lines. Not ok. Also, there were a lot of people on the course. It was really congested. You expect the first few miles to be like that normally, but it was pretty crowded for the whole race, and the road just got narrower and narrower for a while. I ran on the grass so I could pass people because there was no other way around. It stayed pretty crowded until the 10 milers finished their portion, so 10 miles into the race you felt like you had room to run. There was not a lot of nutrition at the end of the race either. Basically there was bananas, water, and a bag of chips...lame. I think I'm probably spoiled by how awesome and well put together Grandma's is. It has yet to be dethroned as my favorite race ever.
Despite all of my complaining, I did have a good race. I felt pretty decent through out the whole thing considering I was under-trained. I kept a good assessment of how I was feeling at certain mile markers, and I kept tabs on how I was doing. At about five miles in I looked at my watch and saw I had been running for about 49 minutes, which was pretty close to the 10 minute mile pace that I was expecting to do. I decided at that point that I could run a bit faster, so I did, and I managed to trim some more time off. My original goal was to finish in in 2 hours 10 mins, a good solid 10min/mile pace. Well the further along in the race I went the more certain I became that I could get under that time, so I ran a little faster and a little faster. At mile eight I said to myself "Steph, if you had five miles left in Grandma's Marathon right now, how would you be feeling, not this good, just go. You feel good now compared to that." So I went, and I finished in 2:04:19 I mean REALLY?!!??! How awesome is that! That is a pr for me by about 20 minutes!!!!! CRAZY!!!! I'm really excited now because completing a half in under two hours now seems like a doable feat. It's definitely on the radar now, not so impossible sounding. I am just stoked to have done so well, especially with not getting the training I wanted in!! YAY! Anyways, this has gotten to be a very long winded blog, so I am going to shut up now. I'M JUST SO FREAKIN' HAPPY!

Chris Christie

I know this blog is going to stray slightly from the running theme I have here, but the topic seemed so interesting to me that I had to write about it. That and it is health related, so it pertains to what I would write about on here anyway. I also know that he is officially not running for president, but the question came up before he announced that yesterday. In case some of you don't know, Chris Christie is the governor of New Jersey and was considered a Republican candidate for president until he officially said he wasn't running yesterday. Chris Christie also happens to be a very large man. I was listening to MPR the other day, and one of the morning radio hosts asked if you would vote for someone who was overweight or fat.
I found myself to have a very mixed view in the answer to this question. On one side, I feel like it shouldn't matter what you weigh to hold a position like president. No matter what people say there is prejudice against people who are heavy or overweight. People associate the word "fat" with other words like lazy, slob, stupid, gross, etc. This is wrong! A person who has become governor of a state is obviously not lazy. I imagine the job is very stressful and requires a lot of work. Nor is this person stupid, pretty sure you need to have some level of intelligence to run a state (Sarah Palin excluded of course). And my guess would be that you would have to dress fairly formally and look nice for all those important meetings you would have being governor and all, so therefore you would not be gross or a slob. So you see, how can someone who is fat not be qualified for this position just because they happen to have more adipose tissue than the average person? People need to get over this negative association with word fat, and look at the personality of the person rather than they way that person appears physically.
On a different note, you worry about someone's health when they are that obese. Would I worry that if he was elected president that he may have health problems associated with obesity? I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't worry. There are many different health conditions related to obesity, type II diabetes and heart disease to start. What if he suffered from a heart attack and couldn't work or even died? I know there have been presidents in the past who had health conditions and were able to keep them secret or on the down low, but you would worry if you knew about those conditions before hand. Also, President Obama is a smoker (or former smoker), and smoking can cause health problems too, hello lung cancer and high blood pressure. Did this affect the number of people that voted for him? Did people even know he smoked when they voted for him? I didn't know. I personally know people who didn't vote for John McCain  because they thought he was too old and the were worried he might die in office.
Then there is the matter of obesity in America. Would Chris Christie or any other candidate who happened to be obese be able to convince people that he or she had a plan to stop obesity in the the United States if that person is obese themselves?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that for me at least this is a complicated issue. I hate hate hate that people are judgmental and shallow when it comes to weight, but at the same time I want people to be healthy and active. I guess if he was the Republican candidate, I would pay extra attention to who his running mate was and be sure that person was capable of leading if the president became sick or died, more so than usually anyway because you should pay attention to running mates anyway. I feel like a bad person for thinking about this in the first place anyway, like I might be prejudiced and I don't like that feeling at all.

Vacation!

Yes, I was on vacation! It was a mini-vacation, but it was a vacation all the same, and I'll take what I can get. I got to spend 3 lovely nights and four days at a resort near Cable, WI. The weather was great for most of it, except for Sunday, which was rainy, windy, and cold. The rest of the days were nice though! We actually went swimming twice, and we had a blast jumping off the raft at the beach like we were 10 years old again!
We got there Friday afternoon. My fiance even let me get some exercise in before driving down there while he packed up the car. So I got to get a good swim on Friday morning before spending too much time sitting around in a car, which made me happy and started everything off right. When we got there, we unpacked and went swimming some more, as if I hadn't gotten enough before, but it was fun. Then we stuffed our faces at the Friday night fish fry at the lodge restaurant. It was great!
Saturday morning I got a run in. This was super nice because I had been "saving" my foot all week for this vacation so I would be able to run mostly pain free for the time I was at the resort. There isn't a gym or anything there, so if I wanted exercise, it would have to be running. It was a wonderful run. I think I went about five miles. The first part was really super hilly, so I got to do some unexpected major hill work. The road into the resort is really hilly, so the first three miles of my run was all climbing up and down hills. It was great! Though, I'll have to admit that after those first three miles I had to stop and rest for a minute or two because I was tired! Then I finished up with two fairly flatter miles and called it good for the day exercise wise. My foot hardly hurt at all! I was really happy about that. After that I went back to the room, and we celebrated Bronson's birthday. He got to pick all the activities we did, so we went swimming again, and we also went shopping. Then I took him out for his prime rib birthday dinner.
Sunday I went for a walk which ended up turning into a run because it was rainy and windy and cold. Rain would have been alright except for the cold and wind which was pelting mini rain bullets in my face, and it hurt! So I decided I'd had enough of that and started running just to get out of the weather. When I got back it had stopped raining, so we decided to try some fishing off the dock. It was still cold and windy though, and my fingers turned white, not blue, white. White is bad because that means my fingers are numb. If they are blue, I can still feel them. I didn't say anything though because Bronson was trying out his new fishing pole that he got for his birthday from his parents, and he was having a lot fun. Thank God it started raining and we decided to go back inside. Then Bronson  made the best dinner ever cuz he's kinda awesome like that =)
Monday we came home, and there's not much to say about that other than it was a bit depressing. This was probably way more detail than anyone wanted to read about my vacation, but I had fun writing it , so there.

Plantar Facitis

So, I'm starting this blog because at the moment my running is practically nonexistent. You see I have Plantar Facitis, and it just doesn't seem to want to go the heck away. And if I can't run, then I might as well be reading or writing about running. I mean, what else can I do? Now, I'm aware that I really can't complain too much. I can't really remember when the last time I was injured. It seems like that long ago. I know I was in college, so that could be anywhere from three to seven years ago, so a long time not being injured hardly allows me to complain now! But I'm going to, lucky you! And by injured I mean you can't run for more than two weeks, because anyone can take a week off, feel better, and then go right back to their normal running routine. I'm talking real pain here. Like I haven't had a real run in more than a month, and I've been reduced to swimming and ellipticals  to obtain my happy exercise high, not that there's anything wrong with that, but as of right now, I'd rather be outside enjoying what little sunshine and warm weather we get here in northern Minnesota. Because I've done the whole winter running thing in snowstorms and 30 below temperatures, and to be honest, I feel like I've put my time in and I can resort to running on treadmills for the winter.
So I've been doing a lot of swimming, which I'm actually coming to enjoy. I can feel myself improving, which is nice because at least I'm getting better at something. When I first started, I could barely swim 50 yards without being tired. I felt like such a fraud and a loser, especially when people who obviously had experience swimming came in and started their workouts with all their grace and elegance. They seemed like they were using so little effort yet they were just smokin it! So fast! I felt like I was a small child splashing around in a bath tub compared to them, but I am better now. I'm swimming longer distances and I'm not splashing around like I'm drowning, so I'm sure the lifeguards are relieved not to have to watch me like I'll disappear under the water at any second. At least there is improvement somewhere.
The thing about being stuck not running though, is that every time someone runs by me I become almost personally offended. How dare you be running in front of me with my condition! HOW DARE YOU! I'm sure they think "Well it's a good thing I'm running because that lady is crazy looking and she's giving me the evil eye." Because that's what I do. I glare at people who have the audacity to run by me when clearly, I am walking and would much rather be running. I mean they should just be able to tell I do not want to be walking to get my exercise right?  Basically what this long winded blog comes down to is that I love running, despite all the injury and pain and time necessary to do it. In fact, I may be a bit obsessive about it, but that's beside the point. The point is all I want to do is run again!