Day 60 – To Run a Mile in My Shoes

25 lbs lost

First off, thank you to fabulous friend who gave me ever so cute pink sprinkle donut earrings. They are my new treasure that I wear at the gym. Hee hee!

Ok Day 60, I am in the zone. Just ticking along now with my eating regime like a Hollywood Starlett. “Carbs? What? I don’t eat those?” I am feeling good about my success thus far on the journey. One key area I continue to work is the implementation of exercise in my daily life. Each day I wake up and yearn to see myself as an athletic person. This has never been my paradigm. I’m a reader, a home improvement junky, hard worker but definitely not an athlete. Completing a marathon and over 500 miles of training did not change this perception of me for me. Each time I have ventured to loose weight before I have exercised only to stop somewhere along the way. I don’t crave it and definitely up to this point do not see it as a part of who I am. Oh, you know those people who do. Exercising at god awful times in the morning or in climate weather. Disciplined and focused like they require it to breathe or something. I am of course only speculating as I stated earlier, do not share this passion.

Up to this point of this particular journey, I had been getting in 3 days a week of either cardio machines or walking with friends on the weekends. Our happy walking group was even treated to a private viewing of a wild turkey mating dance on one of our last jaunts. If my perception of the situation was correct, Tom was getting lucky that night with his moves!

Monday morning rolled around and I headed to the gym to hit the treadmill. About 3 minutes into a hill cycle, a thought streamed into my head. Run. What? I put it aside. 10 seconds later, there it was again. Run. Perplexed a bit, I got a little rush of excitement. Running is not listed as one of the acceptable activities in my box so imagine my intrigue. Not once in the past 20 years has this thought ever crossed my mind before. In fact, I have been through 2 personal trainers who suggested the same. Both received a verbal pimp slap as I promptly discounted their suggestion. Must have worked too since neither of them ever suggested it again. I don’t run unless being chased and seriously depends upon who’s doing the chasing or how badly I don’t want to get caught.

But there was this thought floating up from the subconscious again not in mockery, with force or judgment, just simply Run. Somehow it slipped inside my clearly defined parameter of self just patiently waiting for me to convert thought into action.

I scanned the cardio room to see if anyone was watching and kicked up the machine before I could rethink. I Ran. Two minutes. Three minutes. Hmm, I wasn’t dying yet. Interested, I kept going. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 14 minutes and then I saw the machine hit the mile mark. I cracked what must have been the goofiest of smiles as I still didn’t feel done. Crazy, this was my first mile since PE in the 9th grade and I wasn’t tired yet? I kept going until I reached 1.5 miles. This was the first inkling that maybe just maybe I could stretch my box a bit to accommodate a new perception of self. This was definitely new.

One of my key goals when starting this adventure was not really to wear a smaller size, look good or even to feel better. Ok, all fabulous benefits of course but what I wanted was to learn something new about my self to finally tackle this beast. There was also another secret little dream, to be able to roller skate outside by my birthday. What? Yes, you read that right. I know I just lost about half of you at this point as this may not coincide with your own goals. The other half of you are shaking your heads smiling as I know you can see this vision.

Why skating? It is not due to a pent up passion for leg warmers however nice they may be. It’s not even a secret fantasy to join the derby circuit. Skating was my absolute most favorite activity as a kid. Every Saturday for years I got to lace up my boots and roll around the rink for a few hours. It always made me feel amazing. I loved the speed, maneuverability and how you could feel every muscle in your lower half working together to keep you moving in a forward trajectory. Unless of course you chose to skate backwards! Pure joy. For you, these feelings maybe invoked through many other very fine activities. May it be biking, running or even kayaking! For me, it’s skating. That 1.5 mile run on the treadmill was the first glimmer that maybe my secret dream of skating with full protective gear and helmet could be an actual reality by my birthday. I will have to get around my husband first who thinks I will kill myself attempting this feat. Minor obstacle as one shot with crazy eyes will do the trick.

Back to the treadmill no, running did not give me this same feeling as skating! Come on, be real. It’s still me and it was still running and no big bad dude in curlers was chasing me through a Detroit bus station (another story, another time). It was major hideous but the point was, I didn’t die and it was definitely something new. It was definitely outside my typical yo-yo pattern. I have even done it again since knocking out 1.75 miles with plans to run 2 miles of a 5K next Friday. Imagine that! Wish I could skate it instead ;) For now, I settle with running.