It's not a bad hair day, it's just another day.

           

Something has been happening to me lately, and I wonder if people do the same thing.

            When I moved to Omaha, I only knew a few family members and high school classmates. Now, I have been here over a year, and I am getting to the point where I am running into people outside of their normal sector. Between Josh’s co-workers, my co-workers, and students at the school I work at, I am starting to recognize people. This is fine at Target or HyVee, but I hate it when it happens at the gym.
            I’m a loner when it comes to my sporadic trips to the gym. I don’t even care for the buddy system, and I really fear running into people I know.

There are a lot of reasons this fear is valid. First being appearance. Despite the steady decline of my looks, I’m actually pretty picky about my appearance. Normally, I feel I dress appropriately for my size, forgiving the occasional abundance of cleavage or legging. Yes, I do, on occasion, wear leggings, but only when my dress/tunic reaches to about my knees. I will never believe that leggings are actual pants. When that trend appeared, I said I would sit it out and wait for the next horrendous fashion item to come along. Then I decided that a few inches of cloth-covered confined flesh peeking above a wide-calf boot is better than a few inches of exposed doughy white leg. It’s really the lesser of two evils.

            Where was I? Oh, yeah. Anyway, I usually dress appropriately for my size, but it’s hard to at the gym. There is no such thing as an “a-line silhouette” in running pants. Any tops classified as “babydoll” are probably too skimpy for my workout preference. Besides, a babydoll top combined with my gut and the pathetic lack of intensity of my workouts make it more likely for someone to think I’m pregnant. Like I need another reason for people to think that. I’m just waiting for the day when someone tells me I shouldn’t be drinking beer in my “condition.”
            So, case in point, I look like common street trash when I’m at the gym and I don’t want people to know it. I don’t put on makeup and I wear my hair in a bun. I’m usually sweating, and sometimes I’m wearing some crappy t-shirt I got for free. I accessorize with pit stains and my really old shirts have a stale smell to them from too many workouts and washings. I don’t like people seeing me that way.
            Second, I don’t like people to see me struggling through a workout. I don’t like them knowing how easily I get tired, or how little I do, or how slow I run, or how my body is jiggling around when I’m doing pretty much anything. I just don’t like it.
            Lastly, overall, I just don’t want to socialize when I’m there. I want to get in, get out, and get on with my day.
            But my fears are being realized. I have discovered that several people I know socially and even professionally go to the same gym I do. I don’t run into people often, but when I do, I don’t seek them out to say hello. Actually, I will plainly ignore them.
            I have a young instructor at my school who is an avid gym-goer. As of late, we have become friends. I found out he spends about two hours a day at the gym I go to. He and a few students from my school, and a couple of friends, and that bartender at the bowling alley who said I “look good to him.” As I am getting back on the horse officially (I made it to the gym four times last week) I am starting to run into people more often. I saw my instructor friend a couple of weeks ago lifting weights as I was attempting to run. I decided not to stare, lest he feel the weight of it (yes, even my stares are heavy) and look in my direction. I pretended I didn’t see him and kept on with my run.
            Then I had to pee. Weird, right? I actually waited until he moved to a machine on the far side of the gym and went for it. As I came out of the bathroom, he was back on a machine by the path I had to take back to my treadmill. I turned up my iPod volume and quickly stalked back to my treadmill.
            I saw him later at work and I guess he had spotted me. In fact, he was shouting my name and trying to catch my attention. I felt bad, and told him that I didn’t want to disrupt his workout and I was in a hurry. This was all true, but it made me think about how often I do this. What is the big deal? What could possibly happen that would be so bad?
            Does anyone else do this? Well, this is my warning to you. If I see you at the gym, I will most likely not talk to you. It’s not because we are not friends, it’s because I’m an insecure slob and I will look for any out in our small talk.

Nothing exciting

            Well it’s about time I get back to the original subject matter of this blog, don’t you think? Meaning, I’m back on the couch to 5k, which is sad, because I pretty much have to start from the beginning. I refuse to start again at week one, but have decided to continue to struggle my way through my half mile, quarter mile personal hell.

            I was lying in bed Sunday night thinking to myself, “why can’t I just forge through it? What hurts so bad that I can’t push through five to six minutes? This is stupid.”

            Of course, it’s easy to give yourself a pep talk like that at ten p.m. as you and your soft flannel pjs are sandwiched between a heated memory foam mattress pad and a fluffy, soft down comforter. Mmm..it makes my eyes heavy just thinking about it.

            Strangely enough, that same pep talk is not as effective in the cold, dark, winter morning when my basement room is a balmy 61 degrees and my comfy cocoon feels more like a survival bunker. And dark is an exaggeration because yesterday morning my first alarm did not go off until eight, since I go into at 11:00 on Mondays. I feel how cold the end of my nose is, and how tired I am from traveling last week. Extending the corporate breakfast to 7:30 a.m. for spouses is not what I call a restful vacation. Neither is dealing with a hung-over and food poisoned husband at 4:45 a.m.

            So in guilty bliss I roll over and drift off for another two hours. As usual, I go to work feeling large and loathsome.

            This morning, at 6:30, I did what I could not do yesterday morning at 8:00. I got out of bed. It doesn’t make sense. I went to bed later and got up earlier. I still felt incredibly sleepy, even as I climbed on the treadmill, but I kept telling myself that I can dream of this double chin going away, but that’s about all staying in bed will get me. I actually had a dream last night that I was looking in the mirror and pulled my face back to reveal a giant double chin. I then proceeded to jiggle and almost motorboat it into a frenzy.

            This is not a huge stretch, and I am not comfortable with that.

            I rub my eyes and come to face the reality of my little “forge through it” theory, as I always do. What sounds good in a warm bed hardly materializes in the cold, artificial light of an empty gym. Not that I’m complaining about the lack of occupancy, I’m glad the New Years Resolution crowd has died down. I HATE these people. They all pack it in from about January 1^st  to about January 10^th. Granted, I do a similar thing, but I do it different times in the year, several times over. I’m the anti-New Years gym-goer.

            As you can guess, my half mile run kind of went, went real shitty, but went with a small break. I started a quarter mile and just was hating life. And it’s back to the elliptical with my Kindle.

            You may have noticed that I don’t believe in New Years Resolutions, but if I had to pick one, I would say I need to focus on at least trying to run three times a week, no matter how terrible. This will condense and force my running and I will HAVE to improve. This is what the couch to 5k intended.

           

Keeping it Classy in Class

            I’m sitting at a desk in a very nice hotel room in Boston, sipping on a mimosa I just poured for myself. Its early afternoon, but I really should brew some coffee since my eyes feel very heavy. The problem with me is that I constantly have that nagging feeling of things I “should be” doing. I should be going to the gym, I should be cleaning, I should be going to church, I should be out of bed, I should be watching CNN and not Jersey Shore, I should be keeping up on the blog, I should be eating vegetables, and I definitely should care more.

            It’s not like I just sit on the couch all day and this list runs through my head, it just seems like there are not enough hours in the day to get all these things done. No matter how much I do, I’m constantly reminded that I have more. I usually make a joke that I’m still Catholic because I feel guilty all the time, and that’s really what being Catholic is all about.

            As of a couple of days ago, I added another “should be” to the list. And right now, as I write this, I should be doing my homework for my MBA.

            Class started on Wednesday, the day I flew into this beautiful city. I was excited as I packed my new laptop into my new laptop briefcase. I bought new gel pens and a new notebook with a picture of an old typewriter on the cover. I figured I would get some work done on at least one plane of the two leg journey. I thought this was a great idea since it will make the time pass faster, and it will be productive. I don’t really care for flying. It’s not that I’m scared of it; living through a long-distance relationship has made me an old pro. I just hate the “hurry up and wait” aspect of flying. I also am annoyed with the inevitable cluster and hassle of security. But, the worst part I hate about flying is how disgustingly fat it makes you feel.

Even you thinner people might have a hint of what I am talking about. Those seats are tighter than Warren Buffet and in recent years; my hips are starting to reach capacity in those things. I hate pulling out my seatbelt and stretching it out farther. Each flight I feel like I pull it out farther and farther. This means that pretty much everyone who graces that seat before me is skinnier. My biggest fear is to have to ask for the seatbelt extension. I’m not there yet, but I did sit next to someone who needed it once.

So, with this in mind, I was looking forward to the distraction of constantly touching the hip of the stranger next to me. I had never used a laptop on a plane but I see it done all the time, so I thought nothing of this. But, the first flight didn’t have WiFi and the second flight had it for the affordable price of…only $9.95 to log on for my two hour flight, where electronics are probably only allowed for ninety minutes of it.

Earmuffs people. Delta, go screw yourselves.

A busy night in Boston brings me to Thursday, and I have to log on. I do, and start to navigate through the work I have to accomplish this week. I am nervous, as I have never taken an online class or a business class. I was also just nervous to start school and have homework again. Schoolwork has never been a problem for me, but I have a new respect for what I do now, and I’m shocked that any one of my students makes it to the first day of school. I didn’t know what to expect.

My first assignment is to introduce myself to my class. Everyone introduces themselves on a discussion board, put where they are from, and what they currently do. They are also to include why they chose to pursue an MBA, and if they could open their own business what would they call it and what would be the business.

I have never seriously thought of opening my own business. My other classmates all seemed to have vast business experience and a clear idea in their head. I was terrified. I had nothing, and I smell a class-long project coming out of this initial idea. Yeah, I know those instructor tricks. Whatever shitty idea I come up with, I may have to stick with and build upon for the next six weeks.

I saw some really good ideas, and then I saw this woman who was responding to just about every single post. We’ll call her Heather. Heather is not only asking very critical questions about the hypothetical businesses, but she is also offering rebuttal on the likelihood of such a business succeeding. A few times she told students that they had to rename their business because that name had already been used, smugly attaching the link to the existing business.

Let me make it a point to say that Heather is not the goddamn instructor. I believe her to be a snooty bitch with too much time on her hands. I notice she has not posted her business idea yet. Hmm..I wonder why. I patiently wait until she does, out of sheer curiosity.

She posts something like “I live in Mason City and I have a couple of kids. My day starts at four a.m. when I go for a swim at the Y and then church.” (of course you do) “I go to work and toil all day at a very rewarding job helping people at a non-profit. If I could start a business, well, I already own three businesses.” (sighing and brushing off her shoulder pads, which I imagine she wears) “But I would just expand my full-time non-profit job because it is very important. I’m very busy, but I make sure to go to bed by nine so I can do it all over again.”

You may think I embellished the hell out of that entry, but I didn’t very much. Yes, her job is very important, and it sounds like she does some positive things and is proud of them. But, what I get from it all is that she thinks she is so busy and she’s pretty big shit. She also seems to think it her job to cut down the ideas people submitted for a mere academic exercise. In case you can’t tell, I immediately do not like this woman.

I am extremely tempted to respond, “For someone who is so busy, you do seem to have an awful lot of time to make yourself seem superior to your classmates. Who was counseling the mentally ill clients as you were ‘google-ing’ imaginary business names on company time?”

But, I just became frustrated and go to the gym. You can tell how little I want to do my work when I pick the gym as my alternative. It’s like when I come home to change into workout clothes and I start doing dishes and laundry. Ah, the new dynamic of my student life.

Working out on the road is always more of a victory for me because it shows more discipline. It’s rather easy to tell myself I’m on vacation and I often convince myself not to go. But I told myself I could brainstorm on my imaginary business (I really have to bring my A game on this one) while I did some cardio. Well, that’s what I should have done. Instead, I watched Maury and laughed out loud to a guy who got “Not the Father” shaved into the back of his head. Guess what, that guy had to get a new haircut. Poor trashy Daddy. I did flip from that to CNN to make myself feel a little better.

This morning I found myself without a solid idea, so I did what I do best in my high school and undergrad years. I winged it. Two mimosas in, I decided I would open a book store that was made for adults (I don’t mean porn, I just mean no children’s books.) I would enjoy helping people find a great book and pairing with a good wine, that I would also sell. My bookstore is called “It Gets Better With Page.”

And no, I did not google it. I’m sure Busy Heather will do that for me.

From the Discomfort of my Own Home

            I must have been very good this past year. I have racked my brain to see what kind of “good” I could have possibly been. As you may have learned from my writing, I haven’t been good to my body this past year, I’m not a good person most of the time, and I’m not really good at anything of the things that I should be good at.
            Nevertheless, I know I must have been good in some way because Santa was very good to me and I got a lot of my favorite presents: gift cards. I ask for them from just about anyone (because I can’t think of anything I really need and I would much rather go shopping than just about anything else). A few of my gift cards were to my favorite place, Amazon.com.
            I first discovered my love for Amazon when I purchased my Kindle. I actually love reading more than anything in the world, including shopping. A book doesn’t make your ass look big, but an excess of it can actually make your ass big. Think about it.
            It wasn’t long before my Kindle Wish List got too long for me to keep up with and I started exploring other areas of the site. Amazon has just about everything I would need! (or really don’t need.) So last year, an Amazon gift card meant some new books. This year, an Amazon gift card is as good as money for anything.
            I ended up with over $100 in gift card credit to Amazon and started dreaming of all the wonderful things I could buy. Maybe a new watch? Nope, I have a pretty nice one already. How about another coat? Yeah, I need that like I need another twenty pounds on this.

What do I really need? Then it wafted into my brain like the smell from an open pizza box. How about something to help you lose some goddamn weight, fatty?

Of course. Something I NEED.  Put I preceded with caution. When Josh and I got married, we registered for some wacky shit. You never know what people are going to buy you. Some of it was fitness equipment. Some of it was power tools and alcohol. One of my friends looked at a treadmill we had registered for and remarked, “That will make a nice coat rack in a couple of months.”

It’s true. Millions of people buy fitness equipment every day and never use it. You can log on any day at Craigslist and EBay and there are swarms of people who bought with good intentions and are now tired of their equipment just taking up space. A couple of weeks ago, I was wandering through Target and dreamed of getting in some quick workouts at home on the days I feel I don’t have time for trips to the gym. So, I bought a stability ball and some hand weights. It’s pretty hard to hang up coats on those.

But they do collect dust quickly. I get an idea and locate the stability ball workout DVDs. The one that came with my ball was worthless. I select two, add to cart and buy. There, I feel skinnier already. Now where’s that pizza smell coming from?

They took forever to get to my house but they finally arrived. Both belong to the “10 Minute Solutions” family. There are five sections to the DVD: each section is ten minutes long and targets a specific part of the body. One DVD is supposed to be more “beginner” than the other but for the life of me I can’t remember out which one.

            I assess the house. The upstairs living room is spacious, but I’m worried about the amount of noise my moving body will make when Josh is trying to sleep or watch TV downstairs. The downstairs living room is smaller, but it’s more private.

            I remember when I had a Billy Blanks TaeBo video (yes, VHS) in high school. My living room on the farm is beyond tiny, and I would quickly run out of room as I was supposed to side step, kick, back step, squat. Mostly I would end up accidently kicking my parent’s steel frame couch and crying through my pouring sweat, “I fucking hate you Billy. I really, really do.”

            I decide to go with the upstairs living room. It really is very open and has very little furniture in it. I pick a night Josh isn’t home, and I wear a pair of shorts that are too short for me to wear comfortably in public. Hey, if I’m going to work out at home, I might as take advantage. I roll out my ball and pop in my DVD.

           I don’t what kind of house this chick lives in, but apparently it’s the kind that leads her to believe that normal people have a nice, hardwood workout studio at home. I stuggle to stay in view of our big screen T.V. We warm up with some squats, and then we work in an overhead toss with the ball. I know my ball has a small stabilizing weight in it, and I immediately discover this is not the type of ball you want for this DVD. I’m shy with tossing the ball up at first, but Little Miss Pilates Pigtails tell me to “Get into it! This is warming up your upper body too!”

           I squat, go up with my whole body and hurl the ball up. I guess I forgot I have a ceiling but the feeling of the ball connecting with my face reminded me. Dammit. It’s like junior high volleyball all over again.

            Now we are getting on the ball for some unstable workouts. I am supposed to balance my core, belly down, on the ball while I do some leg lifts. It’s not going great, and I glance sideways at my instructor. She is effortlessly whaling on her glutes. I scrutinize this. She is obviously much smaller than me, but I am quite sure her ball is bigger than mine. Yes, this is a problem. I have purchased a size medium ball, and now I look like a Mastiff trying to hump a Chihuahua. It’s ugly no matter what happens.

            But, I give it the old college try. I do the lower body portion to the best of my ability. By the end of it, my shorts have ridden up my nasty thighs and are starting to resemble a Depends undergarment. I have lost my balance a few times and am getting some sweet rug burns.

            I find myself on my back for the core portion, and my dog has gotten bored watching me. He wants attention and continuously hits me in the face with his rubber bone. But, he starts to leave me alone when I am doing some rolling exercises and I run over his tail.

            By the cardio portion I am tired, frustrated, and want to take Miss Pilate’s Pigtails and slam her face into her massive ball. I fantasize that it would have a rubber-sounding THUNK like a dodge ball when it hits a fat kid in the back, or a foot connecting with a kickball. I feel like I have not lived up to objectives of this workout, as I could not move as fast as my lovely instructor. But, I am sweaty as she thanks me and promises to see me tomorrow to do it all again.

           I have since glanced at my other DVD, which says “Stability ball recommended.” I think that might be the easier one. We shall see.  

Reflections on Revelations

          I was rocking out to some Godsmack on the elliptical the other day and I saw Handy Hank lumbering through the rows of cardio machines. I had not seen him for a while and almost forgot all about him, except for the wonderful Pine-sol smell of the studio where classes are held. At least I think it’s Pine-sol, it might just be the body spray he felt like wallowing in that morning. He was not wearing his usual work attire: black “swishy” sweat pants with white stripes on the side, slung low in the front underneath his belly, coupled with a worn-out polo shirt with lint and sweat stains showing just the slightest bit of doughy white, black hair speckled midriff. 
            No, no, he was wearing something far better. He was wearing a short-sleeved green and yellow t-shirt with a silhouette of Jesus Christ carrying the cross. Apparently, Handy Hank is rather fond of religious parody, since a shirt that looks like this normally advertises farm equipment, but the caption said “Dear John.”
            I know that I should look at this shirt and think that it’s “neat and hip” to proclaim my love for Jesus, but I do not take kindly to my Lord and Savior being likened to a brand of tractor my father does not buy. This reminds me of the church groups in college who would bribe you with free food, then tell you that you need to go out and point out the wrongs of others. That you need to go out of your way to tell people that they are wrong, and you are right, and they need to be just like you.

Well, I’m not perfect. And, there is no doubt that the Lord would not care for this blog, and a lot of the thing I do and say, but that’s between me and the Lord, because I have a personal relationship with God. That’s exactly what it is, personal. It’s like Jesus is an old friend. If I saw Jesus across a crowded room at a party, I would make eye contact with him, maybe give him a nod, a smile, and a wave, and make my way over to him. I would not feel the need to shove and stiff-arm people out the way as I barrel my way through the crowd screaming at the top of my lungs. If you were really good friends with Jesus, you don’t need to draw attention to yourself that way. I’m not perfect and I’m not going to pretend I am, so I don’t need to seek out the sinners and the whores of my campus and show them the errors of their ways. That’s what chlamydia is for.

I also don’t need to convert them into my way of thinking or try to show them that I am somehow better. I am one of those people who believe you can actually be a good person without believing in Jesus. I try to respect other people’s religious beliefs. If you are a good person, and you don’t believe in God, I’m not going to make it my life’s work to convince you. I’ve got other shit to do.

            I guess that I, and really no one else, would not be a Catholic today if the apostles saw things the way I do.  Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t see things my way either, and maybe that’s why they showed up at my door.
            I grew up in the middle of the country, six miles from the nearest town, and that town does not even have 400 people in it. Almost everyone I knew growing up was Catholic. Needless to say, I have never come into actual contact with a Witness. Mom had mentioned that they came to the house once, but she politely turned them away. Like my dad always says, talking about politics and religion are a waste of your breath and time, because no one hardly ever changes their mind.
            So, I was unprepared a couple of days before Christmas when Josh and I were packing up our truck to go back home to our parent’s houses. We were moments from leaving. The truck was running, the garage door was open, and the suitcases were loaded up. I realized I forgot my cell phone downstairs in our bedroom and ran down to get it. Josh followed me into the bedroom.
            “Did you forget something too?” I asked.
            He smiled as he pulled out his new shotgun out of the closet. “Wouldn’t want to forget this.” He was eager to try out his new gun on his parent’s farm.
            The doorbell rang upstairs and we looked at each other. “You’d better answer it,” Josh said, raising the gun as if I’d forgotten it was in his hand. I wasn’t raised around guns and am not very comfortable with them. I nod in agreement and run upstairs, trying to ignore how much this shortens my breath and wonder who it could be. I figure it’s UPS for the millionth time this week. I am a regular Internet shopper and the holidays were no exception. I had done much of my gift shopping online and even sent some gifts ahead to Iowa. I am diligent about tracking my packages so I wasn’t expecting one that day but thought it possible that maybe one had slipped my mind.
            I’m excited as I swing open the interior wood door and look through the glass outer door at a teenage girl I don’t recognize. I figure she’s selling something. My neighborhood gets hit up a lot for fundraisers and I’m a pretty big sucker. Just tonight I bought three fun packs of candy from a young man who volunteers for an organization that keeps kids out of gangs and in school. He just enrolled in college and is working for his tuition reimbursement. This aligns with what I do for a living so I had to buy the candy right? Right? I promise I’ll take it to work.

She starts talking, but I can’t hear her, because I can’t open the door. The door handle has been missing for two weeks and the vice grip Josh promised (because it’s too much to hope for an actual fix, looks like our wedding registry at Sears was for naught) is not applied yet. I pick up my flailing and very excited dog, Killebrew, and start gesturing at the door.

            “You have to…ouch….I can’t hear you, you have open the.. GODDAMMIT KILLEBREW, YOU’RE CLAWING THE HELL OUT OF ME! I’m sorry,” pointing to the handle, “You’re going to have to open the JESUS KILLEBREW CALM DOWN!”
            My dog is going crazy at this point, and I also hear Josh mumbling behind me on the couch. The girl politely smiles and opens the door a crack.
            “Sorry, I see you are getting ready to leave, but I just…” she stops and her eyes avert behind me. “Just wanted to…um…”
            I assume it’s because of my psycho dog she is distracted. I try to smile and say, “I’m sorry, we are about to leave. But it’s ok, I have a little time. What can I do for you?”
            She shifts her eyes to me and Killebrew, and behind me. “Here, please just take this and read it,” she says and hands me a small booklet. “Have a good day.” She says and she shuts the door and walks away.
            “Happy Holidays!” I call after her and finally let down a convulsing Killebrew. I glance down at the booklet.
            “A Perfect, Non-Violent World” is the title. I open the book and see words like Jehovah, heaven, anger, and violence. Ah, I see what she wanted. I look directly behind me at Josh to tell him we’ve just been Jehovah-ed, and he snaps something into place of the gun he has been messing with the whole time.
            He smirks at me. “Trigger lock was on. That would have sucked.”
            I turn crimson. As if taking the Lord’s name in vain wasn’t enough, my husband was fiddling with a very large shotgun in her plain view. To add insult to injury, I wish her a happy holiday, something they don’t believe in.
            I’m embarrassed at first, but as we drove the two hours home I got over it. They probably have seen worse. I really have to hand it to those Jehovah kids. According to people still involved with my old high school, it’s like pulling teeth to get Catholic kids to do anything anymore.
            Well, Little Miss Witness, I’m sorry my husband and I reinforced your belief in the evil of non-Witnesses. But, I’m not sure why you want to convert more people if only a certain number of people will be saved. Doesn’t that ruin your odds?
            Maybe I will read that booklet. I have an hour set aside at the gym tomorrow morning.

Doubts

            No, this is not about that crappy Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman movie about the priest. I actually watched that movie, and it is a two hour waste of your life. Spoiler alert: While the priest does enjoy showing his creepy long fingernails to his young male students: the movie never reveals if anything inappropriate really happened.
            I feel like I am failing this 5k, and I am having serious doubts I will finish, at least by “spring.” “Spring” is a loose enough term that I thought would give me some freedom. It’s a defense mechanism I have picked up from clients at work. Use a broad term, give yourself plenty of time to do something…so you never have to really do it. (“I’ll look at it after the holidays.” “I’ll start in the fall.”) Only I thought I would be different and actually do it.
            I got frustrated. Then I got scared. Then I changed my plan: lose weight and you will run better. So far, I’ve started walking on an incline, trying out a spin bike, and doing other floor exercises. I’ve been tracking all my foods online and cooking healthier.
            But I’m not doing enough. My gym attendance has become sporadic and not a priority. I lost my structure, I’ve lost my motivation. And I have not lost very much weight.
            This is usually when I say eff it. I recognize that now, since I have been forced to really evaluate my progress, which is minimal. This is where I get behind for some stupid reason (this time it was the holidays and my own lazy ass) and I think I can’t get back to where I was, much less keep going.
            I’m depressed and down overall. I haven’t posted in three weeks. I have been going to the gym, but mostly at night. I’m already tired at that point but I’m not excited to write about anything. My running has gone to hell the few times I have attempted it. Nothing seems interesting to me anymore. I’m bored, beaten, and pissed off at you, Couch to 5k.
            Well, that kind of attitude, along with Nicoderm CQ, is for quitters. This morning, I drug my self-loathing ass out of bed and went to the gym. Every time I walk into the gym at seven a.m., which has only been a couple of times, I always am glad I went this early. There’s hardly anyone there.
            I decided to do a run (it’s been a couple of weeks since a successful one) just to see how it would go. I thought I would only be able to do about a quarter mile. Did I make even that? You bet your sweet asses I did. I made the half mile. I felt like I could have gone a little farther too.
            So, I learned a couple of things. One, I need to stop trying to run at night. My nocturnal gym visits lack energy and interfere with my sleep. Also, there is always something better I can be doing at night, and I usually tend to find it. Two, going to the gym tomorrow, or even hypothetically at night, is not going to help anything. Three, no gym visit is ever wasted. Even if I go to the gym and don’t run. I am still helping my running. I feel like the spin bike and my inclined walking have really helped my running muscles without the impact and massive pouring sweat.
            So, I am going to try a new training plan. I’m going to try to run a little farther every day. I will try this for a couple of weeks and see how it suits me. I will not lose any ground by this because I will not run less than one half mile, which is what I can do on a regular basis now, maybe even more, since I don’t have more intervals looming ahead of me.