Month: August 2016

Running Chronicles: The Intro

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So I’m doing this thing.

A thing that would make past me roll my eyes at future me.

I’m “training” for a “10k”. The quotation marks are intended to add maximum sarcasm to both those words. If you’d met be 3 months ago, I would’ve told you I’ve never run a full mile in my entire life. Yes, my high school had an annual mile run. Guess who walked 2/3 of it every year? So the fact that I am saying the words, “I’m training for a 10k” means a lot.

But I want to get serious about my health in the event that I live long enough to see Oprah or Adele crowned Queen of the World (or dare I say: joint Queens!). So I will begin with a couple steps, that will become a couple runs, that will become a journey.

Thus far, my training has comprised of 1-2 mile runs with weeks-long gaps in between. Not surprisingly, nothing about my ability to run improved on that training schedule. So now I’m getting serious. I’ve signed up for a 10k in November. I’ve paid the fee. And I’ve run 3 times in this week.

Feel free to follow along. I’ll be periodically updating about my running journey and all the ridiculous thoughts I have along the way. (Teaser: my last run generated this motivating chant: *Michelle & Barack did not put up with 8 years of Republican bullshit for me to quit at Mile 2. Get it together, girl.*)

PS.   If you have any tips, tricks or playlists that you use, please share. I’d love to hear em.

Sunrise Run.jpg

Sunday Anxiety

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You know those Instagram photos showing someone relaxing in a bed of fluffy white blankets? There’s a cappuccino to their left and the 30th book they’ve read for leisure this year sitting to their right. Often the hashtag #LazySunday or something like that ends the post. You know this scene?

LazySunday2

Yeah, me neither.

My Sundays – honestly, since before I can remember – have never looked like that. When I was in grad school, it was mostly chewed pencils, Kleenex, and overweight textbooks scattered around my bed. Now that I’m out of school, my bed is not even in the picture anymore. I constantly have a looong list of shit to do. Grocery shopping. Laundry. Buy birthday gifts for loved ones. Wash day for my hair so it doesn’t revolt against me. Actually read that damn book that’s been sitting on my side table for 3 months. All things at the top of my list. (Ironically, “update blog with new posts” is up there to. So…can I check that one off?)

As doable as this list seems at the beginning of each week, I am always painfully humbled by my lack of success by the end of each weekend. I am only responsible for myself, and yet I still can’t get shit done in my free time. Why!? And how do people with partners, children or people who depend on you, demanding jobs, and community service activities get anything done beyond the essentials??

My point with all of this is to say: Sunday anxiety is real. There’s this unworldly expectation to both relax the day away in a puffy heaven of bed sheets while somehow simultaneously wilding out on your to do list for the week. If you succeed at both, you’re “guaranteed” to have a flawless upcoming week. But where does that leave those of us who can’t quite do either with ease? Often, I feel tired, unprepared, and stressed out most Mondays. And worst, I scan through social media and feel like everyone else is doing their weekends (and life) better than me. This is obviously BS and I need to remind myself of that more often. No one can live up to the social media ideal all the time. And if they do, we were never meant to be friends.

So with that, I will close my computer and try to accept that what is done is done. Tomorrow is a new day and week. And I’ve done all I can do to prepare for it.

Now to channel my anxiety towards watching Fear the Walking Dead…