30-Day Fitness Challenge With the Kids

On Sunday night, my daughter told me that her P.E. teacher doesn’t allow the girls to do modified push-ups. While I hate push-ups, I think this is one thing I can overlook. Modified push-ups aren’t exactly good on the knees and we all know we cheat a little while doing them. Well…at least I do. A lot.

English: an exercise of chest (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This got me thinking about how way back in October, I set up alerts in my calendar to workout and everyday I dismiss them in favor of sleeping or eating. In short, I’m not motivated. I know I need to get more fit. I know I need to lose more fat, but being in constant pain pushes working out to the back of my mind. I did a quick calculation and realized that had I stuck to my plans and avoided certain foods, I probably would’ve lost close to 65 lbs. by now, instead of the 10 that I have so far.

Couple Workouts? Whatever

Initially, I had a partially written post about couple workouts. I thought it would be a good tie-in with how people do weight-loss resolutions and ease into the horror that is the Valentine’s Day season. As I wrote, I got increasingly uncomfortable with it. To be honest, the workouts I saw are just gross. I’m saying this as someone who has married for 15 years. I know my husband’s hygiene and yeah…I’ll pass.

My husband would drop me if we tried this.

I don’t enjoy going to the gym because of sweat. Other people don’t wipe down machines and they stare at me when I break out my wipes and towels to disinfect their nasties. Then there’s my sweat. I sweat profusely and often for no reason. When I do, say, just 30 minutes of low-intensity yoga, I end up looking like I ran 10 miles in as many minutes. Nasty. The suggested couple exercises often have one person on top of the other and then I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking of his sweat dropping on me. 

Frustration

Okay…it’s more like anger.

The running thing.

GRRRRRR.

The man sucks.

It’s nearly impossible to get out of the house because of him.  Why?  Because there are two toddlers here and he’s only awake between 1pm and 4am and most of that time he’s eating, working or dicking around.  And dicking around and eating are very important to getting the working part done.

This morning, I got up to go running.  The little boy felt a bit hot, so I was going to leave him here.  Asked the Mr. if he’d stay up so that I can do this, I’d take the little girl with me.  8:30 rolls around and the man is on the sofa sleeping with baby boy cuddled up.  Great.  Only problem is that he was really and truly sleeping.  I wasn’t going to leave baby boy with sleeping dad, so I got the kid ready and we left.

Got to the park and started walking, so far so good…started running, oh wait…the kids want to look at the swimming pool.  Then they wanted to look at the baseball kids, the playground, the ducks, they lake…baby boy started picking friggin’ flowers.  Not to mention the entire time Miss Diva whined and begged for stuff.  45 minutes later, I had run a total of 57 seconds.  57 seconds?    We spent another 20 minutes at one of the playgrounds and then we came home.

I told him,”Dude, this is not going to work.”

Mumble-grumble, “What? I told you you could leave the boy with me.”

Pfffft.  I asked him to get up so that I can go back to the park.  “No.”

No.

He won’t even get up for 20 minutes.

Now…remember back when I say I’m surrounded by non-encouraging people?  He’s their ringleader.  I know this about him.  I’ve always known this about him.  I’m not asking for a “Good job, honey!” or even daily inquiries on what’s going on.  I don’t need, nor want that–in fact, it would probably bug the crap out of me.  What I need is for him to be helpful.  What I need is for him to get out of my way.

About 6 or 7 years ago, unless it affected him directly, I pretty much stopped telling him my plans because of this, what I dramatically call, sabotage.   He’s a perennial roadblock.  You’d be amazed at how stuff he had been talking about for years all of a sudden gets Really Important To Get Done NOW when I’m in the middle of something.   Actually, you probably have someone in your life like that.  I’m lucky in that I can count 9 people I know in my life like that.  It sucks when it’s a friend, it’s hard when it’s a relative, it super blows when you’re married to that person.
Well, I’m off to run the “track” I didn’t want in my tiny backyard.  I love the part where I try to avoid poking my eye out on the lemon tree, running into the fence, and stepping my plants.  I figured that 16 times around equals ~1/4 mile.  Hey, he wanted the track for his cars and has used it maybe 9 times in the past year.  It’s about time it gets some use.

These shoes were made for runnin’

These are my new shoes. Like Ruth, I had to get new trainers. My experience was similar to hers. I went to A Snail’s Pace in Pasadena for my shoes. I heard they had decent prices and figured any store with a running club would have knowledgeable people on staff.  They checked my gait and had me fast walk to get an idea of my pronation, though I could have told her that I’m a severe over-pronator. I’ve known that since I was 11.

I’ve been thinking of doing a run for the past few months. I was never much of a runner, but there’s no reason not to. The training isn’t all that time consuming and it’s something I can easily do. I’m following the 8 WEEKS TO YOUR FIRST 5-K training schedule on Runner’s World website.  I’ve been studying this for the past month and there’s no reason to not start.  Spoke to my doctors who have been telling me to take up running for years, so that was out of the way.   All I needed is a sports bra, shoes and non-cotton clothes.

Now, ya’ll know a sista’s broke.  But I figured that this wasn’t an investment in a hobby, this is an investment in my life.  But damn…those shoes set me back.  So much, that I’m going to have to run in cotton clothes.  Ha!  Actually, I get rashes from sweating (allergic to my sweat) and I get rashes from lycra/spandex mixes (allergic to latex) so I wasn’t looking forward to buying a $50 t-shirt from lululemon.  Then I’m looking at another $50 for a sports bra. Gaah.  Good for me I already have a heart rate monitor and pedometer.  Though I’m am drooling over this piece of gadgetry.

Why are all the healthy things so damn expensive?  It’s bad enough that organic foods and healthy foods are priced so that the poor can not do that, but even participating in running is cost prohibitive.  I mean, sure you can just run and possibly hurt yourself with bad shoes.  But even entering in these 5K races are pretty pricey.  I’ll probably only be able to afford 4 races a year at the rate we’re going.

At any rate, I have my shoes and the DWP is just going to have to bite me regarding my late bill.  Priorities, ya know.

Meet me in Santa Monica

I must confess, my destiny’s manifest
In some Goretex and sweats I make tracks like I’m homeless

I just registered to do the Santa Monica Classic 5K to benefit Heal the Bay. I can’t believe I did it. Broke as we are, I went and registered for this thing. Eek!

So…I’m going to run/walk 5K. Me. I’m so excited it isn’t even funny. Tomorrow, I go to get my gait checked. Did you know that it matters? Hijole! Just reading about this running stuff has amused, horrified and awed me. I’m doing an 8 week training for this and then I’ll probably join the Nike Club Run LA when that ramps up.

Yeah runnin down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin on a mystery, goin wherever it leads
Im runnin down a dream

I need to get a sports bra. Now, if you’ve seen Bert and Ernie, you appreciate just how difficult this will be. Tomorrow I’m going to my specialty store to get fitted. Hopefully, they’ll have something under $50 that fits. Wish me luck on that one. I also need to get some more shoes. Lucky me, I’ve had such problems with my feet (flat arches) and bad ankle, that I’m actually an expert in finding the right trainers. I just need them to be the right price. My current trainers are good enough, but I’m thinking of getting a smaller brace to wear when I run, so I’ll need them to be a little more padded or something.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn’t get away.

I’m going to do this. I’ll probably bitch and moan and try to give up, but I am going to do this. I have almost no encouragement from anyone I know. I’m surrounded by doubters. I know this and I’ve always managed to ignore them and this won’t be any different.

I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat’s meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can’t catch me

Wish me luck.