Falling into Fall

Hello blogging friends and readers,


The Fall is always difficult for me to blog, I am not sure why. I find that in the Fall, my thoughts turn inwards and I want to spend more time alone and less time sharing. The social whirlwind that was my October/November was unusual and out of character for me and I found that it drained me emotionally.

I always see Fall as a the start of something new (as opposed to the end of something old) and I welcome the changes even though change often means disruption and some uncomfortableness for a while.

Right now, I have a bunch of plans in the works and I am waiting to see which ones work out before I can make some life decisions and move forward in one of the directions open to me right now. It may not all come together soon so I feel in a bit of limbo, but I am pushing forward while reexamining what I want from my life and from myself.

This past weekend, I took a road trip with my good friend Shelley to visit friends in Pennsylvania. We had such an amazing time. They are all wonderful, generous and funny people to spend time with and I laughed a lot. Just about every minute was jam packed, but it was all quality time and we are already talking about our plans for next year.

On the health and exercise front, I am doing ok but not great. I think I had food poisoning when I returned home Monday evening and was sick most of Monday night, all day Tuesday and yesterday, but today my stomach has settled and I feel normal again. Unfortunately, the weekend away was not full of good eating choices or any exercise so I am back to my little workplace gym tomorrow to get back to running/ellipticalling/walking and I think I’m going to count calories and carbs for the next month as I’ve been off track for a number of weeks and I am feeling it in my jeans.

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Quads

Friday was day three of visiting my little workplace gym. I know to some of you, this isn’t a big deal. I hate exercise – I honestly don’t get that endorphin feeling all you crazy people talk about. I do feel better generally when I exercise and I know it keeps my blood sugar down so I do it. Love it? No.

Some days I am kicking and fighting my way into convincing myself to do it and other days I just suck it up and do it to get it over with.  I have found that my weight loss is more directly related to what / how much I eat rather than how much I move, but moving my body definitely makes it look more toned and sleeker (as much as that is possible at still 50lbs overweight!) and it also has a psychological effect, I don’t want to eat crap when I spend so much time exercising.

My intercity bus hit major weekend traffic Friday morning and was very, very late, so those 15 minutes earlier that I rolled out of bed were for naught. I got there just in time to change into my regular clothes, grab a coffee and get to my desk with 2 minutes to spare. So I had planned to do an abbreviated lunch time workout again but we were allowed to leave early and because of my commute, I can’t get an earlier train so I used that time to go the gym and used lunchtime to get outside and get some fresh air.  We’re expecting beautifuI, warm weather over the weekend and I want to get some time outdoors so my gym time was a 10 min warm up walk, 3k run, 10 min cool  down walk. My quads were burning when I started but as much as I was dreading it, the walking and running actually alleviated the sharp pain and left me with a dull ache, plus had the benefit of stretching my legs completely. Shin splints started around 10 min into the run so I walked a minute and when the burning subsided I ran again. I played with the speed and incline to make it more interesting as Andrea suggested and I watched some TV so the time was not completely horrible.

I woke yesterday morning with burning quads and feet. What is up with the lower half of my body this week???

The quad pain I am sure is from the elliptical yesterday, I had it on a higher than normal for me resistance and incline. Wearing my running shoes all day helped yesterday.  The day before,  I was also standing a lot in 3” heels and was back and forth between my desk and photocopier about 30 times an hour (not exaggerating, I actually counted for two hours – the things I have to do to amuse myself and get through the day!) so that was sitting/getting up standing/sitting/getting up/standing over and over all day.

Next week I am only at work 3 days, and the week after that I’m only at work 4 days so I won’t have an opportunity to try the gym five days a week for another two weeks. 

Is this glow or sweat? I think its glow on your face and sweat everywhere else!  This little gym has no windows and zero air circulation so it heats up really quickly once the machines/TV are on.

I could wring out my tee shirt by the end of it.

The road to Hell is paved with treadmills and ellipiticals....

So today was day 2 at the work place gym – I went at lunchtime though. I made sure I drank a lot more water than usual last night and did some yoga stretching when I woke up. Today was elliptical day. I did 3.2 km in 25 min which is faster than my average running pace, as expected.

My ankles were still really stiff though but aren’t when I’m walking/standing normally – I wonder if using the elliptical/treadmill puts them in a different angle than running/walking naturally? I’m going to run outside this weekend so I can check that theory.


I truly, truly hate the treadmill and elliptical.

It is incredibly boring.

I never would have stuck with running if I had started with that rather than outside. I have good music and I can even watch TV, but it is still INCREDIBLY boring and the minutes seem to go by so slowly. At least walking on the treadmill I can read and that makes the time go by faster. I keep telling myself, like every SINGLE second, that this is just to get through Winter. The other problem is that I run much slower on the treadmill; I think I’m afraid of falling off. When I set it to my normal pace it seems way too fast and I feel like I can’t keep up. Now even outside, I run slow, so the treadmill is even slower – snails might be passing me at this rate. I’m better on the elliptical and my plan is to alternate the treadmill and elliptical to save my knees so I can do something every day. There’s also some kind of scary weight machine and a whole rack of dumbbells, if I can figure out what to do with them, I might give it a shot sometime.

The good thing that I will usually have the whole gym to myself so I can do whatever I want, look as ridiculous as I want and take as long as I want to shower – keeping in mind I have about 55 minutes to workout, shower, blow dry my hair and get dressed in the mornings and only about 40 min at lunch (where I have to change twice). But it’s better than nothing which is what I had been doing for the last few weeks. I do miss my running clinic though. I wanted to try lunch time just to see if it was feasible and it’s not really enough time but if for some reason, I can’t make the morning, at least I know I can squeeze in 20-25 minutes. I have a pair of shoes and a set of workout clothes here so if I don’t bring them one day, I’m still covered. I’m really trying to make this work and not have an “out”.

Food is so – so, I have awesome days and then days where I go back to wheat/dairy. Sugar is pretty much under control but although wheat and dairy aren’t triggers the same way sugar is, they still leave me feeling lethargic, bloated and heavy. Weight wise, I’m fluctuating in a 5lb range 192-197 – which is far too close to 200 for my liking. Fall is my most challenging time of year for so many reasons and I normally fall off the wagon big time – this year I am hanging on which is an improvement over the last few years at this time.

I have put some plans in motion for the next six months and I need to be patient and wait and see which ones come to fruition before I can make some major life decisions so right now I’m just trying to make the best of what I can with what is available to me in all areas of my life.

Early O'Dark

Do you see the time on that clock? 7:01 a.m.

At 7:01 a.m. I was in the gym in my office building.

Do you know what time I have to be up to get to the gym in my office building by 7 a.m.?

I'll just tell you. 4:45 a.m. so I can leave at 5:00 a.m.

It's actually only 15 minutes earlier than I normally get up, but those 15 minutes felt like 3 hours this morning, believe me!

My plan was to run 5k on the treadmill, quick shower, hair, makeup and be at my desk by 7:55 a.m.

So much for plans. I ended up doing 1.65k and that was difficult. I did a 5 min warm up walk and stretches and then hit the treadmill and almost immediately my ankles seized and that moved up to my shins and it was painful. I haven't had shin splints in months and months so this was a complete surprise. The dip in the data is my walk break at 10 min which I hoped would alleviate the burning but didn't. I tried 5 min on the elliptical to see if that was easier or would help, but I think by that time the muscles had seized and there was no going back.

It could have been a combination of things - not stretched enough after sleeping all night then sitting on transit for almost 2 hours, dehydration, no food before I ran - anyway, tomorrow is a new day and I'll make sure to drink lots of water tonight and stretch more before I start.

As an aside, is there anything more boring than running on a treadmill?

Stay tuned.

45

I turned 45 on October 30, and after a few difficult years, I feel like I am starting a new chapter in my life and I plan to enjoy and make the most of it!

Here are some of the people and things that made turning 45 so special.

First 10k Race



Family



Friends and Laughter

- Dinners and outings and watching a friend complete his first half marathon!



 



Night out: Dinner, War Horse and Friends, new and old!



 

On a pub patio with one of my favourite guys on an Indian Summer Night in October.



 

Beautiful Fall Days and Nights