fitness 
No Comments A bunch of things.
I’ll start with running:
My employer is sponsoring gym memberships at a local gym, so I signed up and started two weeks ago. I’m loving it! I’m doing the body pump class, and this week I took one of my three hours of personal training to get the specific tour of the gym and the trainer also set me up with a basic weight machine workout. This was huge — having someone explain every machine, show me how to set it, and then having her show me the three weight rooms (there’s a big free-weight room, an intermediate machines room and a beginner machine room) was great. I love that there’s a beginner room, and I truly wouldn’t have realized that without the trainer showing me everything. I decided to do my Thursday run at the gym, to conquer my fear of treadmills.
Running outside is intimidating, for sure, especially as an overweight beginner. But for ME, it’s much less intimidating than a treadmill. For one, outside, if I’m running, I’m doing more than a lot of other people I see out there doing! The people I see are about 1% runners and 99% people driving to work, walking their dog, milling about in their house getting ready for the day. So if they even SEE me, I am not embarrassed because I am doing more than most. If a car passes me, in that 30 seconds they see me, they see me either running or walking, never collapsing, so they don’t know or care what it is I’m doing. But a treadmill in a gym — everyone there IS working out and many are probably much fitter than me, and it’s just a different vibe. But that isn’t even my biggest issue with treadmills — mine is that I am terrified of ending up in a YouTube montage of Treadmill Fails. (I’ve seen too much AFV.) So, Thursday morning was clear and cold, and would’ve been great for an outside run, but I decided to go do it at the gym (and I had to sign up for Body Pump on Saturday anyway.)
First: I totally survived, as did all of the nearby drywall. But god, was it boring. Pros of the treadmill: climate controlled, much softer than asphalt, easy to stay at my desired pace because you just HAVE to. Cons of the treadmill: HOT and boring. So much easier to just stop running — when I go outside, if I quit halfway through, well, I can’t because if I quit halfway through, I’m still 1.5 miles from my house. On the treadmill, whenever I stop, I’m just as close to home as I was when I started. Which makes me want to stop. And I was just.so.hot!! And sweaty. Outside, I get warm, but the air and all doesn’t make me feel gross. So, I will continue to run outside for as long as possible, but I now know that I can use the treadmill when I need to. Ice, REALLY cold, etc.
Oh, and when I was visiting my parents, I went for an hour run (left, told my mom to come find me in an hour) and in that time I covered 4.5 miles! Which is pretty good, seeing as how I ran more in the first 3.1 and then did more walking after I did that.
But! Look at that! I did my 3.1 in 39.22. A year ago, I did that same route in 45:15. (And honestly, one of those routes is wrong, because in the other app I’d used, 3.1 ended exactly at a camp driveway, and so this time when I pulled out my phone to do a screen grab, it sent me another .3 up the road, past that driveway, before it said 3.1. So I think I went even FASTER than 39:22 but I’m slave to the screenshot.)
And lastly, a moment of “Oh my god, I am That Woman.”
The other day, I was headed to get Ingrid or something — it was at the end of the day, and at the intersection near my house there is a big power company transformer box. Green, locked, hedges around it, etc. So I get to the stop sign, and see two 9 or 10 year old boys who have dropped their bikes next to it, and and clearly trying to figure out how to open it. (They are not bright boys — the hedges flank it, they don’t provide a good place to hide.) SO, I laid on the horn. Which scared the crap out of them (better than live wattage, I figure) and when they look at me, I literally wagged my finger and mouthed “NO. NOT SAFE!” Yes, from my MINIVAN. and they sort of slunk down and grabbed their bikes and went the other way.
I am That Mom. Whoa.