Bye-bye Dreadmill, Except for Speed Work (Maybe)

Posted on 20 January 2015 | 3 comments

I’ve been spending a lot of time running on the treadmill at the gym, trying to build up my stamina, so I’d be better able to run outside when spring comes.

I’ve been running on the treadmill to try to get faster, so I can run better outside when spring comes.

I’m so glad my gym has a treadmill I can use for running, so when spring comes, I’ll be ready to run outside.

I HATE THE TREADMILL.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

This sentiment was reinforced today when I went for a three-mile run along the Mississippi River on a trail I’ve been meaning to try for a while. Not only does the trail remind me a lot of the Cardinal Greenway, but it also goes directly along a big, big river. If I so chose, I could’ve run all the way into St. Paul, which is six miles from where I started. Once I build my mileage up more again, I’m going to take advantage of that for sure.

The only drawback, as with most asphalt trails up here, is there are no trees, so you’re out in the blazing hot sun for the whole run. There are, of course, advantages to that. One advantage is that the heat will help me train for the run portion of the Muncie 70.3, which will no doubt be hot. Another advantage is that I’ll get an awesome tan this summer. And, I suppose a third advantage, is that in the winter there aren’t hidden ice patches on the trail, which is plowed and maintained for winter, unlike the Cardinal Greenway.

The most I’ve been able to run, without intense pain, in one shot at the gym has been about 3/4 of a mile. Today with the river, the snow, the sun, the beauty, and a bit of positive self-talk, I ran 1.1 miles without even realizing it. Then I walked another 0.3 miles up a big ramp and back down, then another 0.3 back up then back down (it goes over the train track into town, or I could’ve stayed down by river, which I’ll do next time), then I ran back 1.1 miles to the car. My knees don’t hurt. My breathing was controlled. I felt awesome.

As I sort of mentioned just above, I’m also working on focusing on positive things while I run. I’ve noticed that I let a lot of anger fuel my exercise, and it’s kind of getting me nowhere, except sore and with tight muscles. Really I should be thankful that I can do all I can do. I should speak into being what I want to happen. I ran the last half mile or so today saying to myself, “You got this. Finish strong. Keep going. Run hard. You got this. Finish strong. Keep going. Run hard.” The self-talk worked. I felt the best I’ve felt in a long time.

I also decided while I was running that I am going to change up my workout routine somehow, so I can focus on one sport each day, maybe I’ll only end up doing each sport twice every eight days, which is okay. I’ll just need to plan it out more carefully, and stick to the schedule. I do know that I can swim every day with no worries, so I may swim and do one other sport each day. Who knows? I’ll work on that tonight.

I have to thank my friend Sarahbeth for encouraging me to run outside today. What a blessing it was. Thanks, buddy.

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Posted in Running, Schedule, Weight Loss, Wellness, Workout

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Oatmeal Pancakes. Social Media. Kindle.

Posted on 20 January 2015 | 2 comments

Today I didn’t wake up until 8AM, and I decided that I was going to take this day off as easy as possible, until I go to the gym later this afternoon.My workout today will not be an easy one, so I needed all the rest I could get. I’m basically doing everything there is to do at the gym, which I know is not the best course of action, but I am doing it anyway, because I have the day off, so I can spend as long as I want there working out. I’m swimming, biking, running, and lifting. Dumb? Yes. Oh, well. It’s not like I do that every day, but I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow.

EDIT: Just in the course of writing this and eating my breakfast, I’ve decided to go run outside on a paved trail I’ve been meaning to try out. I’ll take advantage of the unseasonable warmth. Then I’ll just go lift and probably swim. I’ll save biking for tomorrow. Or, maybe even, I’ll go run around the island at Fort Snelling. Such choices.

*

One of my favorite meals is breakfast, but I have no money to go out for a big lavish feast, so I decided to make myself some pancakes. Not just any pancake would suffice, of course, because I always need special pancakes. I used a basic pancake recipe, but made it gluten-free. Oh, and I added everything I love: bananas, oats, coconut, nutmeg, cinnamon, and maple syrup. I was going to add some protein powder, too, but the only flavors I have are chocolate and strawberry, which I didn’t think would taste very good with everything else. Maybe the chocolate, but then all I’d taste is chocolate, and I want to taste the bananas, oats, and coconut.

I also brewed up some of our special holiday gift coffee from Caribou Coffee. The name of this particular blend/roast is ¡Ay Caramba!, and it’s a Mexican coffee with subtle cocoa hints. Delicious with pancakes no doubt.

I just flipped the first batch of four little pancakes, and they were slightly darker than I’d like them to be, but the batter is pretty thick, so there weren’t any little bubbles forming. Thick batter is the problem with hearty pancakes. Thick batter is also the pleasure of hearty pancakes.

As I anticipated, these pancakes were amazing and they paired well with the coffee. One thing I do have to say about Caribou is that our roastmasters are pretty fantastic, even though they are obsessed with light roasting things. I seriously can’t wait for the Ethiopian coffee that’s coming out in February. Ethiopian coffees are my favorites, and I am confident that our roastmasters won’t fuck it up when it comes to getting the best taste out of them. It’s really nice to work for a company where people pay attention to details like that. And, I’m happy to know that all of our beans are Rainforest Alliance Certified.

*

I have a new love. Her name is Kindle Fire. Seriously, when my parents bought them for my brother and me for Christmas, I was a little taken aback. I love books. I love their pages. I love their ink. I love their smell. I love their feel. I would certainly never let anything come between me and my books, let alone this electronic thing.

Love is fickle. Love is so very fickle. And I’ve fallen for my Kindle.

Now I love the ability to read a book anywhere, anytime, on my phone, or on my Kindle. I am no longer that geeky girl who carries a book everywhere with her (or am I?). When I was younger, I stuffed books everywhere, sometimes even carrying them outright and bold, standing in line at the theater with my family reading a book, walking through the grocery store shopping with my mom and my brother reading a book, lying next to the pool reading a book, basically doing anything anytime reading a book. Needless to say, I was so popular. I was never ashamed of my love of reading. In fact, I sore of wore my oddities as a badge, but I always knew I was slightly out of step with the other kids around me.

The beauty of the Kindle is I can be reading anytime and it just looks like I am any one of any other mindless drones on my phone. Only while others play games or use social media, I’m secretly reading literature! I finally fit in (not so much)!

Seriously, though, I do love this thing. I have already read two books on the Kindle, and I’ve only been using it for a week. I love the Kindle Unlimited possibility, that for $10 a month I can read unlimited books. Are they books I’d normally read? Mostly no, but there are some really good ones, maybe just older ones, like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, in the unlimited library. And any book is a good book, I suppose, with the exception of the Twilight Series and Fifty Shades of Grey. I’ve found that there are very few books that are bad enough for me to stop reading.

I’ve also learned that in the realm of the literary, at least, I can have more than one lover. I can love my Kindle Fire, and I can love my print books. I will tell you that there will be no Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, or Margaret Atwood on the Kindle, unless, of course, I also own them in print. Those three women deserve real pages to be turned, real ink to be seen, and a real cover to be caressed. And, dare I say, simple realness to be savored with every sense.

And that’s that.

 

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Posted in Biking, Christmas, Coffee, Cooking, Cycling, Fat, Fat Runner, Fitness, Food, Fort Snelling, Goals, Gym, Health, Literature, Reading, Running, Swimming, Trail Running, Weight Loss, Weightlifting, Wellness

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Dear Alice Walker

Posted on 20 January 2015 | Leave a comment

I am not sure if you know that you saved my life.

As a middle schooler, I watched the movie of The Color Purple with my mom when it aired on television for the first time, and we sat and cried together when Nettie came home. I am sure we cried at other points of the story, too, just like we did when at a young age I watched Roots with my parents, because they didn’t want me to be racist like many of the people in my hometown were racist. I know I cried when I figured out that Celie and Shug were so in love, so filled with grace for one another.

When I was in high school, I was really unsure of a lot of things, but I was sure of the fact that I loved to read, and I loved the movie I’d watched with my mom. I was overjoyed when I found out that the movie I’d watched was based (later I found out, very loosely) on your epistolary novel The Color Purple. I borrowed a copy from the Carnegie Public Library, and I never returned it. Your book is the only book I’ve ever stolen from the library, Alice, and I wouldn’t have stolen it, but when I went to the bookstore in the mall with my gift certificate, they didn’t have, and wouldn’t order, your book. So I kept the one from the library with all of my markings and my dog-eared pages, until in the middle of a fight a now ex-girlfriend tore the pages out and threw them out the window like hellish snow.

When I stole the book, I just knew I needed it, because the love between Shug and Celie was the most real love between two people I’d ever read in a book, seen in a movie, or experienced in my own life. I wanted a love like theirs. I wanted someone to make me feel special, where I didn’t feel so special. I wanted someone to make me feel beautiful, where I didn’t feel so beautiful. I wanted someone to love me, even if they loved some other people too. I wanted what they had. I wanted to grow old on a front porch in a rocking chair. I wanted grace, instead of shame.

I think I have read your book close to fifty times, maybe more. Every time there is something new to me, something that speaks deeper to me, something that makes me think life is more beautiful than when I began your book again. There are other books that do this for me, Paradise by Toni Morrison and Mama Day by Gloria Naylor to name two of them. But there’s something about Celie and Shug that pulls me back and pushes me forward and just makes me know everything is going to be alright.

When I was in college, and I was thinking about coming out to my family, I was at a really low point, Alice. I mean a lowest of the low, low point. I thought that telling my family about my sexuality was probably one of the most overwhelming things I’d ever do. I had no idea how they’d react. In my very lowest moment, I decided to reread The Color Purple. When I made it to the scene around the dinner table where Celie announces that she’s leaving with Shug, I just sobbed. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my life could always be so much worse than it felt to me, or what I made it out to be in my head.

Basically, Alice, what I am trying to say, is that your words have saved me so many times over, I have no idea how to repay you for your grace. Through words on a page, you taught me how to move from shame to grace. You showed me the way. And I thank you.

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Posted in College, High School, Library, Middle School, Writer

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Dear Coffeehouse Patron

Posted on 14 January 2015 | Leave a comment

When I call out your drink, come pick it up. The longer it sits at the pass out counter, the greater your chances of losing your drink or complaining about it not being hot. Also, it’s just really annoying when you blatantly ignore me when I call out your drink.

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Dear High School Students

Posted on 12 January 2015 | Leave a comment

You don’t have to go to college the year after your graduate. You really don’t. In fact, you’d be much better off figuring out who you are, what you want in life, and how you can go about getting that. Right now most of you are probably whoever your parents want you to be, you are probably pursuing whatever your parents want you to pursue, and you are probably following the path they’ve laid out for you since you were a small, small child. Likely you have no idea who you really are at the core, because you’ve spent the last 17-18 years trying to please your parents, your teachers, your religious leaders, your friends, your siblings, or countless other people who love you and think they are doing the best for you by pushing into college.

News flash: those people who love you will still love you, even if you tell them to piss off and get a minimum-wage job on the opposite side of the country or in another country for a few years until you figure out who YOU are, separate from them, separate from everyone’s preconceived ideas about who you should be.

News flash: college is expensive. If you are not 100% certain about what you want to pursue for a career, you might as well take your parents $100,000 or your $100,000 in scholarship or loan money, stack it next to the toilet, use it to wipe with, then flush it down the toilet.

Maybe I am a bit bitter about all this, because I am 40 years old now and wishing I didn’t have to pay nearly $750 a month toward student loans and credit card bills to pay for one graduate degree I quit and other graduate degrees that will get me nowhere. I don’t regret my education; I simply regret not waiting until I was ready to go to school. I regret not working at a job for a while. I regret not moving away from home sooner than I did. And I regret doing what I thought would give me security, instead of doing what I loved.

Maybe this is all to say, do what you love. What YOU love. Not what you think will pay the bills, not what you think will satisfy someone else. DO WHAT YOU LOVE. In the words of Bukowski: “My dear, Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down in eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover. ~Falsely yours.”

One thing I will promise you, as Bukowski promises you, all things will kill you, but I’d certainly rather be penniless and making art or writing than smothering to death under a mountain of plastic debt, false hopes, and eviscerated career “opportunities.”

Give yourself time to find what you love, and let it kill you.

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Posted in College, Friend, Public Servant, Student, Teacher