Running Intervals

I'm actually a little bit excited. It's been a long time since running has been a part of my life and I kind of miss it. For me, however, I know that it takes quite a bit to get myself up to speed enough where I feel that I can really call myself a runner. So I've been rather overwhelmed and even a little bit depressed over what a task it will be to get myself to that place.

I've been trying to do more walking in general (thus, the pedometer) and I have also been throwing in some running intervals, where appropriate. And it's been terribly hard and daunting end even rather embarrassing (in public), but I've been trying anyway. And then tonight I got on the treadmill and started to do my intervals and I just decided to dial it down a bit. So, I brought it down to this horrifyingly slow pace and was able to run for intervals of 4 - 5 minutes at a time! (I had been doing 1-minute intervals) Color me amazed. Well, duh, I've been in this running game long enough to know that slowing down is the key to building mileage for a beginner (or re-starter, as I am). I've even advised newbies to do this myself. Duh, duh, duh. I think it's just that even my "too-fast" pace is itself an embarrassingly slow pace, that the slow-down from that is just almost ridiculous (at least if the treadmill display is to be believed). But at this stage in the process I really just have to forget about all that anyway. Forget about pace and speed, just get time / distance in. Get my time in on the road (or the TM belt) and the pace can come later. I know this, I guess I just forgot that I know it. Or something.

Pedometer = Motivation

So, I bought a pedometer after work on Tuesday after reading some personal stories on the 'Net somewhere about people who use them to help motivate themselves into walking more. I have also read somewhere that you should generally target about 10,000 steps per day for general good health and reasonable-average fitness. I figured that it couldn't hurt, they're cheap enough after all. And, while it might not train me for a marathon, it might at least get me started back down that old running road.

So I bought the pedometer on Tuesday. After 5 PM or so on Tuesday I managed to put about 8,000 steps on it. Yesterday I reached almost 13,000. And today I'm up to about 20,000. This sucker MOTIVATES. At least until the novelty wears off. Well, and the wonderful weather doesn't hurt either.

How to Feel Like an ASS

In the Ladies Room, run into a colleague who recently was out for several weeks for vacation to India. Mention to her that you had heard that she had been going to India to get married and how did that go? Deep silence (you can hear crickets). Colleague finally answers, “Oh, the marriage plans fell through”. DOH! (more crickets) Follow up with lame stumbled response, “ohhhhhh. Well. How did the rest of your trip go anyway?” (stupid stupid stupid – bangs head on sink).

Socially Awkward is my middle name.

You Think You're Having a Bad Day ...

When, on a Monday morning you are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic (on a road where that rarely happens). Until you pass: first a guy pulled over to the side of the road changing a tire. Then a car pulled over to the side of the road after an apparent fender bender. And, finally, an SUV that had flipped, finally coming to a rest on its side in the fast lane of the highway going the other direction. After all that, you somehow have to concede that there are people out there who are having a far worse start to their week.

Things that have annoyed me in the last few days:

Cleaning up after strangers. If you use the microwave and your CRAP spills all over the rotating plate thingie, don’t just slink away and leave it for the next person to have to mop up! Hello?! Why should I have to clean up YOUR slop before I can heat up my lunch? Could you BE more selfish? Sheesh.

People who don’t signal. Why is this so difficult for most people? I mean, what kind of effort does it really take to turn on a stupid blinker?

Tail-gaters. Yes, I see you latched there on my bumper. Can YOU see the string of cars in front of me? Just what, exactly, do you expect me to do?

Someone in my neighborhood each morning insists on driving her widdle pweshus to the end of our road (all of .2 of a mile long) and then sitting there idling at the bottom of the road so pweshus can sit inside in comfort and wait for the school bus. The problem is, anyone trying to exit the neighborhood (which is pretty much anyone who has to get to work in the morning) has to now swing around her stupid ginormous SUV while trying to merge onto a busy connecting road, making the maneuver all the more difficult and dangerous. But as long as pweshus doesn’t have to walk that grueling .2 mile and can sit and relax in comfort, it’s worth it. Right? Entitled cow.

Someone at work stole my guest chair and replaced it with a stained one. There are plenty of empty cubes around with spare chairs, couldn’t you have stolen one of those? SHEESH.

I don’t understand why my hair which was looking good and smooth and all going in the direction I wanted it to when I looked at it in the Ladies Room mirror in one hour, is suddenly all flippsidy-doodle and all going the wrong way and sticking out every which way in the next. All I’ve been doing for the hour that has passed is sitting at my desk! You’d think I had been through a wind tunnel or something. I. Just. Don’t. Understand. It.

My father. My sister called me yesterday to chat. And during the course of that conversation, she happened to mention that my father’s wife’s daughter (the one who can’t seem to exist without constant financial assistance from her mother) is finally buying a house. But because she is completely broke, “they” are buying her a brand new washer & dryer for the house! WTF?! I remember a year and a half ago when I moved into MY house, being all stressed out because I had to buy a washer & dryer right away. My father certainly didn’t offer to buy this for me. I just sucked it up and dug up the money to get it myself. I didn’t so much as get a house-warming gift from them! This really boils my piss. What also worries me is, I fear that they may have co-signed for Irresponsible Daughter’s mortgage. I don’t know if that is true (and hopefully it’s not), but I remember my father telling me that she had wanted to buy something for a good while, but that her credit was never good enough to qualify for a mortgage. And this was during the years when EVERYONE was qualifying for a mortgage! If you had a heartbeat, you could get 100% financing. Nowadays the requirements are more restrictive, so it makes me wonder.