Pride & Annonimity

Today I am 36 years old.  As I stated yesterday Birthdays feel very silly to me as I advance in age. I tend to be one of those people who kind of just ignores it.  I think it has to do with attention.  Despite what some of my social media accounts may portray I really am a humble person who likes to remain in the shadows. Almost anonymous.  This is why my Facebook is not entirely polluted with selfie photos. I don’t want my real life people to see that side of me.  Twitter on the other hand is mostly made up of people I don’t really know so it is my land to indulge in my self-obsessed side.  I promise you that my humble non attention seeking side ALWAYS wins out in a battle. At the end of the day I don’t like that much attention on me.   I think it’s because I fear that if people pay attention to me, or look at me, then it’s more opportunity for them to judge me and focus on my flaws. Yup, that insecure underneath it all.

Anyhow, the fact of the matter is, it is still my Birthday. Which means the 35^th year of my life is gone.  But honestly, year 35 was pretty freaking amazing! I can say with 100% honesty that year 35 was overall the best year of my life.  Parts of 34 thru 35 as a whole.  But come on, I have done some pretty awesome fun incredible stuff in year 35 and despite perhaps being in the middle of a little trivial tiff with my husband, year 35 has been the best year for us. The most connected and happiest.  I cannot complain.  Which obviously leads me to year 36, which starts day 1 today.

How can I not be optimistic about year 36? This is the year I get to go to Maui and run a marathon.  For this single fact alone year 36 will always go down in the memory books despite anything else that may occur in the next 365 days.   I am still honestly struggling a little mentally lately.  With the gym and health and stuff. I have yet to figure out the real problem but I have to say as long as I am still working my marathon training plan I think it’s good enough.  I may not possess all the drive and passion for the gym that I once had and will undoubtedly have again at some point, but I’m not giving up or really falling apart.  So long as I am on point with my training plan I can’t complain.

Last night I went to the gym and did my scheduled 3 mile run.  I started slow and then realized I could be running faster, so I did. It actually felt pretty good. My mom was coming with me so I wrote out a plan and then for the hell of it I texted my cousin to see if she wanted to join us and she did.  So cool, mini group session going on.  This is what I planned out.

We did this but then I also modified and added a couple more exercises to each group, seeing as there were 3 of us, I opted to have each set of exercises contain 4 different items instead of 3.  It works.  And honestly it was the first time in a while where I felt happy in the gym and at ease.  Like having this solid plan and doing this group work was exactly what I needed. So that was a good start for me.  I think by the time I left the gym I had burned 525 calories, which I will take. More importantly I managed to do 45 minutes of lifting and felt happy and good with it.  My upper body is generally a little tight today in places so that feels nice. Nothing glaringly sore but I can tell I used my muscles and that is happiness.

So I had a dilemma about today. My training plan called for a 4.5 mile run today.  I promised Amanda I would go to her strength class tonight at 6:15. I will not get to the gym until 5:30 and then I know I will talk to her, etc., and there simply would not be enough time to run 4.5 miles before class. So my second thought was to run at lunchtime in the park as I have done before. I thought this would be a great idea but then last night as I was leaving work one of my bosses told me that there was a possibility I would have to run some work errands, i.e., drive an hour and 15 minutes each way to pick up some materials.  This totally puts a damper on my plans or the ability to do a lunchtime run. Great.  So what is the only other option that I have?

This is where you determine how serious you are about things in life, or how badly you want something. This is where champions are made. This is where character is built and determination shows itself.  I purposely went to bed pretty early last night so that I could wake up at 6:30 AM this morning and immediately change into the workout outfit I set out last night and force myself out the door to run. On a random Wednesday morning before work? This is unheard of for me.  I am not a morning person.  I run my organized races on the weekends in the morning this is true but I have event excitement and other racers to keep me motivated and going.  And plus I wake up, and get dressed and then typically have to drive places and get to eat and drink some water and slowly wake up. 

I literally  rolled out of bed, put my clothes on (no makeup) and went out the door within 15 minutes. Might have been a bad idea.  I got up, despite not wanting to.  And I got dressed and I still doubted that I really wanted to do it. I tried to talk myself out of it.  I tried to reason with myself that I could do it later at lunchtime. I could make that happen. Then I remembered it was supposed to be pretty hot today so maybe I didn’t want to do that. But I tried to convince myself it would be okay if I went back to bed.  But then I stopped and said, no, you are already awake and dressed and this is what you wanted so just go and do the damned thing.

I did.  It wasn’t easy or fun.  I instantly knew I wasn’t awake at all. I instantly knew my body was functioning on nothing.  Like no food or water.  Thus I was slow. Slower than I would have liked but I certainly forgave myself.  And I just ran.  It wasn’t an easy breathless exciting run. It was a look at my watch every couple seconds and hang on for dear life kind of run.  But I was doing it.  And I did think a little about the reality of waking up and running on my birthday. That ultimately this is the best gift I could give myself. This lovely gift of health and running.  And marathon training. And it isn’t always going to be easy, but it will always be worth it.  That these are the moments that define me. These are the moments that prove I will succeed at whatever I decide to do because I am willing to make the sacrifices others won’t.  That while I am out here running others sleep or couldn’t even imagine the possibility of waking up to run.  And thus I forgave myself for my slower than normal pace.  Because I was doing it.

Even while running I tried to convince myself that a 3 mile run would be fine and I could pick up the other 1.5 miles on the treadmill before class tonight. That this would work. This would be acceptable.  These are tricks I have to tell my mind to keep me going.  At mile 1.5 I told myself as long as I got to 3 miles it would be okay.  And then at some point, eventually I got to 3 miles and then I was like, oh come on, you only have 1.5 more miles to go, you CAN do this.  And so I did.  I am proud to say I ran 4.5 miles.  Nothing fancy. Nothing fast. Nothing memorable. But I did it.  Before work.  I burned 478 calories before I was in the office.  And it is a good feeling.

So now I’m going to tell you a secret.  The weather was perfect for running in the morning, with a nice breeze that kept me cool and dry and therefore I decided to just wear my workout clothes to work.  They are a nice neutral navy and it’s my birthday and I want to wear yoga pants and I don’t care. So I did put a shirt on over my workout clothes and put on TOMS shoes instead of running shoes to make it a little more acceptable.  But yes, I am still in workout clothes.  Don’t care. I am going to work out more today and I don’t apologize for my clothes. I look fine.

So there you have it.  I’m in my office in my comfy workout clothes. I did put makeup on and do my hair and I am perfectly acceptable.  This is one of the perks of construction office work.  No one cares.  I don’t have to dress up.  I mean I could if I wanted but honestly I get more crap when I’m dressed up than when I am in yoga pants. Go figure.

Mostly I am proud of myself for waking up and running. This is incredibly out of the norm for me.  I will most likely forgo exercise for sleep ALL the time.  But I am really trying hard to stick to my training plan. Basically in the month of May, well since May 6 really I have done 18 runs for a total of 87 miles. So yes, in the last 21 days I have run 87 miles.  I have a goal of running 100 miles in May. That means in the next 4 days I have to get in 13 miles.  I think I can do this.  No, I WILL do this.  It’s just my own personal goal to run 100 miles this month. 

Things for the weekend are still up in the air. Part of that has to do with my husband.  He wants to go camping.  I am not sure the logistics of things and stuff is yet to be determined. Oh and also we aren’t talking so nice right now so I’m unclear about some of that.  We will see I guess.  Tonight I am taking Amanda’s strength class at her gym, so that will be good to see my friend.  In all of this feeling lost about the gym, etc., I haven’t spent much time with Amanda and I do miss her.  But I also think she is part of my problem as well if that makes any sense. I feel guilty when I see her and am not giving my 100% to the gym.  So I tend to avoid it rather than deal.  I mean clearly my own statistics indicate that I haven’t exactly been slacking overall this month. I have ran 18 out of the last 21 days.  That’s actually pretty intense so honestly I need to deal a little better.

Well my tummy is literally growling at me which doesn’t shock me because anytime I have ever ran in the morning I ended up being super extra hungry all day so we will see how this goes.  I had oatmeal this morning after my run but apparently it’s not doing the job quite enough for the extra energy I’ve already expended. 

It’s all good though.  I can tell I’m probably happier than I would otherwise have been this morning all things considered simply because I made myself do a run.  And that is the point of it all anyway.  Quality of life, feeling happy and good.  Enjoying the moments.  Living for the moments that make you feel whole and complete.  That’s why I do any of this anyway. To be happy and healthy and get to the moments that make my life worth living.