The magical power of 13.1

I had a fabulous weekend. Yup, a great wonderful awesome weekend.  And yes, it might have had something to do with running my half marathon on Saturday and feeling really good and confident about it.  I think secretly or perhaps not too secretly I was worried about my ability to perform 13.1 miles.  I think when you have gone so long without doing it you get the natural doubt.  November was the last time I ran that distance.  It’s no secret I burnt out on running and then of course had a period of time where I wasn’t sure I EVER wanted to run 13.1 again.  That it was just too damned taxing on me.  Thankfully this period passed.  Thankfully I worked thru it. Thankfully my body rebounded.

The longest run I have done since November was 7.5 miles.  I did this twice recently. I did that 7 miler two weekends ago. Then I ran 6 miles a couple times here and there.  This is the farthest distance I’ve ran since November. This is a long time to go without running a long distance so I had some natural reservations about my abilities.  I was trying to not put too much pressure on myself.  I knew I could handle 7-8 miles. I thought if I really got tired at this point there’d be no shame in walk/running parts of it.  I was going to accept anything in this realm as a win. 

It’s funny how when you know you are going to run a longer distance that you naturally start to pace yourself a little more.  I can pretty much run solid 10 minute miles but after about 6-8 miles I know that I get tired at this speed.  So when I started my run on Saturday I looked down to see I was at quite a comfortable pace at 10:30 minute miles.  I decided since I knew I had to string together a lot of these that this was an acceptable speed.  It’s not crazy fast, it’s not walking, but it’s just good enough for me.  The entire goal for me was simply to run as long and as much as I could and finish the thing.  I was terrified I was going to be in pain or I couldn’t handle the distance.  Fear is real, despite having completed 29 half marathons prior to this one. Yup, this was my 30^th half marathon.  Doesn’t make my brain any more convinced that I can do it after taking a break.

The race started and I headed out.  I just kept telling myself that all I had to do was find a comfortable rhythm and just run and enjoy the experience. Give myself over to the beauty and happiness of the run. I knew I was settling in for 2 and roughly half hours of running so no need to rush anything.  I decided to take a more systematic, mathematical approach.  13 miles. Just tick them off mile by mile.  My Garmin beeped at me at mile 1 and I was like, awesome, 1 mile down.  12 to go. And it felt good, easy. I am going to crush this! I’d say big deal because it was only mile 1. But typically speaking mile 1 is fairly hell. So is mile 2.  They are hard to find your rhythm. But honestly I felt pretty great from the get-go. 

I decided my ease was partially due to my desire to perform and finally kick the self-doubt to the curb. And also because I honestly got a great night’s sleep on Friday night. We had to wake up early for the run, like we were up at 5:15 AM.  This is early for me.  Really early.  Some people are morning people, I am not.  But to compensate we were in bed at like 9:30 on Friday. I think I fell asleep at like 10 PM, which means I got a very solid 7-8 hours of sleep and I honestly slept pretty much the entire night thru which in the end helped me tremendously.

This race was all about proving to myself that I can still do this.  It was about tapping into this part of me. The distance runner that I’ve been slightly afraid wasn’t still in me.  I knew the only way to shut up the doubt was to just go out and do it.  So I ran.  And I kept running at my pretty comfortable 10:30 pace.  And the miles ticked away. And I felt happy.  And I felt in my zone. And then I started to feel high. 

I have a habit of watching people’s asses while I run.  I’m sorry, perhaps that is wrong. But it’s kind of what you see when you look up in a race and you see lots and lots of women’s butts.  And I acknowledge that no two butts are the same.  There are a lot of butt shapes and sizes and such in this world.  Runners are a different bread. They are not typically your gym rat.  And mostly I noticed that most of these women’s butts were very flat.  And I had a mental note of oh wow, I know I have a nice looking ass.  I work hard for my ass. I squat and lunge myself into a nice ass. And I felt proud.  Not that I was trying to diss on anyone else. I wasn’t.  I just felt confident and happy in my own ass.  This you see if what running does for me.  It allows me hours to think about things and build my confidence with every step.  Not by tearing other people down, but by thinking about the good in my life.  The good about me. This is why running is critical to my well-being.

I maintained my 10:30 pace for quite a while and I was just running.  I really didn’t know what to expect when I started. I know the last part gets tough and I just told myself the goal was to run as long as I could.  When I hit 6 miles I was like okay, here we go. Meaning this is breaching into the next level and of course my milestone I always wait for 6.55 miles. Half way mark.  When I cross the halfway threshold everything is running back and that is a happy moment.  You have now gone farther than you have left to go.  Really awesome point.  So I kept running.  Keeping my solid pace. Thinking about the beautiful scenery I was running on.  It really is a gorgeous course, on a bike path following a river by the airport with planes overhead.  It was  gorgeous and I tried to look at it and take it in.

I looked down and noticed I was at 8 miles.  And I evaluated my current physical state. This is now farther than I had run since November. And I felt great. Like I felt awesome.  Perhaps allowing myself to slow down to that 10:30 pace from the get go was paying off.  I felt like I could keep going.  This was happiness to me.  So on I ran.  Mile 9 down. And then close to that 10 mile mark I did feel my stomach start to cramp a little and I felt like I had to perhaps go poo.  This is honestly very common in running and obviously the less glamorous side of running that no one tells you about.   My body handles running magnificently with the exception of digestive issues.

I am sure some of my digestive stuff comes from the reality that I’ve always had a week stomach and then now I have no gallbladder to digest stuff the way normal people do.  And then the whole running thing.  Anyway, I ran thru it. I was still running and at this point, past mile 10, I wasn’t going to stop.  I hadn’t stopped running once. I may be slowed down for a second to ingest a little tiny Dixie cup of water on 2 occasions, that’s it.  For the most part I am a limited water runner.  My body handles massive amounts of exercise without water pretty well honestly.  I had not stopped running and I wasn’t about to now.  At this point, post 10 mile mark and still running I made the mental decision, and really, it’s always a mental decision, that I was going to run this entire half marathon.  That I could slow myself down if I needed to, but I couldn’t walk.  Once you walk at this point it’s kind of like the kiss of death.  Once I walk and my muscles tighten up it’s hard to start running again.

At some point I think I passed gas and my body felt better so I ran on. I am not going to lie it started to get tough.  I felt like I was barely moving, and I was at a 11 minute mile pace at this point but that’s still running.  And I justified that slowing down to a 11 mile pace for the last couple miles was okay.  And I ran on.  I had a few moments where I had to talk my brain out of stopping. Willed it to just keep running but for the most part, I still felt pretty good.  This was the most interesting part to me.  Nothing hurt. Nothing ached. Nothing felt amiss.  I felt pretty damned good overall.  So I kept running.

And eventually I saw the finish arch ahead of me.  And despite perhaps wanting to move my body faster, I couldn’t make it go any faster.  I kept going, but not faster than my present speed.   But I was still running. 13.1 miles of solid running as I crossed the finish line.  And all be damned I felt proud, happy, accomplished and relieved.  Mostly relieved that I clearly could still run 13.1 miles and feel damned amazing.  And relieved because I have to tell you, I think I could have went longer. I was not entirely spent.  Some half’s I felt dead. Some half’s I walked points of the last 3 miles.  Not this one, this one I felt amazing and like I had some more left in me which is great news considering I signed up for a marathon and all.

My official time was 2:20:19. So just a few seconds shy of 2:20. Close enough. Not my PR, but certainly within my wheel house for a half.  A decent time for me and I’ll take it. Considering I did pretty much not a lot of dedicated training.  Considering I basically just showed up and decided today I was running this half marathon.  When I looked up last years’ time for this race I was shocked to learn that I actually ran it 1 minute 5 second faster this year.  Last year I was 2:21:24. So a whole minute 5 second faster.  That is kind of cool because I didn’t even have a clue what my previous years’ time was nor did I care.  I wasn’t trying to beat that at all. I just wanted to run the thing. Mainly to prove to myself that I still could.  Last year I had ran a bit more at this point than I have this year so it was nice to see an improvement on time. 

I think the consistency or the slowing down just a smidge actually helped me a lot. It allowed me to run every step which was pretty cool.  I was waiting for the sore or ache to kick in but it never did. I felt amazing after I was done.  I had that awesome runner’s high, magnified by the reality that I finished 13.1 miles of solid running and more importantly proved to myself that I could.  Very cool.

 

After the race I ate the little bit of “breakfast” they had there. Some eggs on a croissant and I had my mimosa.  It all seemed like a good idea when I was doing it but later not such a good idea.  The one thing I had forgotten about was my very typical post run nausea.  Yup, my stomach always feels unsettled for a little bit after I run.  This is very common for me but somehow I had forgotten.  When we were doing the hour drive home my stomach felt so sick. Like I knew I was going to throw up.  Like the breakfast and more importantly champagne in the mimosa was a terrible idea.  I was breathing heavy and Chris kept asking me if I needed to pull over.  I kept saying no. 

Eventually I said yes. About 30 minutes and I couldn’t take it anymore. We stopped at Fred Meyer in Wilsonville.  It’s like a Target or Wal-Mart but a local chain.  We went in and at that point I felt light headed and so like I needed to throw up.  I found the bathroom and did exactly that. Yup the first time I’ve ever thrown up post run in a store.  I felt bad for the people in the bathroom with me listening to me vomit but I really had no choice.  But after I threw up a lot, I felt so much better as I knew I would.  I finally felt okay and we grabbed a couple groceries before heading home. From that point on I felt good again.  Nothing physically ached on me nor was I sore at all.  And once I threw up, I felt a okay. 

We got home and decided to take the dogs for a walk.  They needed it and I felt fine, capable of a mile or so walk. So we walked. In fact, I felt like I could have run which again is a positive thing considering my future marathon.  So we walked and then went home and ate.  Nice and easy soup for my tummy.  And everything was good. 

I honestly was so shocked and pleased that I didn’t feel any sort of physical pain.  I was expecting the worst honestly. Relieved to know I was more capable and ready for it than I imagined.  Yesterday I woke up feeling great. I would have worked out had it not been Easter.  I mean, it ended up being quite the family day which was nice.

I had a nice Easter breakfast out with my family and then we went and visiting my dying grandpa at his nursing home where my niece and nephew did an Easter egg hunt.  It was nice to see my Grandpa get to watch the kids hunt for eggs. I think it made him happy. I was glad we were able to do that for him.  I was glad we were able to spend some time on Easter with him.  I will never regret the decision to spend Easter with my family (as opposed to bailing to go workout or something). 

So this is my family.  Chris had his motorcycle endorsement class he had to take yesterday so he missed it. Which was kind of sad and he wanted to be there but I also totally understood and wasn’t mad at all. After the Easter egg hunt we went to my mom’s house and just hung out with the kids and each other. After Chris’s class he came over and we spent some time together.  A very nice Easter honestly.  I ate shit stuff and my tummy kind of felt sick last night but that’s irrelevant because it was a good day and worth it. 

Overall just a really good weekend. One that restored my faith in myself and my abilities. Plus some really good time spent with my family. I’m a happy girl. And now I am actually looking forward to running a half marathon this weekend again. That’s a nice thing.  Yup this Sunday I have a half marathon in the morning and then my Garth Brooks concert in the evening.  This will be another busy weekend.  But for now let’s just focus on today.  

Tonight it’s back to the gym for Iron Power class and then kick class. Starting out my week positive and back on track.  I feel happy and healthy and alive.  The power of 13.1 is just magical!

The one where I ran and felt better

Ahem… running is pretty important to my overall well-being.  This is not a secret, and yet somehow I forget it.  Somehow I allow myself to go too long without the magical drug called runners high.  Single handedly the best drug I’ve ever taken in my life.  And so ridiculously important to keep me balanced and sane. Lesson learned yet again.

Apparently I’m not the only one if they make little picture quotes with the same exact sentiment.  Friends don’t let friends go more than a week without running.  Something shifts in my brain and I start to lose my happiness.  I guess the endorphins are kind of like my addictive drug really.  I just need them to balance me out. 

As the day culminated yesterday into my shitty ass self-esteem mood I decided that I simply just had to go for a run. The kind where you put your headphones in, and just shut the rest of the world off.  It was harder than it should have been given it had been over a week since I’d run anything longer than 1 mile.  But in the grand scheme of things I think running last night will help me with my half tomorrow.

I was pretty much determined that the only thing I was going to do last night was run.  I didn’t want to go to the gym, therefore I told myself that once I ran an hour, 6 miles, that I could be done.  That this would suffice for the evening.  I was still pretty sore from the brutal arm/back killing I got the other night.  So I went to the old gym because there was some Facebook gossip from friends that they had changed the layout yet again. Anyway, the bottom line is this, I knew I desperately needed a run. A solid mind clearing run and I needed no excuses to not do it. I needed comfort and consistency. And tired and true.  So I went to the old gym where I’ve spent countless hours running on those treadmills and I knew when I zoned out on one of them that everything else would wash away.  I needed that last night. I will slowly transition out of the old gym entirely most likely but for now I still have moments where I need it.

Anyhow, I started running and just let myself go.  Like I said earlier, much harder than I thought it should have been, but I mentally talked myself into every step, in small little increments at a time. And despite wanting to quit multiple times I pushed on.  I did my treadmill math.  ½ done.  3/5 done, 2/3 done, ¾ done, 4/5 done,  5/6 done and finally the lovely  11/12^th which comes at 55 minutes.  From there it’s a countdown by the minute.  This math mostly only occurs on a treadmill where it is generally more boring than outdoor running. I don’t seem to do the math on an outdoor run the way I do inside. Sure at some point I’m calculating and counting down, but it’s more prevalent and noticeable when you are literally staring at numbers tick by.

I did it.  I ran 60 minutes, 6 miles and burned like 650 calories.  It was exquisite.  It was magnificent. It was torture. It was pleasure and pain all rolled into one. But mostly it was exactly what my body needed.  It was the mental high I had been missing.  It was the feel good happy drugs.  Afterwards I saw my friend Michelle and went over to her.  She wanted to do a little shoulder work and I said sure.  So I spent about 15-20 minutes lifting a few things as well as I could with sore body parts and just chatted with her.  By the end of the night I had burned 800 calories and I was feeling accomplished; the exact feeling that had been sorely missing all week.

Sure, I still am not thrilled entirely with my photographs, but there is an acceptance that I find when my mood stabilizes out.  More of an acceptance that it doesn’t really matter because I have bigger better tougher fish to fry in terms of running.  I don’t think one run can magically cure all my self-esteem body image issues in one swoop. If only it were that easy than I’m fairly certain every single woman would endure a run for that sort of peace and clarity.  Alas, it is not a magical cure all, but it certainly does help.

I shall not go longer than a week without a run.  It is ridiculously crucial to my well-being.  Tonight is definitely a much forced and/or needed rest night.  I have to be fresh and ready for my early ass morning half marathon.  I am not going to lie I have some nerves. It has been since mid-November since I’ve ran a half marathon.  Nearing 5 months. That is crazy to me. I can’t believe I’ve gone that long. I am nervous and  a little worried but not crazy worried. My body knows how to run.  Sure it’s been a while since I’ve done that distance but that doesn’t mean I can’t or my body won’t go into muscle memory and make it happen. 

I need this half tomorrow.  I need to squish that little voice in my head that creeps up and says, maybe you can’t run that anymore? Maybe you’re not at that level.   I need to shut her naggy bitchy little voice up and the surest way to do that is to just go make it happen.  So that is the plan tomorrow morning. I am going to make it happen.  I am going to run this half marathon and try and enjoy the moments. Enjoy the freedom of the run.  Enjoy the happy endorphins.  That is the plan.  And mostly the relief and accomplishment I am going to feel crossing the finish line. Looking forward to that.  And when I get that medal I am going to feel satisfaction and vindication.  That I’m back. That half marathon Emily has returned.  I need to meet her again.

I’m ready to feel like me again.  Depending on how I feel after running tomorrow, I have options for my Sunday. Yes, I realize it’s Easter but for a childless and religion less woman it doesn’t mean much.  Okay, I shouldn’t say entirely religion less.  I believe in God, raised Catholic and all, but not a practicing Catholic. I don’t believe in organized religion for me.  My personal choice. I have faith as a whole. I believe in God and all that jazz.  Anyhow, the point is, it’s not a huge deal in my life.  At 2 PM my family is having a little get together for some Easter egg hunting with my niece and nephew so I will be attending that.  The options that I speak of are going to the gym in the morning on Sunday if I am not too exhausted.  We will see though. I could also just take the day off too, a very real possibility honestly.

But alas today is Friday and this is a beautiful thing.  Easy peasy day at work.  Which means a very real possibility of writing another post this afternoon. We will see.  In a month I will be in Vegas. Yeah! That is exciting times. Looking forward to my mini-vacation.  That means my year’s vacation travel plans are as follows:

May 2-5 Vegas

June 12-13 Seattle

September 18-26 Maui

November 13-16 Vegas

This doesn’t look to bad to me. I mean, I’ll take it… no complaints here.  Maybe in 2016 I might try another place in Mexico to. Maybe Cancun possibly, that’s just what’s going thru my brain a little.  Or maybe St. Louis for a Rock N Roll run, that’s on my list since Chris’s family lives there and really wants us to come.  Or else maybe I should try an entirely different new place. I have a few things in my mind. Down South, never been to the south.  New Orleans perhaps. Or somewhere around thereabouts.  Or Minnesota. I know a couple people in those lands or there’s always Colorado. I know it’s beautiful there too. And they have a Rock N roll race as well.  My sister went to Colorado last year and loved it. Possibilities.  But hell let’s just get thru 2015 for now.   2016 is a ways off yet. But it’s always good to keep things on the horizon.  

And just because here is a collection of some of my adorable workout ensembles from this last week or so.  I try and take these photos most days because my Victoria Secret outfits are just that amazing… ha ha.

That one with the fucked up body image

So I know yesterday I mentioned that I’ve been having some messed up body image issues lately and honestly I’ve been thinking about it far too much.  I am not perfect. I try to live my life happy and positive and not let the negativity creep its way in, but I’m only human. I struggle. And like everyone else I have those days or periods of time where I can’t get out of my own head. Where I let the self-doubt and the body image crap work its way in.  I honestly wish I knew what triggers it so I could try and counteract some of its affects, but it’s ridiculously hard.

So I have to say this is going to be one of THOSE posts.  The ones where I am unnecessarily hard on myself and questioning stupid shit and where someone could quite possibly roll their eyes at me because in the grand scheme of things I know I am better off than not only was I once, but than a lot of people who are struggling themselves.  Yes, sometimes the grass appears greener on the other side.  And I acknowledge that while I sit here and pick myself apart there is most likely someone out their wishing and praying to look like me.  (Although my brain has a hard time comprehending that at this moment in time because of the whole negativity you know)

And of course, that 2 ½ year ago me would be so mad that I still have these issues. That girl would be thrilled to see a photo of myself now and instead of ripping apart all the small minute details would just be thrilled to not wearing size 18/20 venturing into 22 land.  I should put a disclaimer on this entire post that I am not intending to make anyone feel bad about their present place in life. There is nothing wrong with being any weight/shape/size/clothing number.  This is all about me and my personal experiences and where I am at right now.  I am just trying to be real with myself about what I’m feeling.  And to prove that life is not perfect once you find a happier balance in life.  Yes, generally speaking I am very happy and proud and capable.  But I am still only human.  I don’t want to dwell in negative land too long and I’m hoping that by talking out my feelings that I might find some understanding and get over it.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve accomplished or what you presently look like we will always find a way to find fault. You may be mad at your reflection in the mirror wearing size 18 or 20 or whatever the number is.  But I promise you I can still find as much fault wearing my size 6 as I ever did in size 20’s.  Truth.  I’ve really honestly been so good lately the past couple months at acceptance and being happy with myself in the mirror.  I can’t quite understand why this week it has me feeling depressed. Like all I see is the fat and the rolls and the work that I should be doing but yet can’t find the motivation to do. I think perhaps I am punishing myself in my brain for not being able to really follow any sort of manageable food plan. Maybe that is part of it.  Or maybe I think I am getting fat.  I don’t know. I kind of refuse to weigh myself because it is a mean evil thing in my life. As long as my jeans fit, which they still do.  But I can’t help it, I’m still seeing more jiggle and fluff than I am comfortable with in the mirror.

Yes, I really am beyond thankful with how capable and active I am in my life. That my body allows me to do the things it does despite the years of trauma and yo-yo dieting I put it thru.  That I can run mile after mile or lift for hours.  I feel fortunate that I even have the opportunity to live my life as fully as I do.  You want to talk about blessed; there are people out there who have real problems or health issues that would love to be able to just do half of what I do.  Which kind of makes me feel like a jackass for being so whiny about shit.

Sigh. I can’t help it. I wish I could. I should not complain and in my heart I know that I sound like a stupid child for being grumpy over not looking as good as I wish I did.  Come on, there really are bigger problems in this world.  My hormones are just off.  Sigh.

This, these here are the pictures that made me cringe.

I am for some stupid reason really not happy about how I look.  And the worst part is, it could be the angle, it could be the lighting, it could one of a million things and yet I’m choosing to see all the horrible imperfections.  I know I am being ridiculous because it’s a 1000% better than what I have been in my life and honestly better than I could hope for given my history.  And I should point out that I really do love my upper body, my shoulders and arms, etc.  It’s that nasty bottom half. But this is what I get unless I’m really willing to give up like food. I don’t mean starve myself but instead eat chicken and vegetables over and over again with some plain oatmeal thrown in. This is pretty much what it would take to for months to get my body to look anywhere near where I might want it to be. And alas I am not willing to do this. I want to eat pizza. I want to have cupcakes. Hell I even want to have peanut butter or nuts. 

So I’m left being stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Either hate what you see in the mirror or give up food? Neither is appealing.  I mean, sure there is a 3^rd option which is be happy and accept yourself just as you are.  I mean this is the best option and normally this is what I strive for and settle upon but for some reason right now it’s just not cutting it.

There is a tiny part of my brain that thinks this negativity this week stems from the lack of a long run.  It makes sense in some way.  I find my peace and am grounded when I run.  It balances me out and I find myself and all the negativity goes away. I might be missing that a little.  Which is the strongest advocate for why I run.  This is an interesting theory and I guess will be put to the test on Saturday when I run 13.1 miles. If I come away loving myself then I know that is the trick to it all. I suspect it is the trick honestly. I suspect my true answer lies in the run. My self-esteem, my happiness is built during the run.  And as much as I lift or spin or kick or do anything else it will never compare to the torture and pleasure of running.  I feel a little lost and I guess that might be why I am struggling to like myself in photos and the best way I know how to find myself is in the agony of a long run.  It’s my “me” time, my think time, my get in touch with Emily time.  I think I need some more of that. I tend to care a lot less about my appearance when I am running.  It is the one thing that is all mine and mine alone. No one can take it away from me.  It’s my thing. Sure it can be other people’s thing to, but it will never be the exact same thing. It’s just the one thing I identify the most with.  Sure let me squat heavy, or bench press beyond my limits but none of it is “my thing” the way running is. None of it makes me feel as good about myself.

I hate that society has given us unrealistic expectations of beauty and perfection. Perfection doesn’t exist. I hate that something somewhere along the lines has shaped our unrealistic expectations of what we should be.  I hate that I have ever let it affect me. I hate that I have given it as much importance as I have in my life for 11 plus years.  I hate that any of this is still an issue. I hate that I can’t just love and accept and be proud of myself.  (I mostly am) It’s just that I have these moments where I revert to all the negativity.  We are not supposed to be anything but happy and kind to ourselves.  We are supposed to be able to love ourselves as the real flawed people that we are.

I am not supposed to look at a picture of myself and pick it apart and hate the image the way I do.  Because I promise you this every time I took photos and picked them apart, when I gained weight back I looked at that same photo that I remember belittling myself over and thinking how amazing I really did look. And longing to be exactly that person again. Inevitably no matter what hindsight is 20/20.  It’s also all about perspective.  It just depends what way you are looking at it from.  Am I happy with where I am at today as compared to where I was 3 years ago. Hell yes! Am I happy with where I am at today as compare to where I could be if I didn’t eat so much shit? Nope. Perspective.

Sometimes when I look into the mirror during a class at the gym I see a happy healthy fit strong athletic girl.  Sometimes I see a giant tub of lard. There I said it. Sometimes I see a giant fat girl who I am certain everyone else is staring at thinking how much excess fat I have jiggling around.  (These thoughts might have occurred to me last night during classes) They are not productive thoughts. I realize this. But I can’t help it either.

I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m not looking for anyone to confirm that I am in fact a giant mess. I am just figuring out my own issues. Or at least trying to stay true and real to myself.  I know my worth has nothing to do with photographs or mirrors or scales or body fat percentages.  My worth is well beyond that.  But sometimes you just get wrapped up in the head games.

I asked for the pain

 I am broken.  Like my body is physically broken today. Like I literally want to cry it hurts so bad to move my arms. Or rather I think it’s my back but the upper back that gets activated anytime your rotate your arm in any direction to do anything. I can’t lift my arms above shoulder height.  When I try to raise my arms to my hair to like put it up into a ponytail there is immense pain and I can barely do it.  I want to cry. Putting on clothes is the same level of discomfort.  Simply moving my arms behind my body is a pain I have not felt in a long while. I wish there was some magical series of words I could use to articulate perfectly what this feels like.  But alas the only thing I can think of is excessive and unnecessary torture. And yes, I continually ask for this. 

It’s my back mainly but the thing is I think the back pain is also masking triceps and bicep pain which is contributing to this overall feeling.  I have no idea really exactly what caused this level of insanity in my body.  I work hard a lot, but something just totally took over and I can honestly say it’s been a long while since I’ve felt this exact level of discomfort.  When I raise my arm straight up into the air it’s the muscle on the side of my body, like under my armpit, slightly towards the back. It’s flaming and bulging and in such pain.  I keep trying to force myself to raise it to stretch it out.  I guess it was all them pull ups.  They got hard quickly. I’ve done high reps of pull ups before but I guess on my own I don’t work as hard as I do when I’m with Amanda. That’s probably the difference.  This is probably why I paid her money for so long for personal training because as clearly articulated by my pain today I NEVER work as hard as I do in her company.

I could not cheat on those pull ups because she was right there with me, spotting me.  I engaged every muscle and worked like a bitch. And then did the same thing with biceps which are sore as well. And then of course last night I did some chest and triceps work and that is also feeling it.  So pretty much all my upper body with the exception of shoulders were terribly worked which I guess is no shock then that I’m ferociously in pain.  And at moments like these, where honestly going to the bathroom and trying to wipe is almost tear inducing I wonder why exactly I love this feeling so much.  Why I love lifting heavy shit to the point of pain.  Sometimes I’m at a loss for the reasons.

Last night I did a little practicing with Amanda on some kick stuff for tonight. Class is going to be fun. I haven’t taken a kick class in so freaking long I’m excited.  But then we did the “hardcore” class.  Basically it was like interval style high intensity stuff.  Lots of warm up sprints, ah ha.  And then we did a circuit of 6 exercises, 60 seconds each, 2 times thru.  More to get your heart pumping. But there were ball slams and that used the same arm/back muscles that pull ups do so I think this is what contributed to the frying of myself. Then we did more ball slams and jump rope.  It was pretty good. A nice way to get a burst of cardio in.  Then we lifted heavy bench presses and chest work.  I am not going to lie by this time I was fairly exhausted. I thought about running. I went to the treadmill and ran a mile. That was it. I couldn’t make myself do more. I wanted to do at least a 5k, but after 1 mile I was like, stop torturing myself and just end this misery.  I wasn’t feeling it.  So 1 mile run.  Then I was too tired but wanted to do more so I got on the stair climber.  It’s cardio in a different way. It is brutal and sweaty.  And I did 30 minutes, 2000 stairs climbed, it was tough.  And then I called it good for the night. By this point I had been there for 2 hours and burned 800 calories and that was more than enough for me.  I’m really sucking it up on the running this week though.  Oh well I guess.

I mean, this Saturday I am running a half marathon and I don’t know how I’m really going to fair, other than I am going to finish it. I am certain I am going to have to walk parts of it, but that’s really okay with me. I haven’t really been putting in the work I need to at this point.  I know I can go 7-8 miles without stopping but I’m probably going to have to enact a run/walk method at that point.  But I’ll get thru it. I’m really hoping those endorphins kick in and muscle memory takes over and my body goes, oh yeah were doing one of those 13.1 things.  I’m sure once I start things will be fine. They always are.

I’m just going to try and work thru my pain today because tonight I have Iron Power and then Kick class. So yes, 1 hour of lifting eek, followed by 1 hour of cardio kickboxing.  I will most likely go lighter in Iron Power class. And there might be some stuff I just flat out can’t do. On the account of not being able to lift my arms up or behind.  And that is just going to have to be okay. The best part of all of this though is that I have managed to preserve my legs.  My legs are not sore, they are fine and I intend to keep them that way for Saturday. I need pain free legs to run my half.

Last night when I got home I was having a bit of some body image issues. Sometimes they come randomly out of nowhere.  I was having some issues of hating what I was seeing in the mirror. This happens to all of us on occasion. Just some fucked up thought. Eek. I hate that. I don’t know why some days the little plastic surgeon who lives inside my head takes over and sounds so in control of everything. It really just sucks honestly. Anyhow, I might be back later to talk about that but for now I need to go out and run some work errands, etc.