Back in the Saddle (even if it hurts)

Ok, well I was going to get on my treadmill tonight, but I didn't do it. Thankfully, my coochie-coochie made a full recovery as of Wednesday. My hamstrings and outer thighs, however, have been screaming at me ever since the Ride Run training session. Well, today they are not screaming, more like glaring with the occasional audible grumbling. So, I was going to get on the treadmill tonight, but instead I goofed around on my computer and made the excuse that my legs still hurt. But, like they say, you have to get back up on the horse that threw you, so I am hereby making my commitment to the treadmill tomorrow. OR, if the weather cooperates, I'll run outside for an even more complete training experience. You can all wag a virtual finger at me tomorrow if I don't.

Oh, and does anyone have any good running-songs? I'm going to need more than two, I hope. I have a lot of good walking songs - one being Justin Timberlake's "She Knows" and you get extra bonus points if you can walk to that song and smack your own rear end without breaking stride when he sings, "She looks just like a model, except she's got a little more a**..." My favorite running song so far is "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure.

You Hurt Your What?

My brother has asked if I would like to participate in the "Ride Run" race on the 4th of July. This is a race around a lake, 12 miles in length, and the gist is that you work as a team, one starts out running and one on a bike. Biker drops bike at agreed upon spot and starts running, first runner comes upon bike and gets on, pedaling along past first biker (who is now running) until coming upon the next drop spot, drops bike and starts running...etc. etc. leap-frogging each other in this way all around the lake until you collapse at the finish line. Sounds like fun, eh? Notice that I said "PARTICIPATE" in the race - not "compete." He, very nicely, understands that in no way will I be able to compete with others in this event, even though he would be able to compete and do quite well, I am sure.

So, I am considering it. And I would really like to do this with him, just to say that I did it. So I decided to hit the gym on Tuesday to work on training for this event, because it seems to me I would need to be able to run at least two miles consecutively, and then do some biking, etc. Makes sense that I should go to the gym and practice on the treadmills and exercise bikes, right? Mr. Spock would find that logical, I am thinkin.

I hit the treadmill with my Ipod on my "running" songs, and happily was able to make it through not only one of them, but TWO, consecutively and effectively burned through more than a mile! Yay for me! I walked for a few measured increments, and then back to my jog, doing this for several more intervals - adding up to about 35 minutes on the treadmill. I was planning to go for one last running push, so hit the gas on the treadmill speed and started to run when suddenly a pain shot up my inner left leg up through my groin and straight across my lady parts! It felt like someone kicked me square in the nads, if I had any nads. So, I desperately hit the SLOW DOWN button as fast as I could, like I was telegraphing the fastest message across the wires (imagine furious tapping on the machine) to slow it down to a walk my 16-month-old niece could manage and recovered for a moment, each step producing an odd painful pulsing. Once that subsided I sped the machine up, only to be met with more intense painful pulsing. 'Good grief, I think I broke my cooter,' I thought to myself. Now what? I got on that damn bike, that's what. I managed 15 minutes on that thing, standing on the pedals periodically to reduce the transfer of pain to my ass.

Ride Run. Good idea.

Vices

I have several guilty pleasures in life and a couple of vices. Thankfully I am not a smoker, though I have smoked a clove cigarette or two when drunk. I am not a big drinker, so that makes it extra fun when I decide to drink cuz I get tipsy quickly. My vices would be: spending money and eating unhealthy food. I really do enjoy shopping - not for clothes for myself, mind you (mostly because of vice #2), but for clothes for my kids, stuff for my house, makeup, hair do-dads, food, etc. I just love to be in a retail environment, looking at stuff and loading up my cart. I have a 10-year-old daughter who could be the happy recipient of a large wardrobe if only she liked clothes that aren't sweatpants or oversized tee-shirts. She wrecks my shopping buzz some days, I tell you. But my 5-year-old is as girly as they come, so I have a grand ole time loading her closet. My spouse frowns at me often, but retail therapy is fun.

Eating: no real need for discussion on that one, is there? Peanut butter, chocolate, cake, cookies, doughnuts, cheeseball on crackers, spinach and artichoke dip... the list is endless.

And my latest guilty pleasure: Dancing With The Stars. Seriously, I would not miss it for the world. I love that dorky show! Their outfits are nuts, but I like every cheesey moment. I'm rooting for Christy Yamaguchi this season and tonight will find out the winner!! I'm even considering getting the Dancing with the Stars workout video. I'll let you know if I do and if it is any good.

The Ripple Effect

Sahm has a blog and once wrote about underwear and how bands at the bottom of your skivvies contribute greatly to the formation of cellulite. She learned this from somewhere scientific, like Tyra Banks' show or Rachel Ray. And though it's a little too late to prevent cellulite on my bod, I keep hoping that with a lot of skin cream and the right underwear, I can contain the damage. So I bought some new knickers at Kohls - Vera Wang brand that have no band around the legs. And I wore them today and they were very comfortable! And since I cannot wear a thong - seriously, I have tried numerous times but they are just very distracting all day for me - I will put my stamp of endorsement on these Vera Wang panties that promise no panty lines. So, head to Kohls and bring on the white capri pants, and to those of you without cellulite - let this be a word of encouragement to you.

Tan Fat

The sun has finally arrived in the Midwest! And so I went out and planted flowers, mowed the yard (all of that counts as exercise, right?), and ran around the yard with my kids playing "tag." And I got sunburned! I was wearing a tank top, so my shoulders were fried. I should be very unhappy about that, right? Nope, I am not. I also layed on a blanket in the yard on Sunday and read part of a book and the backs of my knees got fried. Uncomfortable, yes, disappointing, no. Please!! I need some color other than "translucent" in my skin! I know I am going to end up with skin cancer or something awful like that, but tan fat looks so much less repulsive than white fat. Agreed?

Oh, and thanks for all of the comments. You guys are so nice.

Incredible Hulk

My monsterously envious green self has reared its ugly head once again. I worked out on Sunday with Sahm, and it was a good workout, but after a long lapse in between Turbos I was worthless. Don't get me wrong, I was glad that I did it, but man am I out of shape and wimpy. I am huffing and puffing with half of the effort I used to expell. And there's Sahm, adding some extra hops into her lead so that she'll feel like she actually did something. "Up the cardio a notch, I don't feel a thing." And sometime she says truths like, "Yeah, I am sore after the first time but then never again. " or "I was doing these side-planks up on my toes and fingertips and other people were struggling and I was thinking, 'Really? Cuz this is not really challenging me at all.'"

And it is at those times when I want to grab her by the long flowy hair and shove her in front of a mirror and scream at her "THAT'S BECAUSE YOU ARE NOW ONE OF THOSE SKINNY BITCHES WHO IS IN SHAPE AND LOVES EXERCISE BECAUSE IT IS REWARDING TO YOU!!!!" And I am still an out-of-shape schlump who is just waiting for the damn hour to be over so I can say I worked out and go back to the parts of my life I enjoy.

And that is hideous of me, right? I mean, I am proud of her work. But does she have to mention that she can do fantastical feats of strength and not bat an eyelid while I am huffing and groaning through the modifier that most 5-year-olds could do in their sleep? And it's her job. Truely, this is now what she does for a living - work out and lead others in workouts. She is in the cohort of people who go to work and say, "ooh, check out this really hard move I learned yesterday. It really works your abs. I was sore for two days, it was awesome." And I love my job, but it entails sitting on my large duff most of the time. And conversations with peers are about the person who wants out of the nursing home who had dried poo all over their rear end, so we agree it's not a good idea for them to go home. And there's junk in the break room and junk in my trunk as a result.

So I look at her skinny assed self, and she can say she is not, but she is as small as she has been since high school. And then I can look at myself. And then I can get together with any crowd of friends in this skinny assed town, and my incredible Hulk side is raging - yelling at me to never eat anything but lettuce and chicken, to get up and work out. And I do it for half a day. And I am starting to believe that short of going to some nazi excercise camp, I will never again see the day when my flesh does not squish into a mound between my bra and my pantihose resembling an alien set of alternate breasts. How depressing. Loads of cute spring and summer clothes at Kohls and I will not subject myself to the torture of trying them on and hating them all.

Oh, did I mention that I got my period?

Zero Comments

I have to tell you how my blogging joy is directly correlated with the number of comments I recieve. No pressure, or anything.

Table for One, Please. Party's name: Sore Thumb

Recall that my recent trip to Nebraska included an occasion to "go out." By this, I mean that I got to go out on the town, sans kids and spouse. I borrowed a fun, sexy top from Sahm, wore my new dark wash jeans, my red wedges and put on purple eyeshadow aplenty as instructed by the girl in DesMoines at the Sephora store (it looks good, I swear - back me up here, Sahm). I stopped short of the fake eyelashes, which are fun, but I was in Nebraska for Pete's sake. So I go out feelin all fine and slightly vampish. The first fine drinking establishment was like those small-town bars where people over 45 hang out if they are white trash. Yikes. All women present were sporting jeans and oversized tee-shirts, some maybe with makeup on. I quickly went from feeling vampish to uncomfortable. We left after one drink.

We hit the next place, known to be newly "happenin" in town. It had a better mix of ages represented, that is for sure. But I was still much more turned out than the majority of the gals in the room. Sigh. I had forgotten where I was, apparently, or wildly underestimated the young going-out set in Nebraska. Maybe both.

See, in my DesMoines going-out experience just weeks before, I was adequately dressed in the same kind of outfit. I was average in that bar crowd. Passable, midline, nice-looking, on par. I was nowhere near the va-voom in the room: 20-somethings with tiny skirts and glitzy tops with carefully coifed messy-vamp hairdos. I am never hoping to compete with those little sisters, but was pleased that I could pass in the younger-set crowd and did not have the "Mom" look goin on. I was golden. In Nebraksa I was the ho with the eye makeup.

So, lesson for the day, dear readers: Research the culture when venturing out into the wild. And when going out in small-town Nebraska, pack jeans and a tee shirt.

Parts is Parts

I went out in Norfolk last weekend (more to follow on that experience in a separate blog posting). Norfolk, Nebraska, to be exact. And I got friendly with my favorite Rum Captain and had some very open conversation with friends of mixed gender. Wait, the friends weren't cross dressers, one was a dude and the other two were women. You all have the scene correctly pictured now? Good, I'll move on.

So, we came upon the topic of acceptable conversational reference to genetalia. My friend, Lin, said she had gone and gotten a mammogram and the technician said something to the effect of: "Wow, you have really dense breasts." And Lin retorts: "Yeah, well the twat isn't too smart, either." Ok, that is freakin funny. ha ha ha!! But when she retold that story to a friend, they stated that the term "twat" is a bit harsh and not, perhaps, kosher. So she asked us what we thought. I personally am not offended by the term "twat" and neither were the other two adults at the table, but my sister thinks it is objectionable. So, feel free to fire away with your comments on that one. We all agreed that there are perhaps better terms, including vagina, va-jay-jay, bid-ness, junk, lady parts. But I am not a fan of the cat referrence ("p") and we all were firm that the "c" word should never even be whispered or written, let alone spoken.

This, of course, led to a discussion of men's parts, with one friend noting that every man has, at one point in time, given their part a name. (I use a lot of commas. Just noticed that.) What?! All men have named their penis?!! I don't think so. I happen to be married to a bonafide man, and I am unaware of any name for that body part, though it does get referred to in the third person (e.g. "Somebody woke up and wants to see what's going on." Sleeping, that's what's going on.). And I asked him, and he confirmed that NO, his penis remains unnamed. So is he the only one? Can't be. But my friend seems to believe that all men name that item and that MOST couples name it together and that this is a fun thing for couples.

So here are the topics: Is "twat" offensive as reference to the vagina? Is the naming of penises a common practice and I had better quick give my spouse's a name? Talk amongst yourselves.

Breakout Topics

Well, at this point, my dear friends, I have kind of run out of ideas for the whole diet topic of this blog. Seriously, it was fun for a long while, but who wants to listen to me whine about how fat I am and how I skip workouts and keep eating junk? Not me! And beyond that, who wants to listen to me rah-rah myself if and when I would ever get on the stick and actually lose weight? Not me! I could buy Valerie Bertinelli's book - same stuff. And to that end I have thought, "What? You wrote a whole book about your weight loss process and people wanted to buy it? Heck, I've been doleing that crap out for free on my blog!" Wait, her's is a story of diet conquest.. maybe it gives people hope. Mine just gives people a slight chuckle.

Ok, so I am breaking away from the topic of diet, unless the mood strikes and something outlandish happens, like I become a vegetarian or exercise fanatic.

Breakroom Perils

Breakrooms are hazardous to your health. They are supposed to be healthy restful places to rejuvenate oneself at work. They tend to be places where junk food is offered up a-plenty. This week, there was a buffet of goodies in there to celebrate someone's birthday, so I stuck to the cauliflower and dip, but fell prey to the GIANT sheet cake with whipped frosting (love that stuff). Then on other days there are ice cream buckets filled with snack mixes of different sorts. One had chocolate animal crackers, chocolate drizzled mini rice cakes and other stuff. There are also just bags of chips hanging out for the taking. Today I tasted one Pringles Dill Pickle flavor and it was goooood. Stupid break room.

On a happy note, Spring seems to have finally arrived and I got outside yesterday and ran around the park (literally) with my kids. It also means that, theoretically, I could be getting up and taking my dog outside for a run/walk. She and I would both benefit, but I still fight the magnets in my mattress and the ones attached to my butt that keep me in bed in the morning.

With Spring, comes looming Summer and swimsuit season. Crap crap crap. I work indoors, so am always white as a sheet, and then put on my suit on a weekend and there I am: the white blob in a suit next to my tanned siblings who make it outside more than once per week. Sigh. Maybe I'll cave and buy one of those suits with a skirt in true "Mom" fashion. Or not. I still have my pride and sensibility if not my former will power and dedication to exercise.