Fat Girl Goes Slim: Running

Okay, so I've never been a fan of running. When we used to go to those sweet even beaches for full moons, I used to sometimes lope, but that's not the same thing-- that's stretching legs and hips out as far as they will go and landing on your toptoes and covering alot of ground with little energy expenditure. And sometimes when I lived in hillier places, I'd go mountain-goating, which looks like running but is more of a bouncy climb at high speed so gravity can't pull you down-- dynamic balance and forward momentum and all that. I've been wanting to do those things, but there's nowhere to lope where I'd feel safe to be early in the morning or late in the evening when I'm not working, and mountain-goating is out of the question because a) it's way way way too flat here, and b) there's no big-construction I could break into a pretend the sandpiles are mountains (which is also dirtier and not safe). 

But H has this treadmill. And it kind of represents all the bad things about exercize to me-- staring at a wall, separated from other people and the world, repetative motion and no variation. I could program it to go up and down, but it doesn't react fast enough to be like a suitably steep hillside. 

But it's all I've got, and I'm tired of feeling like a cow. So last tuesday, I ran for twenty minutes in two ten minute stretches. I woke up pretty fine on Wednesday, but when I got to work, all the standing brought on the pain, and by last night I couldn't hardly move my legs. And the same today. And, uncharacteristically, my brain is interpreting that as a challenge, not as a signal to quit. Who knew?

Hayden lost 80 lbs by running every day. I'm going to ease into running every day, but I'm going to do my best. All I need to lose is 30 lbs. And I have three days off a week.

Even though no one mentioned that walking on a moving surface like that messes with your balance, and mine is somewhat suspect at the best of times...