Tuesday 8 January 2008

Return of the slug/slog

The festive period has not been kind. I have put on, oh, about a stone or so from my lowest weight. Sigh. The good thing is I know what I have to do, I know I can do it, I know how to do it. I just need to do it.

With that in mind I went out for a short and horribly rubbish run on Sunday. Had to walk a fair bit in the last half and can't say I enjoyed much of it. I was, however, expecting that so didn't immediately dissolve in a puddle of lardy self-pity*. Just gritted my teeth (and challenged the lovely Cofffeedog to a "get your backside out there!" race.)

Today, I had to drive out to a town a few miles from Edinburgh to do battle with the Sheriff Clerk (the clerk of court wumman who deals with the paperwork) and on my way back I noticed that (a) it was nearly lunchtime and (b) I was virtually passing my gym. So I diverted in there and ran 30 minutes on the treadmill. Ve-e-ery slo-o-o-o-wly (mostly at 7.5kph) but steadily. I lost patience, as usual: by about 8 minutes in, I had to grit my teeth to get to 15 minutes, then promised myself I could stop if I wanted to once I got to 20 minutes, then I counted the minutes from 20 to 25 in 30 second increments, counting backwards from 10, and then once I got to 25 minutes I called myself a wuss for thinking of stopping with only 5 minutes to do. So I did the whole 30 minutes and then 5 minutes cool down. See the psychological intrigues I have to create to stop myself getting fed up and marching back to the showers? Creative genius, I tell you.

I only covered about 4km because of the slow speed but I am ignoring distance in favour of time on my feet for the present. I now have that pleasantly wobbly feeling in the muscles in my legs and a smug expression on my face.

And I weighed myself this morning (and before anyone else points it out, I know that weight fluctuates from day to day and you really should only weigh yourself once a week but I am a scales junkie and like to weigh myself ALL THE TIME. I just watch the overall trend but like checking in regularly.) Anyway as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, the scales said I had lost 2 pounds. Which probably isn't a real loss but made me feel good. So there.

* I'm sure this is a trademark Shauna Reid expression - I have just finished reading her book and it is just wonderful. My husband kept looking at me oddly for sniggering in bed whilst reading it. At least, I think it was for sniggering.

4 comments:

  1. Way to use that reverse psychology to keep yourself motivated. My exercise today consisted of running up and down the stairs between the bathrooms, flushing the toilets to keep enough water flowing for the plumber who was snaking our sewer drain.

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  2. Way back in September last year you wrote:
    I have agreed to run the Bupa Great Edinburgh Public Humiliation of Death 2008 next May so I need to start a nice gentle training schedule for that. and I also note that it's touted as:
    Voted Scotland's number one road race by readers of Runner's World.!

    Are you still committed to this?...and training with this in mind? When I read about this, I was inspired to commit myself to doing a half-marathon in May 2008 (18 May), with a lead-up 10 km race on Easter Monday. I was interested to read in my daughter's blog that she has independently committed herself to a half-marathon!! So we're all in this crazy running business together!

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  3. And I was finally inspired to get up off MY duff and start walking, to get started. I won't and can't commit to running ANYTHING, for a good long while, except maybe away from cookies and chocolate (unless they are chocodoodles, which are now my new favorite cookie EVER)but I CAN commit to attempting to find some sort of health and well-being, even if I have to start at the pace of a 5 year old. Thank you for providing some sort of odd, across the ocean, total stranger motivation that no one else has managed to inspire in me. Maybe we should all plan to meet in Iceland or Yakistan or Tibet for some international marathon in two years, or some such random time and place. Now THAT would be an inspiration!

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  4. Huh. Maybe I can use that technique to start some proper work on the ol' dissertation. Maybe.

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