Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

I am, apparently, a lunatic. Or that’s what my inner Fat Girl was trying to tell me as I was leaving the house shortly after 5am to run. ON A SUNDAY.

Sunday’s are meant for breakfast in bed, doing the crossword puzzle and staying in your jammies for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, I long ago lost the concept of what Sunday’s are supposed to be about. I’ve been working Sunday’s for a really long time. When you work weekends, you sort of lose how special weekends can be. For me, its just another work day with lots to get done.

Also, my mother, in her infinite wisdom declared that Sunday Mornings would he Weight Watcher days. So regardless of work, I’d be up at 7:30am to face the scale.

Today is the last Sunday I have to work. I’m rather not excited about that as I seemed to have filled the next six Sundays with other stuff, so I’ll have to wait till fall to experience that lounging about in your jammies kind of day.

A super fancy Duane Reade opened a block from work. For those not in NYC, Duane Reade is a chain of drugstores, that had a somewhat dodgy reputation, but as they are on every other block, they have always been super convenient. They underwent a branding project and were reborn as kind of classy. The newer stores have high end make up and expanded grocery sections that you can actually get good food in, like organic milk, Greek yogurt and a small selection of fresh fruit and veggies.

But they opened this glorious new shop on wall street with a sushi counter, juice bar, salon and walk in clinic. The food section takes up a good portion of the floor space. Of course there is junk food like my beloved cheese doodles, but they have a gluten free section, a nice selection of sandwiches and salads for lunch, the aforementioned sushi and juice.

And wonders of wonders, I found a packet of Peanut Butter & Co peanut butter. If you don’t already know, they make killer peanut butter. And chocolate peanut butter that is to die for. Seriously, I could sit and devour an entire jar of the white chocolate peanut butter in an evening. Thus stuff is that good. This little packet is actually a generous portion and at 5 points its perfect to split between two snacks.

5am. God it’s early. It’s just me and the moon, the birds aren’t even singing yet. Adelle’s Rolling in the Deep in my ears.

There’s a fire starting in my heart

My right quad is tightening. No biggie, just run through it.

Reaching a fevered pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark.

Sun’s up now. Pink skies. Chirp chirp.

Finally, I can see you crystal clear,

Left quad is tightening up too.

Go ahead and sell me out and I’ll lay your ship bare

Walk for a minute, stretch it out.

See how I’ll leave with every piece of you,

One foot in front of the other.

Don’t underestimate the things that I will do.

Great, now my butt too? Almost home.

Good job.

Apparently, in the North East this week, we’ve opened a portal to Hell itself and we’re channeling their weather. We’ve had heat indexes in the triple digits and the heat radiating up from the pavement cause Marilyn Monroe like moments with your skirt fluttering up. Yah for Spanx! That’s all I’m gonna say on the matter.

So it’s Sunday, my “long run” day, and Weight Watcher day. I took off for my 4 miles before it gets too toasty. I felt slow, like I’d entered a snail marathon. Kind of like running through glue. My body was slow, my pace felt slow, and even my music felt slow.

But run was done, and a quick change to get to Weight Watcher where I was greeted with a 3lb gain. I stayed in my points range, dipping into those extra 49 weekly points pretty hard. I had garlic knots and french fries and everything else was solid.

So, what’s so? I ate salty french fries. I had way too many carbs and not enough protein. I have my period and it’s the first time I ever really was aware of feeling bloated. There was one moment where I actually felt myself expand, my clothes got tighter in a matter of moments and I had to take my ring off. It was a really strange feeling.

So the reality is I gained weight. Could be the carbs, could be the heat, could be the salt, could be my ovaries.

Lesson learned – don’t eat salt during “that time of the month”.

Not a billion degrees

It’s 6 billion degrees in New York City today. Thankfully I found this lovely indoor and sort of air conditioned public plaza to have lunch in. Lovely isn’t it? And its not 6 billion degrees here.

I’m starting a new trend… drum roll… May I present… Running Jammies!!

Yeah, that’s right, I slept in my running gear last night. Capri yoga pants, red sports bra, pink short sleeve top but not my socks or shoes. Those were right next to my bed with my iPod. I figure at 5am if I don’t have to worry about finding my gear to put on… if I ALREADY have it on, that will shave a few minutes off my morning and help this 5am running thing work. So All hail Running Jammies!

I just started a new job in the Wall Street area. I know I should probably be having lunch in the office, getting to know coworkers and being social and what not. But I have this overwhelming urge to be outside and move. I logged 15k steps yesterday with my bodybugg, 10k of which were walking around down town. After sitting at a desk for 4 hours I need to move a bit. I found this spot where I can sit in the sun in the oppressive NYC heat, watch helicopters and and hear the occasional was lap against the deck that is if the traffic isn’t too loud.
I find that I’m sort of a loner. After the forced social interaction of being in an office environment, I find that I need time to myself. No, I don’t need it but I want it. I want to indulge in silence without having to be interested in people. And that is an exceptionally comfortable and a wee bit dangerous place to fall into. I find that my social circle is rather small, and I don’t enjoy meeting new people but it’s just a story I make up to basically save me from failing at making new friends. But for today, I’m just going to enjoy the sun.

My life recently expanded. New job, new commute, an evening class, meeting with a client one night a week, and you know, trying to have a social life and stuff. And then of course that’s exactly when I decide to take on training for a half marathon. Noooooo, I couldn’t do a half when I was working part time and had no life! Of course not. I have to be super complicated. Obviously, out of the millions of people who train for endurance sports, or any sport really, contend with real lives that are real busy and they successfully complete there events, so intellectually I know that it is not IMPOSSIBLE.

But I’ve really had it in my head that it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to wake up at 5am or earlier and work out. I’ve tired before with every good intention but somehow my crazy inner Fat Girl always won the Snooze Button Battle and I’d end up sleeping in.

Well now, I came to a moment of choice. There are things in my life I want. I want to work in NYC. I want to not be broke. I want to participate in this class. And I want to run a half marathon. Oh yeah, and its become crystal clear to me that I cannot function on less than 7 hours of sleep a night. I could sacrifice one of those things and have an easy life.

OR

I can make it possible to have it all. This is a blog about making the impossible possible after all. So the way to have it all is to get super intentional about life. And live it exactly how it needs to be lived. And that means getting up at 5am and running twice a week. That means making bold requests of friends, family and colleagues that we meet later and in a location where I can show up sweaty from the gym. That means standing up and saying “I need to be on this train so I can get 7 hours of sleep”.

And what makes all of this possible is that I have found and cultivated a deep commitment to myself and living an awesome life and I am no longer willing to settle for less. And if that means 5am runs, I’m going to make that possible.

Oh crap, my 15 mins of blog time is up. There’s oatmeal to eat! A train to catch! LIFE TO LIVE!

A longer post is coming, but I wanted to get this up before my day gets going. Here is my first “long” half marathon training run. 4 miles and I’m on my way! Tons of thoughts running thru my head like “Man, I have to get faster” and “Holy crap, I ran 4 miles” and “Boy, my Nike+ is way off.” More on all that later. Happy running people!

Oh yeah, and I lost 4 lbs at Weight Watchers today. A good start to a good day.

Hey look! I can run! I can even run AFTER work!