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

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”.

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!

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!

So here are the details of the Long Island Walk It Challenge 5k.

It will take place in Oakdale at 3pm and registration is 22.50 (it goes up after May 15!).

I think I’m going to get me a fancy Fat Girls Can Run Tshirt and everything!

And how are you spending your Ouchie Thursday? Me? In the fetal position, crying like a little girl of course. What? You don’t know what Ouchie Thursday is? Well, it’s the Thursday following a Wednesday when you apparently think it’s a good idea to do a 3 mile interval run, followed by kettlebells and ab work, topped off by a grueling hot yoga session. Thus, you are left with Ouchie Thursday.

I think I’ll recover with a nice 3 mile fun run.

I decided that I wanted to start a 5K training program. I can run 3 miles with no problem but I’d like to work on my time. I’ve been treadmill running all winter and now that I can occasionally get outside to run, I feel slow and sluggish. So I found a structured program designed to work on speed. Today was day 1. Psyched that the weather was actually nice, albeit a tad cold, I thought I’d run some errands. Literally RUN errands, stopping at the bank and post office along the way.

Well, that was a foolish choice. The roads I had to run on were heavy on the traffic. Now, that isn’t usually a big deal, but there’s so much debris in the roads that you have to run 5-8 feet from the curb.

“Debris? What Debris? What are you in Italy or something?” You see, my town uses salt and sand in the winter to de-slick the roads. Economically and environmentally good. Bad for runners however as there’s grit and sand bars covering the road. SAND BARS. Piles of sand everywhere.

Post-Snow Sand Bars

So not only do you kick up sand and pebbles, passing cars toss them out you. So I hit the sidewalks for safety and enjoyed a nice walk for the middle portion of my run.

Back to running 3 miles even on the dreaded treadmill! I guess I got tired near the end huh?

And how do I know I do not run as fast as a trash can? As I was pushing through the last few minutes of my run this morning, a trash can came rolling down the street past me on the kamikaze winds we’re having today. There were moments where I was pumping my arms and pounding my legs and just not moving anywhere. I’m sure little kids were pointing out the car windows shouting “Look Mom! It’s a fat girl mime!”

But I ran. OUTside. And it was good. Even though the roads are gritty and dirty and wet, running outside is a blessing. Makes me remember why I love running. But tomorrow, it will be back to the treadmill and below freezing temps. Le sigh.

I’m going to try posting screen grabs of my Nike+ account, just to bring some color and life to this page!

Running outside is AWESOME

So I got home last night at around 5pm. Weird day, won’t go into it, it was just, well, weird. The day was nice, sunny and warm. Well “warm” when you still have 3 foot piles of snow in your drive. Dinner was at least 40 minutes away. I could look at cute puppies. I could check in with developments in Egypt. I could nap.

What did I do? I ran.

I just through on running clothes, grabbed my iPod and set it for a half hour run. I didn’t fuss about the right socks, or the right shirt. I didn’t make an ordeal about finding gloves and a hat. Yup that’s right, I ran in my opera length hand knit gloves. I just ran. It was above 40degrees. No ice on the roads. Little puddles, and the light was fading fast.

I just ran.

And it was good. I got a half block from home and decided to walk as a cool down. This rolling wave of euphoria started at my feet and rolled up to my head. It was very similar in sensation to a head rush you get from smoking. And it was good.

I hope the weather holds today so I can get out there after work.