Fat Girl Learns To Run

It's never too late ---------- Day 152

I was watching Oprah the other day when she had on her show Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert.  These two singers couldn’t be any different when it comes to their background and personality.  The thing that they do have in common is that their lives have changed dramatically in the last year.  Both of them went from being an unknown to being a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry.

There are other people out there who can sing and want to be recognized but don’t take any steps to get there.  I really admire Susan Boyle for her gumption.  Here is a woman who is in her 40s, dresses kind of dumpy and isn’t really attractive.  I am sure she wasn’t very comfortable with her appearance but she was very confident about her singing talent.  Her life wasn’t the greatest at the time so she pulled herself together and took the steps necessary to be on the show – Britain’s Got Talent.  The audience snickered when she came out because of her appearance and her age.  Isn’t it awful that we are so quickly judged by our appearances? Once Susan started singing, her appearance didn’t matter to anyone; only her voice did.

On the other hand, Adam has been performing in public since an earlier age.  He just couldn’t make it to the next level.  He then decided to try out for American Idol and see what would happen.  Being a fan of the show, I watched every performance by Adam and was just amazed at his talent.  Okay, he did get carried away on his first television performance but knowing Adam, it wasn’t out of character for him.  I couldn’t wait for his CD and Adam didn’t disappoint.  I love all the songs on the CD.  Also what is interesting is that neither one of them won the top prize on their respective shows but look where they are now.

As for me, I can’t sing at all.  I have a terrible voice.  My take away from listening to Susan’s and Adam’s interview is that you are never too old to try to do something.  There is no age limit.  Also, if you want to accomplish something, you can’t just think about it, you need to take steps to get you there.  In my personal life there is something that I really want to do (besides running and losing weight).  Now is the time for me to take action.

The Bashed Potato --------- Day 151

I feel that I need to stand up for the potato.  There has been a lot of trash talk about this vegetable lately. The potato has gotten a bad rap as a starchy food that is mostly empty calories.  It has been called a ‘white food’ and put in the same category as white bread.  Potatoes are a natural food that is grown in the ground so it just isn’t fair that they put them in the same room as white bread which is a processed food.

Potatoes are the world’s fourth largest food crop and the potato can be prepared in endless ways.  The most popular use of a potato is to make French Fries.  In reality French Fries are a vehicle to soak up fat and salt.  There is a hot dog place in Chicago that fries their French Fries in duck fat.  Does it get any better than that?  Then there is the baked potato which is a blank slate that can be topped with about any type of topping.  For a healthy baked potato, top it with salsa, beans and some cheese.  Let’s not forget the mashed potato which also can be prepared in many ways.  The mashed potato is a staple at a Thanksgiving dinner.  There was even a dance called the Mashed Potato many years ago.

What has the potato got to do with the theme of my blog?  Let me tell you.  When you run for long periods of time, you need to fuel your muscles.  The potato provides easily digestible fuel for your muscles.  Potatoes contain more runner-friendly nutrients than other carb sources.  It also provides about 20 percent of your daily needs for potassium, which is an electrolyte that helps regulate blood pressure and hydration.

In conclusion, go forth and enjoy those potatoes. And let’s forget the most famous potato – Mr. Potato Head.  

So Early? ---------- Day 150

I received an email from CARA on Monday with the information for some of the training programs for 2010.  Since I already knew that I was going to sign up for the 10K program, I checked what day the first session would be.  I was shocked to find out that the first session was in the middle of February; about a month from now.  Last year the first session was in the beginning of April.  I will have to find out the reason why they are starting so early this year. I hope the weather isn’t that cold next month.

On Sunday I hurt my knee after walking on the treadmill.  I don’t know why this happens.  It never happens when I run but only when I walk.  Go figure.  Maybe walking on the incline is the problem.  When this happens I don’t go on the treadmill for a few days until my knee feels better.  The part that I can’t figure out for the life of me is why my knee feels better when I wear shoes with heels than flat shoes.

I hope my knee gets better soon because I need to speed up my running program to be ready for the 10K program next month.

Game, Set, Match ---------- Day 149

This morning I started reading the book OPEN by Andre Agassi.  As I was reading the book, all my memories of playing tennis started to come back to me.  As I was lost in my thoughts, I almost missed my train stop. I don’t play tennis these days but I did so in my youth.  I used to play tennis just like I used to run but I stopped both sports.  Things change in life so you alter the things you do. 

I think I first got involved in tennis when my parent’s built our summer home when I was around 14 years old.  Inside this housing community, there was a man-made lake for boating and fishing, two beaches, a lodge, an outdoor pool and four tennis courts next to the pool.  There weren’t many people who used the tennis courts so I remember having many opportunities to play tennis with other kids and adults.  The routine was to play some tennis and then cool off in the pool.  In addition to the courts, there was this cement wall in the quarry where I would play tennis by myself; hitting the balls against the wall.  This was really a good workout.

When I started to work, I signed up for some tennis lesson at a tennis club in the city.  Since I lived in the city at that time, it was only about a 15 minute drive from my house.  I took group lessons since they were not as expensive as private lessons.  The other advantage of the group lessons, besides the price, was that I met other people in the lesson who I could play tennis with.  I remember one evening reserving a court with another woman to play for an hour.  During our court time, I slipped on one of the tennis balls and hurt my foot.  We stopped playing tennis and I drove home to rest my foot.  When I got home, my foot really started to swell up and I was in excruciating pain.  My parents took me took the hospital and I found out that I had torn some ligaments in my foot and I needed to wear a cast on my leg.   I was devastated at the news.  My activity level would be greatly diminished for the next four to six weeks.

I survived wearing the cast and went right back to playing tennis.  At another job, I met a co-worker who also liked to play tennis.  We ended up playing at these indoor courts at a public park field house since the hourly rates for a court were reasonable.  Nearly every week we played tennis at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and then we went to Nookies in Lincoln Park for breakfast. This was our reward for getting our exercise in for the day and it was also a time to just chat.

Again things changed in life and I wasn’t playing tennis anymore.  In the past 20 years I might have hit a few tennis balls here or there but never really got back into the game. I really haven’t thought much about my past tennis life until I started running.  When I drive to the meeting place of my running group, I always drive past the tennis club where I spent many years playing tennis.  These were good times and they always bring a smile to my face.  On the block where my running group meets is Nookies where we used to have breakfast after tennis.  I haven’t been to that restaurant since my tennis days so it was a really weird seeing the restaurant after all these years.

It seems like my past running and tennis lives are colliding with one another.  Maybe this is a sign to play tennis again.  Tennis anyone?

 

 

A Gaga Moment ---------- Day 148

I woke up this morning and I was still miffed about last night.  What didn’t help is that I started remembering some other things from the meeting which didn’t sit right with me.  To take off the edge, I hopped on the treadmill and did some walking.  Exercise is a good stress reliever for me.  As always I had the TV on while on the treadmill and was watching some cooking shows on TIVO. On one of the shows, Hubert Keller was making some tasty appetizers and then made a tuna tartare dish at his restaurant Sleek in St. Louis.  During the show they showed the inside of his restaurant where Keller was serving some of his guests.  Everything looked so good. If I ever get to St. Louis I will have to go to his restaurant.

 

Later in the morning, I watched the Oprah show from Friday where she had Lady Gaga on as one of her guests.  I love me some Gaga so I had to watch the show.  After Lady Gaga’s performance, Oprah interviewed her.  What amazes me is that for someone who is only 23 years old, is how humble, smart and talented she is.  Apparently she grew up in a wealthy neighborhood in New York and has played classical piano since the age of four.  That explains why she likes to play the piano and sing during her performances.

 

Toward the end of the interview Lady Gaga said that she loves her fans and had this message for them.  "I want them to free themselves, and I want them to be proud of who they are," she says. "I want them to celebrate all the things they don't like about themselves the way that I did, and to be truly happy from the inside."  After hearing this, I related it to last night.  I was being who I was; being creative; being daring.  Even though this behavior wasn’t appreciated by others, I shouldn’t have any regrets for what I did.

 

Another interesting thing Lady Gaga said was that she told her ‘people’ for a long time was that she wanted to perform with her body painted blue but was always told that she can’t do that.  Now, Avatar comes out with blue people.  James Cameron was the other guest on Oprah’s show talking about Avatar; hence the reference.

 

Later in the day, I visited my parents.  I told my mom about the incident last night (she didn’t really understand what happened).  As a result of this incident, I also told her that I was going to quit the club.  She said to me that she was in favor of me quitting the club.  Mom said that she doesn’t see what I am getting out of the club and that I have better things to do to occupy my time.  It sometimes amazes me that she can see things much clearer than I do.

 

So today I received advice from two women who couldn’t be more different.  Now I can put this weekend behind me and move on to other things.

 

Crash and Burn ---------- Day 147

Let me fill you in on how my charades activity went at our Toastmaster meeting this evening.  It went over like a lead balloon.  When I asked one of the members to come up for his turn at charades, he said that he would pass.  In all the meeting that I have attended I never heard anyone say that they wouldn’t participate.  My first gut reaction was to say to the guy that I always answered any of his political questions and I can’t stand talking about politics but I just ignore him and moved on the next person.  Others participated but no one was really into it.  Sometimes things work and then other times things don’t.  Tonight was a big don’t.

Later in the meeting another guy, who evaluates the entire meeting, made a comment in a roundabout way saying that he hopes we never do that again in a meeting.  After the meeting, I was really angry.  Here I spend all the day preparing for this meeting; going out of my way to do some real cooking (we always have a potluck dinner before the meeting) and then I get dissed for trying something new.

Lately, I have not really been into this Toastmaster meeting.  After tonight, I am done.  The dues for the club are due next month.  I am just not going to renew my membership.  I don’t need to be around people who create stress for me. 

It's not what you say ---------- Day 146

I just finished doing something that I haven’t done for a long time.  I prepared words for Charades.  In case you don’t know what charades is, it is a word guessing game.  In the game, one player acts out a word or phrase and the other players guess the word or phrase.  Why you ask am I working on charades?  Tomorrow night there is going to be a Toastmaster meeting at my house.  My role in the meeting is to be the Table Topics Master.  In this role you are supposed to ask a question and have one of the members speak off-the-cuff for about 1 ½ minutes in reply to your question.

I am taking a different approach to this role.  As I was thinking about the usual meeting, I realized that all we do is sit and stand only if we are called upon to speak about something.  No physical activity occurs in these meeting so I decided to shake it up.  My reason for doing the charades (that I am going to tell the group) is to have everyone practice their gestures which are used in giving a speech.

For the ‘game’, I have a list of five words for each member, either a thing or an action.  When the member is called upon, they need to act out their word.  This way everyone is going to get some physical movement during the meeting.  No one has done this approach before during this portion of the meeting so I don’t know what the reaction will be to charades.  During ‘normal’ Table Topics, the member should speak for at least a minute but not more than 1½ minutes.  I am putting a twist on this because the ‘winner’ of the game is the person who has gone through their words in the least amount of time.

I always like to shake up things a bit so I will let you know tomorrow how  ‘charades’ was received at the meeting.

Parker, The Human Rubberband ---------- Day 145

I had a good night yesterday since my favorite show was back on TV for the winter season.  The show that I am talking about is Leverage.  In case you haven’t seen this show, it is about a group of five people who basically are modern day Robin Hoods.  This team pulls off various scams to help people who have given up on the law helping them. What I love about the show is also the one-liners and dialogue between the characters.  I usually watch the show twice to pick up all the clever quips.  In this post, I have to share some of them with you.

The leader (mastermind) of the team is Nathan Ford, played by the fabulous Timothy Hutton.

Nate: “Yeah ok, yeah. Let’s go rob Nicky Moskone. A guy who kills people and lives in our city. Yeah, let’s do that.”

Nate: “Typical mob McMansion. They’ve got the hideous gate, infinity pool, statues everywhere.”

There is a grifter who takes on various personalities called Sophie Devereaux, played by Gina Bellman who is really British but I must say does a good Indian accent.

Sophie: “You need someone to, I don’t know, crawl through an air duct, you call Parker. Bash a head in: Elliot. Internet Porn: Hardison. You need someone to take over a movie then…”
Nate: “A, yes…an actor.”

Sophie: “When men are telling the truth, they look at my breasts. A man really only ever looks a woman in the eye when he’s making the effort to lie to her.”

In each scam you need a computer guy (hacker) to get you all your information.  The geek’s name is Alec Hardison (played by Aldis Hodge) who believes in the power of the geek.  “Age of the geek, baby. We run the world.”

Nate:  “Can you break the codes?

Hardison “The code? The codes to the Cayman Bank of Trust where the Cali Cartel and the African dictators keep all their dirty money. The ones that Moskone changes anytime he damn well pleases? Come on dude, are you kidding me?
Nate: “You know you’re very negative lately. And the sass, it doesn’t help.”

During a con you usually run in to some tough guys so you need a guy with the muscle (hitter) to take care of them.  Eliot Spencer takes care of the bad guys.  Let me take a moment to catch my breath as I write about Elliott who is played by sexy Christian Kane.  I usually don’t care for guys with shoulder length hair but Eliot can pull it off.  I actually started watching Leverage because of him.  I was flipping through the channels one evening and saw Christian Kane on the TV and said to myself, “That’s Lindsey from Angel.”  Since I watched every episode of Angel, I had to watch a show with one of the characters from Angel.  I have decided that Christian Kane is my TV boyfriend.

Elliot: “So you dropped out of priest school to become an insurance cop and now you’re a leader of a band of thieves. Nice.”

Sophie:“How did you both know there would be an extra uniform in the bag?”
Nate:“Everyone knows flight attendants are required to carry extra uniforms in case they get called to work unexpectedly.”
Elliot:“Or if something happens to the one that they’re already wearing.”
Sophie:“How does everyone know that?
Nate:“Worked airport security.”
Elliot:“Slept with a flight attendant.”

Last but not least is the slightly off-center thief in the group called Parker.  She just goes by the name Parker similar to Cher or Madonna.  The actress who plays Parker is Beth Riesgraf.  

Parker: “My money’s not in my account. That makes me cry inside, in my special, angry place.”

Sophie: “You need someone to, I don’t know, crawl through an air duct, you call Parker. Bash a head in: Elliot. Internet Porn: Hardison. You need someone to take over a movie then…”
Nate: “A, yes…an actor.”

Watching Parker in action made me think of the theme of this post.  Parker is known for repelling off building or squeezing into tight spaces.  The characteristic about Parker that is always demonstrated on the how is how flexible she is.  She can move her body in ways I didn’t think were possible.  This is why I am jealous of Parker.  I really lack in the flexibility department.  There is one stretching exercise that is popular to do after running which requires you to stretch your leg by grabbing your leg with your hand and stretching it behind you.  For the life of me, I can’t do that stretch. The excuse I am now using is the I have short arms to I can’t reach my leg. My goal is to become more flexible in the future to do this stretch.  Parker is my inspiration.

The quote below by Nate really sums up what the show is all about.  We all have our own talents.  When those talents are combined with other people’s talents, then you have something powerful.

Nate: “Grifter, hitter, hacker, thief. You were all trying to solve your version of the crime instead of just trying to solving the crime. There’s a reason we work together.”

Cabin Fever ---------- Day 144

Today it really hit me.  I have diagnosed myself as having a severe case of cabin fever.  The cabin fever I am referring to is about running.  It has been almost two months since I ran outside.  The last time I ran outside was during the Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for my treadmill but it is just not the same as being outside.

After reading about all the upcoming races in 2010 across the country in my running magazine, it made me also miss my running group.  It is nice to have a break from the logistics of getting to the place we meet for running.  I have had a long enough break and I am ready for my group runs.  The bad thing about living in Chicago is having to endure the season of winter.  In Chicago, you never know how long winter is going to last.  The ideal arrangement would be to live in a place with a warm winter climate for the months of December, January and February to be able to run in enjoyable weather. That arrangement only exists in my dreams.

Last year I conquered my fear of running in the rain.  Maybe next year I will have enough gumption to brave the cold weather and run outside during winter.  For this year, I will just run inside and count the days until the 50 degree weather.

Above Ground ---------- Day 143

Today is my dad’s 80^th birthday.  His family and friends stopped by his house during the day to celebrate his birthday.  You can always tell you are in a German household when there are about three different bottles of booze on the table and everyone is doing shots to toast the birthday boy.  Growing up I remember my dad and his friends always drinking when they were together.  All his friends had a high tolerance of alcohol and they could really drink a lot of booze in one sitting.  Even though there was a lot of drinking going on, I don’t ever remember those people being drunk and acting silly.

Even though my dad has his aches and pains, he manages to go on with his life.  My belief is that a good day is a day when you are above ground.  When I think back as to why my dad is still very healthy, a few things come to mind.  My dad had a job where he was doing physical labor all day and even now he is always doing something.  He just doesn’t like to sit down and do nothing.  With all the movement he has done in his life (and never stepping foot in any gym or ever using any exercise equipment), he was never overweight.  It just goes to show that you need to move your body to help keep off the weight.  My mom always cooked for my dad so they didn’t eat processed foods.  Once my dad retired and didn’t work as hard as he used to, he also cut down the portion size of his meals. 

My dad has proved that losing weight or maintaining weight is all about arithmetic.  You need to take in as many calories as you are burning to maintain your weight.  To lose weight you need to take in fewer calories than you are burning off.  Now if I could only do this arithmetic, I would be in good shape.