Fat Girl Learns To Run

Too Much Time on my Hands (not really) --------- Day 290 & 291

There is this song by the group Styx called Too Much Time On My Hands that I heard on the radio the other day.  A line in the lyrics goes like this àI got nothing to do and all day to do it; I go out cruisin' but I've no place to go and all night to get there.  When I heard this song, I thought of how my life is the polar opposite of that song.  My problem is that I have so much to do and so little time to do it.  I wonder what life would be like if I had more time on my hands.  As a side note, this is one of my favorite Styx songs and besides that I always had a crush on Tommy Shaw who sings lead on the song.

Since I was home yesterday, I drove from the suburbs to RAM for my group run with the 5K run/walkers.  The drive toward downtown was a nightmare.  I left more than an hour before I had to get there and just got there on time.  With the slow moving traffic, I was so tempted to just turn around and go home and not show up.  I didn’t do that because when I made the commitment to be a group leader, I plan on being there every week unless this is some event that prevents me from going.  At the group run/walk we actually covered about 1 ½ miles.  Add that to my 4 miles that I ran in the morning and I got in 5 ½ miles for the day.

When I got home from the run, I worked on organizing more things in the house and when I looked at the clock, it was 10:00 p.m.  I ran out of time for the day and needed to get some sleep.

Today there was great excitement in the city for the Blackhawk’s parade.  The streets by work were a sea a red with all the fans cheering on the players.  It didn’t rain on the parade but it was awfully humid.

The humidity is supposed to be horrible again tomorrow.  It is not going to be fun running tomorrow unless it is less humid by the lake.  We are scheduled to run 6 miles with an extra 3 miles for those of us who want to run more.  I definitely need to be drinking water tomorrow.  You never know the weather conditions on race day so you need to run in all types of weather.  I have never run 6 miles since I started to run again so I will definitely run more than 6 miles to break new ground.

Blackhawks Win !!!! ---------- Day 289; June 9, 2010

Tonight was all about watching Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals.  I was packing up stuff in the house as I was watching the game since it is too nerve racking for me to totally focus on the game.  The game ended in a tie so overtime was going to happen.  In overtime the first team to score a goal wins the game.  I was a total basket case watching overtime and then Patrick Kane shoots the winning goal (he seemed to be the only one who knew and was celebrating by himself t at first).  Game Over! Hawks Win!  This is so unbelievable that a Chicago sports team wins a championship.  It has been 49 years (1961) since the Blackhawks last won the cup.  The only thing better would have been if the Hawks won at home.

Even though the game was won in Philadelphia, there is a lot of celebrating going on in Chicago.  The streets of Wrigleyville are packed with celebrating fans.  Fans are also gathered around the United Center.  I think that a lot of people won’t make it to work tomorrow.  Now all the beards can come off of the players and fans.  It was good see all the players take their turn and lift up the cup.  The players were just so happy to have won.  They certainly worked hard and long to get to this point.  In their dressing room, they are cracking open bottles of champagne and spraying champagne all over one another.  Some of these players are so young that they are barely of drinking age.  I am sure that the celebrating will continue on their plane ride back to Chicago.

Now I can get my life back since the hockey season is over.

A House is not a Home ---------- Day 288

Yesterday we put our house on the market to sell.  After living in the house for so many years, it is sad to leave the house but at the same time it is exciting to move to another place.  The house wasn’t just a place we lived but a home where memories were created; some good and some not so good.  It is the only place that my son has lived.  As he goes off to college in a few months, he will still come home but the house won’t be the same.  Things don’t always stay the same.

Now the tedious part is to get the house ready for picture taking.  As part of the staging process, the house needs to be void of all personal belongings.  I spent many hours yesterday moving stuff around the house and getting stuff out of the house and bringing it into the garage or to my parent’s house.   No wonder I fell asleep in about 2 seconds last night.

There is one part of the house that I really made my own.  That is the Martini Lounge.  A few years back I had a vision to create this lounge area to hang out in and relax over drinks.  I didn’t have an extra room for the lounge so my dad put up a wall in our family room to create an intimate place for the lounge.  The walls in the space were painted purple and the décor had this French influence drawing from Paris and New Orleans.  The interesting part about this space was that no natural light entered the space so you could be having cocktails and noon and you would think it was nighttime.  I really loved this space since it was a place that my decorating vision became a reality. 

This lounge space is totally my taste and reflects who I am but the space is not the taste of most buyers.   As much as I hated to do it, the purple walls had to be painted a neutral color and most of the lounge accessories were minimized.  The lounge might be gone now but it doesn’t mean that I can’t create another lounge at some other point in my life.  The vision of the lounge still remains inside my head.  Tonight I feel like Scarlet in Gone With the Wind in the scene were her house burns down and she says that she will build again.  I will also build again.

Commit to the Run ----------- Day 287

Today was a vacation day for me. Since today was a running day, I decided to get my run in the first thing in the morning. Having more time today, I decided to drive to the lakefront to run.  I know it is good weather for running when I am cold in the car with my running gear on and need to turn on the heat in the car for awhile.  The only bad thing about driving to the lake is that there is more traffic on a work day then on Saturday morning or a holiday.

Once I arrived at the beach, I parked in the same area as usual to begin my run.  What can I say, I’m a creature of habit.  So I get on the path and then power up my watch.  To my dismay, I get a message on the watch that says my battery is low.  I have been enjoying my watch so much that I forgot to charge it.  There’s nothing more useless than wearing a watch during your run with a blank screen.  I am never going to make that mistake again.  At least I was on a familiar path so I knew how far I wanted to run.  I didn’t take a look at the running schedule before I left so I decided to run 6 miles.

As I was running, I did notice a fair amount of people on the path.  Since it was around 8:00 a.m. that I was running, I was thinking to myself, “Don’t these people have to work?.  Today was a much better running day for me than on Saturday.  I got into a good pace and kept it up during the run without suffering through the run.  I do have the feeling that I need to get new running shoes since the cushioning doesn’t seem so cushiony anymore.  As I was running by myself, I was thinking about how easy it would be just to quit running and walk the rest of the way.  The thing about cheating on your run is that you are only going to hurt your own running progress.

Taking the theme from the Blackhawks during their playoff run “Commit to the Cup’, my mantra is going to be “Commit to the Run”.  At least I have two days to get ready for the next Hawks playoff game.  When I was watching the game yesterday, it was just so intense for me with no scoring so far, that I went to the store to get bananas.  When I got back home, the Hawks were leading 3 to 0.  Maybe I need to go to the store more often during a game.  And because it can’t be said enough times  --- Go Hawks!!!

What Not To Wear ----------- Days 285 & 286

Before our Saturday group runs, our Site Coordinator, Dennis, always has a few words of wisdom for the runners.  He told us that during our training runs is a time to try out things to see what works and what doesn’t work.  Dennis promised us a story last week which he told us this week.  He was going to run the Boston Marathon one year and picked up a new pair of running shorts to wear for the race which were similar to the ones he usually wears.  As he was running the race, he developed chaffing from the shorts.  This problem was attended to at one of the aid stations.  After using the bathroom during the race, the string in the shorts came out.  To keep his pants up, he used two of the pins from his bib to hold the front of his shorts up but the back of the shorts were still kind of hanging there.  This shorts problem was resolved at another aid stations along the way.  The lesson from this story is not to try anything new for a race or do as I say and not as I do.

Having clothes mishaps is not only something that happens in running.  Years ago I remember wearing this new skirt to work.  As I was leaving the train station and started to walk towards work, I felt something tight around my legs. When I looked down, my slip was wrapped around my legs, the elastic had broken.  Now this was a skirt were you needed to wear a slip.  Luckily there was this clothing store nearby that I went into to buy another slip before going to work.  I have also learned that if you wear a skirt to work and you need to do some walking to get to work, always check the weather conditions.  One day I decided to wear this full, flared skirt when it was windy.  Bad mistake.  The wind went underneath my skirt and was lifting it up.  The whole way to work I was trying to hold down my skirt so it wouldn’t blow up over my head.  I could go on about other bad clothes decisions that I have made in the past but back to running.

So far my Saturday runs have felt good.  Yesterday was not a good run for me. I really struggled at the end of the run. When I don’t have a good run, I try to analyze what I did wrong.  On Friday night, I worked late and didn’t eat until 9:00 p.m. and because I ate this late, I didn’t sleep so well.  It didn’t help that I ate pizza either.  Since I ate late, I didn’t eat anything in the morning because I still felt full.   I think my body retaliated during the run because I wasn’t treating it well.  The high humidity didn’t help either.  I have learned what not to do before a race.  I will be more conscience of what I do on Friday nights from now on.

Short, Long Week --------- Day 284

It was one of those days where I was at the computer all day.  I was so into a project that I hardly got out of chair.  It felt really good to walk to the train and get my body moving.  After being at the computer so much today, the last thing I want to do is sit at the computer now that I am at home.

The forecast for tomorrow calls for rain.  With the Chicago weather you really never know what the weather will be like.  As long as it is not lighting or thundering, we will do our group run in the morning.  Since it was a long short work week, I am off to bed to rest up for tomorrow.

Leader of the Pack ---------- Day 283

With all my son’s activities this week, I was exhausted after work today.  I just wanted to go home and go to sleep.  That didn’t happen because I volunteered to be a group leader for the 5K training program at RAM.  The drive there was really quick from where I was parked and the best part was that I was able to park on the streets by the store – no permit parking.  When I got into the store, I saw Laura right away.  I still needed to put on my running shorts so Laura showed me where the dressing rooms were located.

As I was waiting the store, I saw Shannon and Fred (one of the group leaders from my Thursday night training program).  It was like that gang was back together.  Another guy, Ed, also volunteered to be a group leader.  Mike wanted us to wear one of the store’s shirts so that we could easily be identified as a group leader.  That was a really nice of Mike to do that for us.  I can always use another technical shirt.  After the clinic, we were introduced to the people who signed up for the program.

There were 3 levels of runners so the group leaders were split among the groups.  I did the walk/run group with Mike.  My group would run around this small park.  The training this week was to run for a minute and then walk for a minute for a total of 15 minutes.    As we started to run, we introduced each other.  There was Denise, Linda, Sarah and Sophie who I ran with.  Mike stayed further back with another girl who was walking more than running.  Even though Mike was tracking the time, it also helped that I had my watch on.

I found volunteering as a group leader very rewarding.  A year ago I was in the same place as these women so I know exactly how they felt.  As they were asking me questions about running, I realized how much I have learned in the past year.  It was a good feeling giving back some of my time to the running community.

I was a little nervous on how I would do as a group leader but I think I did okay.  For me it was very important to receive encouragement during a run when I was starting out so I tried to do the same for my group of ladies.   It was a good start to the program this evening.  I look forward to doing it again next week.

Graduation Day ---------- Day 282

It’s finally over.  My son is officially done with High School.  The graduation ceremony was tonight.  Since we got there early, we were able to sit on the good seats instead of the bleachers.  No more school events that I need to go to.  I think it is going to take my son a few days for it all to sink in. 

Today was National Running Day which I would have liked to have participated in but I had more important things to do.  The last week has been all over the place for me.  I hope to get back on track with my running and eating.  Tomorrow night I am going to RAM to be a group leader for the 5K training.  We will see how that goes.

It's All in the Knees ---------- Day 281

Tonight was my son’s last band banquet.  At this event, all the various band groups are given an award and individual band members are recognized for their outstanding contribution to the band program.  The theme for this year’s event was Hawaiian.  Before the banquet started, the Polynesian dancers (who would perform later) were giving hula lessons for anyone interested.  I, of course, went on the floor to learn a dance.  As I looked around the small group of women, I was the only parent on the dance floor surrounded by students.   Apparently, I was the only adult willing to make a fool out of herself.  During the dance lessons I learned that if you keep your knees bent and then move side to side, your hips automatically start to sway back and forth.  I guess it is all in the knees.

The way I look at it, it there is an opportunity to try something new, why not go for it.  I must say that I learn dance moves easily.  I would so do Dancing With the Stars if I was asked but that will never happen.  I remember going to this Country and Western place years ago where they were giving line dancing lessons.  The guy that I was with at the place tried to follow the steps of the dance but was so bad that I had to tell him to sit down.  Just watching him trying to dance made me crazy.  What can I say, I just don’t have patience with people who don’t get it right away and don’t realize that they don’t get it.

At the end of the banquet, the Band Director announced that he was retiring in two years.  He didn’t want to make the announcement so early but rumors were circulating about him retiring so he made those rumors official.   He did say that the Senior Class was the best bunch of musicians that he has had in his 27 years at the school.  That was nice to hear since my son was in that group.

Tomorrow is graduation day and then High School is officially over for me son.