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| Go faster! Ruuuuun! |
Ello, lovies! Yes, that's right, the title isn't Running Fast, it's Running Fat. Ah, the joy.
Some of you are svelte, elite runners. Some of you were svelte, elite runners. That is, until pregnancy hit you. I fall into the latter category at present.
I put on a dress today that I was contemplating wearing.
UNTIL.
Until I looked at myself and wondered what those floppy grossies were that were seemingly hanging from the saddlebag region of my leg. SO GROSS.
Who ARE you? I wondered to myself. I am the Flabmaster, my self answered.
Me and Flabmaster scheduled a run post-lunch today.
I have been doing a few runs here and there (combined with swimming thrice weekly and a bike ride once a week) and it was just recently that I have felt a bit more human while doing so. When I first tried running, I could not even get through a one mile run without stopping. I didn't know why - I thought that it was because I was so horridly out of shape (which I'm not denying), but there was another component there that I failed to realize: blood loss.
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| Ew, ew, ew, ew, ewwww! |
I lost quite a bit of blood and I was reading up on it at first. Some people were saying that it took them four weeks or so to come back to normal levels. I was so desperate and weak at first that I even made myself eat liver. Some of you are like, "Wha? Liver is delicious!" Yeah, no. Not so much. It was my first time eating liver and I consumed it as if it were medicine (I actually think I just started swallowing pieces whole without tasting them after four or five bites).
My legs would not lift up off of the ground. They burned like I had been doing thousand pound squats after running for a city block. I remembered about the blood loss and thought through what could possibly be happening. What I think was going on was that I didn't have enough blood to carry oxygen to my muscles, thus the burning. I could be wrong, but I was trying to piece it together.
Lately I've been able to (hopefully) get back up to normal levels and run like a human again (albeit a wimpy human). I was working on one mile runs at first, and a couple weeks ago I went up to a 5K (or just above a 3 mile run). Today I took the Flabmaster out for the first (almost) 5 miler post-pregnancy.
Flabmaster was working on all cylinders and my times were not where they used to be. I did hit my 3 block mark at 2:07 (which I usually do), but then it dropped off after that. At my halfway point, I am usually around 18 minutes. Today was closer to 20. The whole (almost) 5 miles had me home around the 40 minute mark, 4 minutes above what I'd consider a good time for myself.
Yes, it's pathetic, but the truth is that all these little pathetic-isms are the building blocks for excellence. You've got to get out there and build the foundation so that you can get back to where you once were. You've got to fast forward in your mind to your future fit self and cheer yourself on. You tell yourself to keep going. You tell yourself to c'mon over here, keep working - every step is money in the bank.
So push it. Even though you know you aren't at top shape yet, you're on the path and going in the right direction. Don't give up.
If you're feeling uninspired, put on that tight dress so you can scream in horror in the mirror. Works every time!
Peace, love and maybe Flabmaster can be my new rapper name,
Ms. Daisy
Little update - you know my fat, weak and out of shape post a couple days ago?
Well, I just did my first run. Oh. My. Good. Ness.
Easy category: Worst Run In My Life
And it was about one mile long, maybe just over. Don't ever get fat, weak or out of shape. It's horrible.
Peace, love and I'll catch my breath sooner or later,
Ms. Daisy
I found out today something I've wondered for ages. The quandry was this:
Why, oh why, do some people hate working out and not do it? (Excused are those who do manual labor daily, of course. I only wonder at this for the sedentary suburbanites and/or urbanites. I suppose some people who live in rural areas may be sedentary, and if so, fine, they can lump in, too. Heck, throw the whole world in.)
I discovered the answer today. Perhaps it is not shocking to you. Perhaps you already know. Perhaps it was something you hope the government will not spend $4.5 billion dollars to find out. (I am among those in the latter category.)
The answer is shockingly simple.
I surmise the reason people hate working out and don't do it is threefold - it is because they are fat, weak and/or totally out of shape. Don't be offended. Let me tell you why not - I just found this out because today I found out that I am this pathetic person.
I have been forced to live a very sedentary (one step up above bedrest) life for the last five months or so. My exercise included difficult things like turning the pages of books, walking from the couch to the bathroom to the kitchen table and back to the couch, and lifting my tea cup from the table up to my mouth. At first I thought I might poke my eyes out with a wombat at the torture of it, but I decided to make the best of it (studying grammar, reading more intensely, researching crazy topics, etc.) and the deep disturbance left me and I began to accept it as what must be.
But now I've gotten the green light to pick back up again and go back to life as usual. Mostly. So today I began what would have been a day in the regular life of Ms. Daisy back before near-bedrest set in. This means that yours truly was up with the chirping birds at 5:00, off to the the pool to swim for an hour with my dear friends and fellow masters swimmers.
I love swimming. I mean, LOVE. And thankfully I swim with some absolutely fantastic swimmers. Several of them have their names plastered on university natatoriums across the country. We've even had the rare and lovely pleasure of swimming with Sheila Taormina, the olympic swimmer and olympic triathlete/pentathlete. These people are beasts in the pool. I am not them, but I happily trail behind my friends the sharks, chasing them down the lanes in good guppy-fashion.
They have inspired and challenged me to kick it up a notch (or fifty) and before I had to sit on the couch for five months, I was swimming like I was my old high school swim capitan self. Last year I participated in a fun (husband's translation: insane) swim that was a 5k through a chain of lakes. I may have even lucked out and won first place for my age division. I say this not to boast of my fabulous accomplishments, I am telling you this so you have an understanding of my mindset and to show you how pathetic I've become.
I used to run 5 miles three times a week (interspersed with the swimming on the other 3 days a week) and play volleyball once a week in a league.
So it was through these eyes that I looked at the participants on the show The Biggest Loser and said, "Why don't they just like run a marathon or something? Or maybe they could swim a 10k and just get it over with! Or maybe they should sign up for those cross-state bike races. I don't get it." (I said this while doing pull ups on the kitchen pull up bar...of course.)
How. Ev. Er.
Sitting on the couch for five months KIND OF CHANGES THINGS. (This capitalized part should be read loudly and dramatically, in case you were wondering.)
So my brain was this brain who went with my newly pathetic body off to the pool. Let me just tell you, they weren't getting along. I swam three laps - THREE LAPS - and my arms started to feel it. My previous self would have many days of not feeling anything at all after swimming the full workout for an hour. So it was my in-shape brain who started yelling at my arms. "What are you doing? What on earth is wrong with you??" The arms whimpered something pathetic, "We're tiiiired. Waah."
The brain went back at it again, "Well I don't care, GO FASTER."
Arms: We caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't. Waaah.
Brain: Do you even see your 50 split time? You are seriously like the most wussy swimmer anyone could imagine right now.
Arms: Go night-night. Tiiiiiiiiiiiired. Owie.
Yeah. Good news is there's nowhere to go but up?
I got home and the hubby asked how it was. After I told him, he said, "Now you know how I feel about swimming!" He had this gleeful look in his eye, perhaps from him remembering how I smirked and guffawed when after I explained the warm up to him, he said he wouldn't be interested in swimming with me. Ever.
Yes, well.
All I can say is that I'm thankful that my brain is stronger than my arms.
And now, for a quick nap on the couch...
Peace, love and I just can't wait for my first 5 mile run,
Ms. Daisy
Do you even know what I said to my friend today? Can you even imagine the question I asked her? I am pretty sure it may be a question you have (1) never even THOUGHT of and (2) would never actually come out and say if you were to think it up.
Okay, let me preface this a bit.
This friend is totally awesome crunchy granola. She makes her own deodorant, laundry detergent, shampoo, kefir, the whole nine. She was a model. She lived off of the land in Mexico. She totally just used her scarf today to wrap her new baby up in and make a sling while she was at church. She is just TOTALLY COOL. She has studied nutrition and could hang with Sally Fallon. Like, F'REALIES. So you get me, right?
I walked up to her and it was the first time I had seen her since she had her new baby - I came over to see how she was doing and to check her little bundle out. Then, I did it. I said it.
I said...well...I said, "Did you eat your placenta?"
She looked at me with wide eyes and looked around quickly left and right and said, "Yeah, why? Did someone tell you I did? How did you know?"
I didn't. But since you're pretty much supposed to (and with her nutritional and granola background), I figured she would be someone I could ask who wouldn't ask me if perhaps I just lit up a doobie in the ladies bathroom before the 11:00 service.
I then asked her if she cooked it or dried it and had it put into pills and she just said that no, she just ate it raw.
This girl just got like 500,000 street cred points. SHE ATE HER PLACENTA RAW. She is a freakin' BOSS.
Okay, before you barf, scream and pass out - she didn't just bite it and rip off pieces like a savage beast - she did it the civilized way: she put teensy bits of it into a berry smoothie.
Yes, I am serious and YES, I think she is exponentially awesome.
Are you saying to yourself, "WHY ON EAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARTTTH would anyone do that?! Oh my gawwwwwshhhh!!!!!!!!!! Bleargggggg!!!"? Well, don't. I am here to tell you why someone would.
First of all, have you any children that you labored out through your body? If you have gone through that oh-so-totally-lovely experience, you know that afterwards you feel as if you'd like to sleep for maybe four years to catch up on some energy. But alas, that is where the hilarious irony of life begins: now you have a newborn and you will be awake every two hours for the next month and a half whether you beg, plead or temporarily go insane.
It's like having the biggest workout of your life and your body going freakish alien on you and then not being allowed to sleep or rest until your child is 8 and a half years old. It's great.
The placenta is filled to the top with vitamins, minerals and vital repair. It is high in B vitamins (B6, I think) and has specially designed chemicals that are even made to prevent post-partum depression. It is reported that the other benefits are that women who consume their placenta have a faster recovery time (they stop bleeding sooner) and some proclaim the benefits of increased or earlier milk production. Some people get all crazy energized when they consume it. I don't know. Unfortunately, I never knew I was supposed to do this in the era when I was having the littles so I cannot speak from experience.
I did, however, read a story about someone who turned hers into pills and then ate like 8 of them in one day and thought she might be able to jitter her way through a veritable marathon. I think you're supposed to eat like 2 of them per day.
Anyway, if you're pregnant, what do you think? Would you ever consider it? Is it too weird for you?
But either way, if you would or wouldn't - wouldn't it be SO GREAT for you to see the faces of people after you told them you did such a thing?! Now THAT right there would give me enough courage to at least try it once.
Peace, love and have you tried it with strawberries?
Ms. Daisy
