Twenty

There's a lot you can do in twenty minutes.

I can walk most of the way to work. You can have a decent catching-up conversation with a friend. You can get about a tenth of the way through the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. You can watch an episode of something on netflix, if you cut out the intro and the end credits. You can cook spaghetti. You can try to take a catnap.

I ran. For twenty minutes. 1.5 miles, approximately. Without stopping.

My speed fluctuated - my legs were protesting, hard, like they were a little last week, so I bounced a bit from 4.0-4.5, so I know, I'm still such a beginner.

But twenty minutes.

Twenty. Minutes.

I knew today I was going to try to up to twenty, because once I master being able to run twenty, that's when I'm going to stop focusing on increasing time and start focusing on increasing speed. So this week on (hopefully) 4.5, then next week try to get it up to 5.0, and from there.

I've tried to start running before. First time, junior year of college, second semester. I think I got maybe up to...three minutes at a time? Maybe? With four-five months? And then when we were living in Spokane, for about three months in the spring before we moved, and I could only get up to 4 minutes and that killed me.

Twenty minutes. And I've been doing this for...two months?

This is insane.

All day today, because I knew what I was going to try to accomplish, I kept trying to get myself psyched up - I even planned out how I was going to start this blog post, and tried to think of all the things that twenty minutes means. And I got to the gym after work, and I just wasn't feeling it. I seriously wanted to go straight home. I was tired, I have so much on my mind, but I'm in a groove now, of working out, and I didn't want to sacrifice that and start a precedent of "well, I can skip, just for today," because that is DANGEROUS territory. And I got on the treadmill and I started my running playlist and it just...no. I mentally talked myself through five minutes, and told myself that at ten minutes, at least ten minutes, I coudl think about taking a break, maybe run ten/walk one/run ten, but that felt like such a step backwards, and I've worked so hard.

And then, at ten minutes, something incredible happened. I realized I was halfway there. My legs were killing, though my breathing was okay, but it was all downhill from here.

I talked myself into fifteen minutes. At fifteen minutes and one second, I told myself I was farther than I'd ever been. And I had less than five minutes left. And I had to do this. I had to. I had to prove that I could.

Because this isn't something I've ever thought that I could do.

Twenty minutes. Of solid running. Nonstop. Working past sweat, working past leg soreness, working past mental blocks.

I completely give credit to 1) my running training schedule that I hijacked off the internet - having goals not only gave me something to work towards, but it also told me that because this was a training plan, these were goals that I should be able to meet, and it sort of became a self fulfilling prophecy. But also, 2), being in a gym, on a treadmill, where I could control my speed so I didn't burn myself out too quickly, which I think was 98% my problem in Spokane. Yeah, I was going really slow. But I also freaking did it.

Tonight has been beyond frustrating. My computer has been having problems since Friday, and I've been trying off and on to fix it and to get help online, but just nothing is working. My CD burner/reader wasn't talking to my computer, and whenever I try to try to turn the damn thing on, unless I manually reboot, it simply won't turn on. I spent what felt like most of my night trying to get the damn thing fixed, and all I have out of it is that my damn iTunes won't freaking work anymore either, and my attempts to reinstall are...for some reason, not working. I'm leaving for Thanksgiving family time Wednesday morning and I have way too much on the brain to get ready to be comfortable wasting an entire evening on this nonsense. And since my future goals right now are kind of based around going to college for computers and because whenever I tell people I want to do that they kind of assume I already know a bit about computers because why else would I do this and I'm bad at coping with not being able to do things, it's raising my stress levels quite a bit more than they should be.

I do need to remember, though. Twenty minutes. I did that. I accomplished that much, at least.

The Dread Terrors of the Internets

You know what creeps me out on the internet more than pedo bear, ermahgerd grrl, and pretty much every other meme and crazy thing out there? (This is not a challenge, internet.)

Mandogs.

This is not a mandog. This is merely a happy dog. I like happy dogs. They are cute.

Mandogs are pictures of dogs that look TOO MUCH, I repeat, TOO MUCH like people. Some of them are photoshopped. Some of them are dogs photographed in unfortunate moments. And some are unholy mixes of mutt* and man.

*Mutt is not meant as a derogatory term, merely an alliterate one.

Okay.

Ready?

Prepare yourself.

MANDOG

Okay maybe this one doesn't freak you out. It's not too creepy,it's just sort of...got a twisted face. And big, round eyes, that can stare DIRECTLY INTO YOUR SOUL. 

Also, please don't think I'm being sexist when I call them Mandogs. It's very possible some of these dogs are female. Like the one below specifically. It's just what ended up sticking.

MANDOG

PHOTOSHOPPED MANDOG

I'm doing my best to find the original image - my first Mandog, you might say. (Or not.) But apparently Mandog isn't really a "thing" and there's not really a "database" and you can't quite "easily find things on the internet." Just as well. You'd stop sleeping. Guaranteed.

Also do yourself a favor and don't google creepy dog and then spend fifteen minutes scrolling through, it just...no.

WELL ANYWAY I guess I'll talk about fitness now or something.

Monday was a fail day. I was feeling like absolute crap, and while my respiratory was going strong, my legs were just not cooperating-I only made it 7 minutes running, called it quits and did my weight routine, which left me a jello mess and wimpy afterwards. So today I had LOST TIME TO MAKE UP. LIKE A BOSS.

And killed it. 15 minutes solid running, weight routine described as before plus two fifteen second full body planks (meant to do a full minute, failed miserably), and left feeling like a jello-y mess but a GOOD one. And then I ate an epic dinner and now I feel kind of sick because of my lousy stomach but I guess I'll go see a doctor or something soon I GUESS.

Anyway, enjoy the mandogs! Or not. Obviously not.

Disclaimer: these pictures are not mine. I don't keep pictures of mandogs. Nor do I keep mandogs. They are terrible. 

Life, working out, life, repeat...

Skipped my workout on Friday because there was too much to do to get ready for this weekend. Multiple birthday parties, and just stuff to catch up on, and trying to make sure I have Christmas presents ready to go for when I meet with the fam on Thanksgiving.

Plan is to do another week of 15 minute runs, and then more or less stay at the workout level I was at last week. My shoulders have been hurting a little on and off, so I'm making sure I'm not going to push it too far.

Not a setback, I keep telling myself! :)

So when I'm not working or playing video games or working out or being sassy, I'm usually sleeping, but I'm also doing a year long challenge of writing 12 novels in 12 months. I'm on book 11 now, which is actually a memoir, which is a variant from me because I'm typically a fantasy author. But it's interesting to me, how much it turns out I have to say when I write. It's typically easier for me to write than talk. I have daily word goals that make this challenge a lot easier (my goal is for every book to be about 50,000 words, some are more, some are less) and I'm typically writing every other day for this book, because at one sitting I'm writing anywhere from 3000 to 4000 words. This is the book that I'm definitely sure won't be published, or really go any further than my computer, but it's still good for me to write it, I think.

In other news, just started watching Walking Dead with the fiance. I think I could do a whole post praising the writing, the pacing, the suspense, the cinematography, the character development, but I'll just sum up with: SO FRUSTRATED WE COULD ONLY WATCH THREE EPISODES TODAY.

This Thursday I'm taking a day off work to go to a community college near work to register for classes for the spring. Intro to computers, probably, maybe two classes if I think I can afford it, both time and money. I am a little concerned that this is going to be tough, but I'm also concerned that it's going to make it hard to keep up my current gym schedule; in that case, I'll probably have to start going before work, which will add a whole new list of problems to deal with, but it'll be worth it. I think. Routine helps with a lot. Just gotta be sure to keep things going fresh, too.

Blah scatterbrained post blah.

God today, just...just God

Today was one of those days that was just bound and determined to be a complete ass. I mean, it's fine. Everyone has cranky times. But when it's your entire day it tends to get a bit ridiculous.

Had wicked terrible nightmares all night (when I should have been sleeping like a baby, with all the good vibes from the election going around). I have NO idea where those came from, I haven't had wake-up-terrified nightmares in a long, long time. Except for when we watched the 1950s version of House on Haunted Hill, but these were even worse than that.

The morning was okay, even though Bonnie was being a furry jerk, but that's how she is most mornings. She's excitable. She can't help it doesn't care what other dogs think is crazy.

Then I got to work...and just. Ugh.


OKAY SERIOUSLY THIS IS A SERIOUS RANT HERE BUT I AM WATCHING LAW AND ORDER: SVU AND DETECTIVE MUNCH IS JUST RIDICULOUSLY CUTE WHEN HE'S TALKING TO LITTLE GIRLS

Basically just...too many people expecting too much without following up themselves and customer service and blah blah blah.

I just...no.

And just generic dealing with photoshop makes me rageface and blah blah blah TODAY WAS TERRIBLE BUT NOW IT'S OVER.

Best thing about belonging to a gym? I stuffed in my headphones, started my 15 minute run, and by minute 7 I was feeling calmer, by minute 9 I was actually getting into the music, and by music 15 I was recharged and had run out my rage.

I started my weight routine from Monday, but I had to skip the bench press, incline pull ups and lat pull downs because after doing my squats, I was having a very painful pinch in my right shoulder. Stretching didn't help (and I think even made my left shoulder start to hurt), and because I'm always telling people not to overdo it especially when pain starts to become involved, I decided to cut myself a break on this one, and just come back extra hard on Friday. At that point, I was soothed from my awful awful day. And those last little bits of anger left are now swirling at the bottom of a wine glass.

Okay so this blog post is significantly less about working out and health and more about bitching, but that's how it rolled today. And honestly, this isn't the first time that a shitty day has been left at the office because I stopped at the gym in between; if this was my only reason to keep up a gym membership, it would be MORE than enough.

OKAY OVER AND OUT

Getting serious with the weights

You know what's super annoying?

You go do your workout, you go home, you walk the dog, you shower. You're like, man, I should be really hungry, I just did the hardest workout in the world clearly, I needs me some protein and vitamins. But you're still kind of on that endorphin high and cause your body is still processing the workouts or some scientific nonsense I don't know, and you're just not really feeling hungry.

So you kind of just start making some dinner, you start making your lunch for tomorrow because you're that person who brings their lunch and makes it the night before, and you just pop a little piece of vegetable in your mouth.

AND THE DAM IS BROKEN AND THE FLOOD IS RUSHING IN AND YOU JUST START TO EAT ALL THE FOOD IN THE WHOLE WORLD.



This is why I love leftovers and easy access to healthy meals because otherwise after every workout I would just be like RAMEN AGAIN WHY NOT IT TAKES FIVE MINUTES.

Although when I doctor up my ramen it is damn tasty, with green onion and slices of meat and carrots and when I could eggs lots of eggs. So many eggs. It almost made you forget that one packet of ramen was 500% your daily sodium intake or some shit like that.

OKAY I DID NOT START THIS BLOG TO TALK ABOUT FOOD (all the time).

I've been trying to increase my running abilities in my workouts, and I've also been incorporating a lot of weight training. Today, I reached a pretty incredible landmark, I think - I ran for a solid 15 minutes straight (we're not going to talk about the accidental hit of the emergency stop so there was technically a ten second pause at minute 13 but THAT IS MERELY SEMANTICS), which is well over a solid mile. I've never been much of a runner or able to do anything like this - and I thought it was a big deal when I was able to hit 10 minutes, the Friday before last. Last week I did a 10 minute run, a 2 minute walk, then a 10 minute run; today (and this week) I am doing a 15 minute run with a two minute cooldown. The reason for this is twofold:

I'm not running very fast, so I'm going to focus on getting my time up, and then when I can run a steady 20 minutes, I'm going to work on increasing my speed.

I want to focus more on weight training at this point, since this is what's going to really help my body transform and get healthier.

I really tried to spend more time on weights today, and I think I came up with a pretty good routine that was approx. 30 minutes long:

Side bench press at 25 lbs: x10 each side, 3 reps.
Side lift at 25 lbs: x5 each side, 1 rep.
Tricep pull at 25 lbs: x10, 2 reps.
Russian twist at 7 lbs:  x20, 3 reps.
Squats with 30 lbs: x10, 3 reps.
Pushups x10 (regular ones but still terrible form, so a work in progress)
deadlift with 30 lbs: x10, 2 reps
Bench press with 30 lbs: x10, 2 reps.
Incline pull up x10 (to work my way up to a regular pull up)
Lat pulldown at 70 lbs x10, 3 reps.

Obviously I'd have to repeat all that again to get a really *full* routine but I decided that, with the 15 minute solid run (over a mile!!!), maybe just maybe I'd leave it at that for the day.

GOOD NEWS WAS I KNOCKED IT ALL OUT OF THE PARK AND DIDN'T EVEN BREAK A SWEAT*

*everything in that statement is a complete and utter lie.

The actual good news is that that operation I'd apparently had to replace my limbs with noodles was a complete success.

I'd been weight training regularly with all this but I really ramped it up today, and for this week I'm going to keep it at this level, and next week I'm probably going to increase the numbers by at least five (so x15 3 reps, etc), and the week after that I'll try increasing weight. I'll probably alternate like that for a little while.

ahhahahahaha just thinking about that makes my everything hurt.

Then I came home and had a kickass super duper healthy dinner (despite trying to everything in the kitchen Kirby style beforehand).

And that's all for now!