Sunday, February 11, 2007

Bonus weekend quote

Losers are people
who are so afraid
of not winning,
they don't even try.

Grandpa
If one must use a treadmill to do a long training run, it's good to have visual entertainment at hand, so you don't have to think about the remaining miles. It's so interesting to me that I can do a long run outside with music, but inside it's nearly impossible. Of course outside the visuals are constantly changing and evolving, from day to day and season to season. Slow-motion entertainment, if you will.

Yesterday I watched Little Miss Sunshine – an hour and 44 minutes, which left me just the last eight minutes of my 112-minute session to get through on my own. Which I did! Eight miles in 112 minutes = 14 minutes per mile. That's one second faster than the schedule dictated, but who's counting?

When I ordered the Pay-Per-View movie, I happened to choose one which allowed me to view it all day, so Mr. Shrinking Knitter and watched it again together last night. And I didn't even knit. It's that good.

One suggestion if you want your boyfriend or husband to watch it with you without complaint: Don't mention that it involves a children's beauty pageant. Instant sneer from Mr. SK when I said that. I had to quickly say how darkly funny it was; throwing Alan Arkin's name [playing the Grandpa role] into the conversation also helped.

And to the men who stop by here – pay no attention to the beauty pageant aspect of the story. It's just another vehicle, along with the VW bus, to get the family from Arizona to California.

I found that after the run yesterday I was able to participate in normal daily activities, such as Scrabble, fixing meals and cleaning the floor. The first time I went a long distance I slept for the remainder of the day. I guess this is what training is all about – your body adapts to the demands you place on it.

I wasn't an athletic child, preferring sedentary and creative activities like drawing, painting, reading and talking on the phone. I played on a girls' softball team for two years in junior high, during which we never won even one game. I wasn't the cheerleader type.

When I lost a lot of weight several years ago, my 'training' was just hours of aerobic and strengthening exercises performed in a gym in a rather haphazard way. The goal was to get rid of as much weight as I could, as quickly as possible. I had to start slowly, since I was in terrible physical shape, but once I lost about half of the weight I needed to lose, I could and did spend an inordinate amount of time both in the gym and running to and from the gym.

I rather like the way this race training is making me focus on improving my endurance, strength and speed with a different goal in mind. I do have to plan my life around it, to a certain extent, to make sure I get it all done and am able to rest properly for the next session. But it doesn't feel like I'm a slave to it. I just matter-of-factly get it done and move on to the next thing on my list.

Seventy-six days until race day.

1 comment:

Lori G. said...

I love that quote and I love that movie. I bought it after seeing it.

I'm glad Mr. Shrinking Knitter liked it; I lent it to the so to be ex (aka Mr. LCSW) and he liked it too.

That's what I'm taking from your training, it's the endurance that you're developing rather than a means to weight loss. (Not that anyone would mind losing weight, heh)