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.