I got the music in me …

and here's why it works.

I haven't run outdoors with music in a long time, preferring to retain the ability to hear cars coming up behind me rather than get splattered all over the road listening to the theme from Rocky.

Indoors, though, if I'm not interested in SportsCenter, a good beat helps with pacing, and that article explains a bit of the science behind it.

Yesterday, though? Not so much.

I had a car service appointment in the late morning, and since it was rainy and windy early, I did, indeed, hit the treadmill. I was disappointed with my performance, to say the least. I was running-running-keep-on-running in time to something that was way too fast for my current level of fitness. My treadmill has a heartrate monitor [the grip kind], and while I don't know how accurate it is, I do know I've never seen a 190 readout. Since Mr. Shrinking Knitter was gone, I felt it best to slow down for a bit, and then to switch to the rowing machine.

So Wednesday's speedwork ended up being a bit of a bust. I'm going to try again today. The rain we're supposed to have should be intermittent; I'm sure I'll find a window of opportunity in which to walk one/run three/walk one sometime today. Heck, the way the weather prognosticators have been missing the mark lately, I can probably work it in any time. If it weren't for my one-shower-a-day rule, I could have done it yesterday afternoon, as it was really lovely.

Seven minutes into my 20-minute rowing session, the cable broke. That was a bit of a surprise, although I've been using the rower pretty consistently for more than 12 years. For all my disorganization in household matters, I was able to find the instruction book within five minutes. I called the toll-free number, spoke with a very cheerful and knowledgeable gentleman, and a new cable, with installation instructions, is on the way.

I was surprised they even had the cable in stock. If you're in the market for an indoor rower, I can personally recommend Tunturi for both quality and customer support.

Food has been going a bit less well. I'm still sugar-free, and that hasn't been a problem for me at all. It's as if I was able to flip a switch and simply not want to consume it, in much the same way that I was able to stop smoking – cold turkey. I'm the same weight I was January 2, which is disappointing, but I'm also eating three dinners each week that I wasn't eating prior to Mr. Shrinking Knitter's retirement. So I still have some work to do here.

That NYTImes article mentioned some tunes on my favorite running playlist, including Salt 'n' Pepa's "Push It" and "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers. And since I haven't asked in a while … what are the high-energy songs that pump you up?

Wanna date?

My decision to stop eating sugar last month [38 straight sugar-free days, but who's counting?] didn't eliminate my sweet tooth. I suppose humans are born with one, which sometimes makes me wish I were a cat. I've never seen a cat rummage around the pantry looking for lemon drops or chocolate kisses.

Anyway.

In my quest to find something sweet to eat that isn't also loaded with artificial sweeteners [which I think tend to reinforce the desire to eat sugar, but that's just my wacky opinion], I've found dried fruit.

I started with a simple package of apricots. I expanded my selection when I made the Mincemeat Log Rolls for Thanksgiving. [A link to the recipe is in this post.] Last week I bought a package of dates.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Do you have any idea how sweet dates are? Dates are extremely satisfying, have fewer than 20 calories each and are very portable. They're not particularly low-carb, though, if that's your thing. But the best part is, the list of ingredients on the package is one word: Dates.

The simpler the food I eat, the better I feel. I'm sure you can do some fun things to jazz dates up [I've heard that wrapping them in bacon and broiling them produces a tasty cocktail-party snack], but so far I'm pretty happy with just plain dates.

I wet-blocked the pink sweater; the wool relaxed to the point that the sleeves were six inches too long and if I were Twiggy-shaped [which is to say, no shape at all] I could have worn it as a mini-dress. So I had to soak it again and then I – gasp! – put it in the dryer. I have a knits cycle and I watched it carefully but it was still too big. So I did it again. I finally have a sweater I can wear, but it's going to have to be an awfully cold day. I literally had to full it a bit to get it the right size. Next time I use good old Patons wool, I'll be sure to make the item a size or two smaller. I will confess right here and right now that I didn't block my swatch, so it's my own darned fault. But the resulting sweater is nice and I'll certainly wear it. Maybe even on Christmas Eve.

I'm not going to go on and on about how fat I look or what a bad photo it is. It's both of those, but there's nothing I can do about it this very minute. The nice thing about sweaters is that they really do look good when they're a little roomy. Next year I'll take a better photo – I'll be smaller, it'll be bigger and I will have figured out how to focus my camera.

Maybe.

Friday Quote on Saturday

Not unlike an infant who sometimes gets her days and nights mixed up, I seem to have forgotten what day of the week it is pretty much all this week. I was convinced yesterday was Saturday – it just felt like a Saturday, somehow. Maybe because I ran.

Yes, you heard it here first. I ran yesterday! Three miles at an 11:36 pace, which is pretty awesome for me, and especially gratifying considering I hadn't run in 22 days.

Okay, on to the quote:

"Don't let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do."
~ John Wooden

I didn't know ahead of time that this would be the perfect quote for today. I stumbled upon it this morning and realized that, while the past three weeks have been pretty much a bust as far as exercise goes, I was able to rein in the eating. Best of all?

I'm still sugar-free.

I still have a sweet tooth, though. I exchanged the wrong-size pajamas yesterday and stopped at the grocery on the way home. Because when you live in the Middle of Nowhere and drive for an hour to do one thing, you can't not do something else. It would be a waste of gas, wouldn't it?

I restocked the dried fruit inventory – a couple apricots are a satisfying way to keep the sweet tooth at bay – and I also bought a couple containers of sugar-free, fat-free ice cream frozen dessert. The half-cup I had last night was only so-so, but it'll have to do as a substitute for the real thing.

Because not having real ice cream doesn't prevent me from having the fake kind.

Wendy is running a marathon tomorrow … I know you want to go wish her well.

Friday Quote Day

It's always something.
Roseanne Roseannadanna

The astute among you will note that I haven't mentioned exercise in a couple of days. I'm glad to report that my feet are healing well. I'm down to just calluses now, and while I don't think they'll go away completely, I'm able to walk – and probably run – with ease. I'd intended to resume running after Thanksgiving, but I might give it a try sometime this week.

In the past week, I've had random pain in my left arm/shoulder/bicep. It seems to migrate and is sometimes excruciating. Like in the middle of the night when I turn over in my sleep in just such a way as to create a piercing stab, painful enough to wake me up.

Dr. Internet is as baffled as I am. It may be a muscle tear or strain, caused by either rowing or lifting. But I think I would have felt something during the activity, which I didn't.

What's odd about it is that sometimes I don't notice it at all, and then I'll go to open a door or lift a coffee mug and bam! [I'm channeling Emiril here.]

My new BFF is Aleve. Actually Aleve is my old BFF, but I've come to appreciate it even more this week.

To compensate for not being able to exercise, I've been watching what I eat like a college football official watches the field of play. [Except the one in Arizona last night who missed a 15-yard facemask violation that would have put Arizona within field goal range. But the Wildcats pulled off the upset anyway, which is good for everyone ranked lower than second but higher than seventh in the BCS. That would include West Virginia. Heh.]

In addition to eliminating alcohol from my diet 17 years ago – and alcohol pretty much was my diet back then – I also stopped eating sugar, only to begin again five years later. Did you read that? Five years sugar-free! This past Monday, on my AA anniversary, I decided to give it another go. It's not like I was chowing down on sweet stuff day in and day out, but I found that on a day I ate sugary treats, I wanted more, more, more. It might as well be crack. At least that's how my body reacts to it.

As an experiment, I bought a bag of Hershey's Kisses and put them in an open candy dish in the living room. I haven't touched them since I put them in the bowl. Now I realize Hershey's Kisses aren't the be-all and end-all of chocolatey goodness, but they're little and relatively harmless and easy to eat. And I've passed them by all week long.

It's kinda crazy, starting a sugar-free lifestyle right before the holidays. I've long thought I should give it up again, but couldn't summon up the mental effort to follow through. Crazy or not, somehow now it feels like the right thing to do.

Finally.