Altered consciousness. At last.

In my last post, I referred to "feeling good". I want to be truthful here. I think I was high.

I have been wondering at what point I would experience this thing called "runner's high". Although the running has become much easier - the first five minutes are almost not painful at all - I still never have felt really good doing it. Now, I don't have a lot of experience getting high, so I wondered if maybe I had already experienced it, and not known what it was.

I had all the big hills behind me, and was still pretty full of energy. As I rounded a corner, I found myself admiring the way the streetlights caught the fog. Then I realized, that I felt pretty good. So good. So good. That I burst into song....

"I feel good. Doo doo doo doo doo doo do.
I knew that I would. Doo doo doo doo doo doo do.
So good. Doo doo.
So fine. Doo doo.
'Cause I got you! Doo doo doo."

Yep. Sang the "doo doo"s. Gave a little hip wiggle. It must be the drugs right? Endorphins, I mean.

2 true stories involving fat

A few weeks ago (April 11th, to be exact), I went for a "run". This was before I got sick, I was at the end of the second week of three minute intervals, and I was feeling pretty good. It was one of the first days I wore shorts. As it turned out, it was premature - I had to pull my bandana over my ears, and stick my hands up my sleeves, even at the height of my heartbeat, but it provides context to this story.

You see, I have pretty good legs. Through all of the baby bearing, and years of neglect, they didn't really get fat. The thickness of the tops of my thighs had spread down towards my knees, and for a while there, I had that awful uncomfortable thigh rubbing thing going on, but they always looked pretty good. Especially my calves. Now remember, I was wearing shorts, so my legs were on display. As I "ran" along a fairly flat section of road, early in my "run", so I still had some spring in my step, I heard: "Hey Fat woman!". Since there was a teenager in front of me, I assumed that it was my insecurity showing, and that someone was paging that person. But again: "Hey fat woman." And then to make it perfectly clear: "You, in the sweatshirt!"

Can you believe that? I kind of laughed to myself, and kept on "running", but really it wasn't that funny. Maybe I should have turned around and ran my fat self right over the insulting bastard. Then he'd know fat.

To add to my embarrassment, I had big splatter of cake batter on my arm. Since my normal reaction to stressful situations is to eat sugar, I did consider licking my arm. I restrained myself - but to avoid looking at that big splotch, I refrained from looking at my watch as often as normal, and ended up frequently checking at exactly three minutes, mending my relationship with time, and ending the long stream of 1:40s I have endured.

The second fat story happened this week. After my successful 16 minute runs, I was really excited to run when Tony got home on Tuesday. However, after a long evening of trying to get everyone to sleep, I was quite happy to stay in bed for the rest of the evening. Tony came in from playing basketball, all self-righteously glowing, and told me to "Get my fat ass out of bed, and get running." Now you would think I would be angry, upset, insulted - but I realized it was his version of a motivational speech. It worked.

I got my fat ass out of bed, put on my shoes, and headed out. I did the loop to Bailey's school, and ran TWENTY TWO CONSECUTIVE MINUTES - the entire time, except for a three minute warm up walk. Not only did I run for all that time, I felt good. At the very end, there is a fairly gentle incline (relative to some of the hills around here), and I SPRINTED UP IT. Did you get that that was at the end?! I felt like a million bucks when I got home, and completely forgave the fat ass. Comment I mean.

The chocolate ban

Here is this week's list:

• FV Cappuccino


• 2 butter tarts


• peanut brittle (3 pieces)


• 3 pieces (small) carrot cake


• 2 pieces coconut pie

So did you notice that the list is much shorter this week? And there is only one week left in the chocolate/coke/cookie ban. Obviously there has been a positive effect from the ban, but I still crave all of them a lot. Not the Coke, since I have simply replaced that with Caffeine Free Diet Coke (which, although not ideal, as Tony says is probably not a bad vice as vices go), but the chocolate and cookies. And just sugar in general.

I thought that once I blocked myself from eating those things, the cravings would die down. And they are less. But no where near gone. I am worried that once the ban is lifted, I will just go back to eating whatever I want. I really want to go sugar free for a week, and see if that helps, but I am afraid. Of failure. And of intense cravings. And of beating someone up because of the intense cravings. I actually told myself that the last week of the ban, I would drop all sugar. But I didn't plan on the last week coinciding with PMS. So I am weak, and I can't do it. Maybe next week.

Mother's Day

(Blogging in real time again. You know, I heard the end of a whole story on CBC yesterday about the blogosphere - anyone hear it? I was waiting for them to mention my blog, but I must have missed it at the beginning!)

You would think that on a day such as Mother's Day, a day of pampering and leisure, I would not even think about running. After being brought coffee in bed - well, actually, it was a coffee-like beverage, since Tony just "guessed at how many beans and how much water", coffee virgin that he is. And actually, I wasn't in bed, I was on my way down the stairs. So after being brought a coffee-like beverage on the stairs, and while waiting to be served a yummy french toast breakfast with two kinds of bacon - all runners need bacon, right? - I opened my presents.

My presents were wrapped to my liking (in pillowcases) and piled on the table. There were three of them, plus a big hanging basket of flowers, which I shall enjoy killing slowly over the next month or two. I just have to decide whether I want to use sun-deprivation or dehydration as my modus operandi. Now, I am sure that in the past few weeks, I have dropped enough hints that I wanted new running shoes. The question was, did anyone (read: Tony) pick up on them, or, like so many things I say, did it just pass from one ear to the other?

After a brief argument about whose present I would open first, Cam passed me hers. Bailey told me that all my presents were for "R", so I figured I was in good shape. Yep, felt like a box. I opened it, and lo and behold, new running shoes. New Balance ones, like all the cool kids have. Aren't you thrilled for me? Well, actually, they didn't fit, but the future bodes well. The other presents were a CD player for "R" and batteries for the CD player - the good kind, not the dollar store kind.

Although Tony kindly left the price tag on for me, I have decided not to count the cost of these items as running costs. They are Mother's Day costs.

After brunch, me and my CD player went out for a run (no quotes!). I decided to try to repeat my performance of Thursday, and see if it was just a fluke or not. In the back of my mind, I thought maybe I would do a third loop and run for 23 or 24 minutes. Since Tony bought the CD player he knew I wanted (the cheapest one), it was completely useless for running. It skipped like crazy. If you want to be really irritated, listen to Obie Trice skipping like crazy. Rappers are skippy enough - they don't need help. So, I will have to upgrade the player, but at least I know that I tried to be cheap.

I was too irritated (well, honestly, I was too tired) to run the third loop. But I did do the full 16 minutes of running again. It wasn't a fluke. I am relieved.