Category Archives: motivation

When I started out on this adventure, I was making laps around the culdesac street in front of the house.  I was incredibly proud of myself being able to make it 7  laps without getting bored and still being able to breathe to one degree or another at the end. I was also looking for excuses to not go out front because I looked like a dork going round in circles and because I didn’t think I would EVER be able to do this with any regularity and I had my doubts about my ability to make any progress.

I don’t know when it happened, but I realized this morning that I look forward to my jaunts (most days) and they are getting easier.  I looked at my pedometer this morning and it said that my hour today was spent going 4.45 miles.  If I can maintain that, I can finish a half marathon at the appropriate pace to not be swept.  I just need to work on more time and distance at that pace now.

I am feeling tired this morning (two mornings in a row like this have my legs feeling tired) but good.  Now, I have um-teen hours to work today but I feel great and it should be a good day.

Now for a cup a coffee and a big drink of water.

Not in a bad way though.

I upped my workout this morning to gateway to 8k (podrunner intervals) week 2.  I have honestly decided that running isn’t all that it is cracked up to be for me.  I know I can do a half marathon at a 4 mile an hour pace “walking” and when I tried running (podrunner restart) I was killing me knees.  So I took up where I left off with the walk one and I’m feeling great.  My legs burn and by the half way point my bra and my hair are completly soaked… and I’m back to feeling fantastic.  46 minutes with my heart rate at (above) target.

I’m half way through my first week on the Slim Quick capsuls.

I hit 179 pounds last night

And I realize now what susan powter meant about her thighs not touching when she walked.  I didn’t understand it before becuase even when I was at 120 pounds, my thights still touched when I walked.  I finally completely understand that comment now.  I know this becuase I can walk now without my thighs rubbing.

This afternoon, I’m wearing my leggings… drinking water… my thin Mr Potato Head t-shirt feeling baggier…

I realized, today, that I’m feeling better, healthier, happier than I have in a long time… even listening to my COWorkers arguing on the conference call isn’t too terribly irritating… which is awesomely good.

Once upon a time, I figured out that Big Brother Bill was a pretty smart guy.  He figured out how to push all the right buttons (in a good way) and get me to do all the things I thought I couldn’t do.  How?  He told me that I couldn’t do it…. plain and simple.  Once he did that, I set out to prove him wrong.  And I usually did because he usually knew exactly the things that I could do and picked those to tell me I couldn’t do.  He taught me to believe in myself.

In the last 30 years, I have discovered that I have to learn to do this all on my own… the finding the determination part of it, the figuring out what I can do and what my limitations are and I’ve had to learn to manufacture the determination to prove that I can do something and I have to prove it to no one but myself.  Fortunately, I have learned to do that to some degree.  Whenever I find myself at a challenge, at a cross roads, at a point where I have to push a little harder or dig a little deeper, I remember that I proved him wrong (or right as the case may be… since he knew I could all along) many times and I set out to prove that I can do it again.

Are there days when I have my doubts?  Sure there are.  Lots of times.

That is where I am at right now in a lot of ways.  I have started over with Podrunner Intervals doing the intervals at a jog rather than at a faster walk.  Having gone through them the first time slower walking then faster walking, I know that I can push myself to do it and that I CAN do it.  Now, it is a matter of just going through the motions again of doing it and getting faster and better as I do.  Every day I have to get myself up and convince myself that it is a thing worth doing (running… strength training… water instead of pop… the whole 9 yards) and then I lace up my shoes and just get my butt going and do it.

If I didn’t believe I could do it, that I could get my cholesterol numbers back under control, that I can ease up on some of my asthma meds and breath like a “normal” person, I would never get up and do it.

But I look back 6 months and realize that I started out walking just around the culdesac and feeling like I was going to die doing just that much.  Now I have gone through the first set of podcasts once and a chunk of the second set the first time.  Now I’m no the second lap of the same sets, no longer thinking I can’t be a ‘real’ runner because I’m too fat, too out of shape, too whatever.  Now I believe that, if I work at it… one day at a time… one step at a time every day… I can do it.  I have to do it becuase if I don’t, I’m letting myself down.