Running -- Eighty First Post

Dear reader(s), I have a confession. It's terrible, and it makes me a bad interneter. Sharing this will, in fact, have the potential to move this blog from its solid "random tidbits about my life that have little interest for anyone else (except that craigslist thing)" position to something more like a "fitness blog".
I know. Terrible. However, this blog also solidly reflects where I am in my life, and where I've been, and where I would never like to be again (in the case of a whole lot of my earlier posts). So here goes.

I've taken up working out to stave off the boredom of an exceptionally boring summer. Since I didn't have a job for most of the summer, I was pretty much stuck at home filling out job applications. All. Day. Long.
I turned to the internet, since I could take internet breaks from filling out applications and switch back in a heartbeat. Or not. Whatever. In the midst my pintresting, facebooking, and tumblring, I came across several workout blogs. I pinned a few workouts, did fewer, and then started reading the blogs.
This was a mistake. I was no longer content to just sit on the couch and watch Doctor Who all day. Instead, I picked up Buffy the Vampire Slayer because there was a "workout game" on my current favorite tumblr, Back On Pointe. Also, I ran out of seasons of the revamped Doctor Who and I'm stuck in the middle of the second Doctor because of missing episodes. Life in the first world is rough, let me tell you.
Anyway, I joined Fitocracy, which not only tracks your workouts for you (including compiling you a history for each exercise that you've done since joining) and has a thriving community of "fitocrats", but also has a points system that lets you level up, complete with challenges that give you extra points and allows you to "prop" other people's accomplishments and workouts. You can join groups made up of potentially like-minded people whose accomplishments and comments encourage you to work out more. It also has a cute little robot image that calculates your workouts; to close the dialogue box, you have to click the "I'm Awesome" button. Working out is both a game that can be won and a self-esteem booster.
Anyway, one thing led to another and I got into running. And it's not my fault. I tried at the beginning of the summer, and then I got shin splints from wearing heels when I went to The Dark Knight Rises as Catwoman. Admittedly, I was a slightly pudgier catwoman than Anne Hathaway, but still. Shin splints? Running was clearly not a good idea. Besides, I couldn't even run down my very short street without gasping and wheezing for breath. So I gave up on running "for the time being", figuring that I would try again when I was in better shape, with stronger legs, a stronger heart and lungs, and less flab to lug around.
I'm not an unhealthy weight: according to both my doctor and the internet, I have a perfectly healthy BMI. What the internet chart told me that my doctor didn't is that I'm right at the upper limit of healthy. I've been about the same weight, give or take 10 lbs, since ninth grade, and I haven't grown more than half an inch since eighth grade. The thing is that I'm not happy with the way my body looks. Don't get me wrong, it's a great body. It's taken me through a lot without too much griping, and it's put up with a lot of crappy food and piercings over the years. It's just that it could look better if I gave half a fuck.
Besides, I'll never be a Doctor Who companion if I can't even run down the block. Have you seen how much running they do?
So the summer went on, and I kept reading about workouts and working out. Eventually, I found my way to the "Couch-to-5K" (or C25K) site and realized that I could do that. It eases you into running and stresses the importance of not doing too much too soon. Running is hard on your body. It's very good for your body, but that's partly because it's so stinking rough on it. The thing with the body is that to make it stronger, you have to break it down. Muscles get big when you do strength training because the exercise breaks down your muscles just a tiny bit. The body repairs them when you rest, and they grow back bigger and stronger. Running builds up your bones because it's a high-impact activity, meaning that your bones jar against each other and break down a little. As long as you're not running all day, every day, your body will build those bones back up stronger. The problem is that people start too fast, run every day, or just run too much the first day, and hurt themselves. Most of my friends that run regularly enjoy it a lot, so why is it that I hate it so much?
According to the internet, it's because I get myself hurt. I start too fast and expect too much of my body. If I were to ease in, only run a few days a week and for shorter distances at a time, then I'd have a better shot at actually enjoying it. My little brother is on a cross country team, and he loves it. Clearly, running is hiding somewhere in my genes. Now it's my job to convince my body that this running thing is okay. So far, C25K is the best way I've found. Just reading about running, especially trailrunning and minimalist/barefoot running, will make me want to bolt out the door for a lap around the city, but I have to stop at the end of the street. I need self control, will power, and a strict plan to follow. You can buy a C25K plan for your smartphone, which would be nice if I had one, or just keep track of where you are on your own for free, which is what I do. I log my distances and approximate times to fitocracy and run on monday, wednesday, and friday, which should work well for school. I have easy tuesdays and thursdays, so I guess I could run tuesday, thursday, and saturday, but I'm not good at working out on weekends when everyone's around all the time.
N.B.: The people at C25K did not pay me to say all this.

So here's my tip to you: find a workout plan that you can stick with. Make it up yourself or find it on the internet, or both, but stick to it. Work out every day or every other day or even just once a week, but stick with it. Don't let a change in your life like moving or going back to school throw you off. And don't even worry about running if that was your least favorite part of those long-ago PE classes. There are lots of ways, impact or non-impact, indoor and outdoor, to get your cardio done.

I've been tracking my progress since july, and, quite frankly, nothing much has changed. I lose an inch here and there, then gain it back the next week. Granted, I'm more motivated now, but those love handles ain't goin' nowhere. I still can't do a real pushup, although for that I mostly blame my screwy shoulders, since I'm pretty good at tricep dips, knee pushups, incline pushups, and wall pushups, all of which put my arms at different angles but still use the same main muscle groups as real pushups.
That won't stop me from keeping on working out, though. I like working out. I like the way I feel after I've worked out, and I like logging my progress on fitocracy. I like being a part of the internet communities that work out, and I like the smell of my own hard-earned sweat. I like having an excuse to buy yoga pants and a new sports bra. I like giving a fuck about the way my body looks.
Also, I don't mean that I like the smell of not showering for three days, just that I like proof that I worked hard enough to break a sweat.

Those Things You Wear On Your Legs -- Seventy Fifth Post

I have a bit of trouble with the term "pants" now. After new years eve in England, the guy whose house my friends and I stayed at dropped me off at the train station, seeing as I didn't have a car. We spotted some men's briefs in the parking lot, and he repeatedly corrected my calling them "underwear" to "pants".
So, now I have a hard time thinking about the word "pants" as applied to outerwear such as you would leave the house in. Like jeans, slacks, trousers, shorts (which I believe can also be british for underpants), capris, etc. However, I long ago attempted to instate "Fuck Pants Friday" on which I wore skirts and feel the need to bring it back. The problem is that I now feel like I'm encouraging people to go commando. You can do that if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. And "Fuck Trousers Friday" just really doesn't have the same ring to it.
So, I guess I'll keep calling it pants, even if the english guy takes issue with that.
Actually, I won't do it this friday because I have great plans to use my housemate's printer and print off some new improved resumes and cover letters and go to some stores and fill out applications in great hopes of getting employed and stuff. I'll be wearing some of my fancypants, by which I mean slacks or trousers or something. "Fancypants" strikes me as something one would find in Victoria's Secret or La Senza or a similar sort of venue (i.e. lingerie store, if you're male and/or live in a hole).
I'll wear a skirt in the morning, if I bother to change out of pyjamas before noon. I have a fairly legit kimono, and it stifles my desire to wear real people clothes.
Because I need to share this with the whole internet, it's an awesome kimono. Sure, it's a little battered and also 100% polyester, and made by a costume company, but it's also got the funny extra bit that hangs down on the sleeves, and it has ties at the hips just like a karate gi (or will as soon as I get some fabric), and it's a really gorgeous red and gold brocade-style pattern with a pale yellow trim, and it won't be too hard to make a belt that has no velcro, won't attack the rest of the fabric, and will actually fit my waist.
Sentences die on my blogs... I really can't be asked to fix it.
 Back to the kimono, it's pretty well-made, and is even machine washable, if not dryable. It was also a whopping $8. I love thrift stores. Support your local thrift stores. It's cool now, and sometimes you find something really cool, then you wash it to get rid of the old lady smell ingrained in your $6 wool-polyester mix winter Coat that becomes so central to your wardrobe that it gains a capital letter. That one I had dry cleaned, it's true, but that cost less than buying a brand new coat even combined with the cost of the coat.
And I couldn't find a coat where I liked the style and the cut and the number of buttons and the weight and the color at all, even for exorbitant prices. I wore The Coat just about every day in England. I should probably get it cleaned again (support local businesses that way, too! Yay!) or I could buy the "dry clean in your dryer" packets that my mom found and that I used on a silk shirt to great results.
I'm always torn between frugality and being a good citizen. I also don't have a car or a working bicycle, which doesn't help. Not a whole lot of thrift within walking distance of my university, which is the main thing that I want to live within walking distance of given the lack of wheeled transportation; our buses are expensive and, in my opinion, infrequent for a university town. Plus, my uni starts classes at odd times within the hour (8:00, 9:05, 10:25, 11:45, 12:50, 13:55, 15:15, etc) and buses run on half-hour schedules at equally odd points in the hour. It also takes at least an hour to really get anywhere that's worth the bus fare.
So, I make an hour walking round trip every now and then to cheap groceries, and rarely buy anything of interest during the semester because I can't find interesting thrift stores within half an hour's walk. I could drag friends with cars along, but I hate grocery and thrift shopping with people. I bargain hunt, I comparison shop, I lug things around for hours then put it back, then leave five thrift stores with probably nothing but possibly a wall hanging, possibly a box for tea, or possibly antique Sherlock Holmes novels. You just never know. Most of my possessions that I care about were found at thrift or antique stores.
This has been a very strange, ambling post.
I'll just wear a skirt under my kimono. Maybe walmart will want to hire such a free spirited, bold person.