Run, Fat Girl, Run

So for the people who already know me, you’ll know most of this story already, but I thought maybe I could be a little more detailed by blogging it.

Some time ago (about 2 years and 60 pounds ago) I put “Run a 5k” on my bucket list. Why? Because a) I was had a lot less weight for my legs to carry and b) I was stupid. A few months ago, I felt like I had the perfect timing/opportunity to finally train for a 5k and participate in one. So I signed up for a smaller local 5k and started the Couch to 5k training program. I had done the C25k program before, but on an elliptical. Running on an elliptical does not equal running on pavement. I figured this time, I shall do it on a treadmill, and if the weather cooperates, outside on the road.

So the time comes, I start working hard at it. I didn’t just run, I also lifted weights to strengthen my legs so that I wouldn’t constantly be in excruciating pain after running. About 4 weeks in, I realized that it was actually working. I was running more than I ever had in my life (which was still a pretty pathetic distance) and my knees and ankles were holding up just fine. I was even able to play softball and run bases without hurting myself. Given the unmitigated disaster that was the last time I tried to play softball about three years ago, this was a big deal.

So I’m all pumped up by the success and keep trucking along through week 5 just fine.

And then it all fell apart.

I got sick.

And then I pulled my groin playing softball.

And I didn’t run for 3 straight weeks.

And then I still tried to do the 5k.

Not only had I not run for three weeks, but when it got to the morning of the race, I felt like everything was working against me. I barely slept. When I got up, I ate a terrible breakfast of poptarts or something. I felt anxious to the point of a near panic attack (this is a problem common for me that you’ll probably read about regularly). It was just bad. And I probably should have just stayed home. But I had paid $25 to run this race, and it was on my bucket list. I was at least 5/8 properly trained for this thing. I could do it.

So I get there with my stomach tied in knots. I’m not properly rested. I’m not properly hydrated. I’m still on the verge of a panic attack, but then the race starts, and everyone around me is running, and so I run. I might be using the word “run” a bit loosely by society’s standards, but for this fat girl, it was running.

So, I run. I had to slow down to a walk for a minute or so, but I run most of the first mile and according to my runkeeper app, I finish the first mile in 13:30 which is my fastest mile ever. I hope that this illustrates how much of a runner I am NOT. I’ve never been, nor will I ever be a runner. Even when I was an athlete in incredible shape, I still didn’t run except when I was being conditioned or punished by a volleyball/basketball/softball coach. So that time was my personal record for my entire life not just this incident of training. I felt fantastic. I felt like I was on cloud nine. And then at 1.1 miles...

I puked.

I wasn’t puking my guts out or anything. It was just a little bit...probably because I had barely eaten anything that morning. It happened pretty suddenly, but I’m pretty sure it was a result of all those reasons mentioned above for why I shouldn’t have gone through the 5k. As I was off to the side of the road heaving what little my stomach contained, a few of the race workers came to check on me and my answer surprised myself.

“I’m fine. I’ll just slow down.”

I hate vomiting. I feel like it is about the worst physical sensation in the world. I have always despised it. I don’t know anyone that actually likes vomiting, but I have a special kind of hatred for it. I always swore that if I ever barfed while running, that I would immediately quit because there’s just no way I could continue after spewing my guts. No way. I would have to just lay down wherever I am and hope that someone would eventually come scrape me off the pavement and wheel me away on a stretcher.

But not today.

I was not about to be the only person who didn’t finish this thing. I could hear all the nonexistant people judging me “Of course the fat girl wouldn’t finish it. She’s fat.” Screw you phantom people!!! I’m going to finish.

So I kept going. Much slower than before. There was no running involved whatsoever. I thankfully got water at about 1.7 miles and then saw my husband cheering me on at the 2 mile mark. I walked up, gave him a quick kiss that made me feel empowered to keep going, and then at 2.1 miles...

I puked again.

I mean...seriously? I had been walking. I had got water. I had just gotten a kiss from my wonderful Hubby who was there to cheer me on. It seemed like every time I felt awesome during this race, I would vomit. It was pretty discouraging. So once again, someone came to ask me if I was okay.

“I’m fine. I’ll just slow down.”

I’m an idiot. But the same thoughts that ran through my head the previous puke, flooded my mind again, and I knew I had to finish. So I trudged forward all the while praying to God that I wouldn’t die before getting to the finish line. And then it happened.

I finished.

I even ran the last 100 yards or so because I saw that they were taking pictures at the finish line, and I didn’t want to look pathetic. 

Yeah. I look thrilled.

So I finished it, and I wasn’t even dead last. There were like 20 or so people behind me. I finished at 52:26 which is horribly slow, but still...to ralph twice and still finish is an accomplishment for me.

Hubby was there when I crossed the finish line. Although I felt immensely proud for still finishing it, I also regretted doing it at all almost immediately. I felt like I was going to die. Thankfully, Hubby came to the rescue by getting me some water and bananas, and eventually I was okay.

Then we went to IHOP so I could finally get some breakfast which is awesome because I love IHOP, but then I didn’t get pancakes with my meal, and I became angry and disappointed because I thought pancakes came with EVERYTHING. I was looking forward to pancakes, but no. No pancakes. So all in all, it was a terrible day, and I was painfully sore for the next few days.

The moral of the story? I have no business running, and I will never run another 5k again...


...except for maybe the Hot Chocolate 5k because a bunch of chocolate might be the one thing that would properly motivate a fat girl to run.

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FYI, my posting has been scarce this week because my mama is visiting from Ohio, so I've been busy spending time with her this week. I'm sure I'll get back to more regular posting next week. Until then. Peace.

The next great american talent search show

The other day, I was driving to my unfairly easy job of sitting by the pool when I came to a stark realization.

I am the greatest singer in the world.

Let me be clear about something. Most of the time, I’m a mediocre vocalist at best. I can generally stay on key and carry a tune, but that does not make a great vocalist. That’s like saying a person who can form complete sentences is the next great American novelist.

However.

When I’m alone in my car, I am the greatest singer in the world. I mean, I’m on par with Adele or Whitney Houston. I am that great. Just try to disprove me. You can’t. Because it’s only when I’m ALONE in my car.

I would love to try out for The Voice, but only if I can audition while alone in my car. For THAT is the place where I am the greatest singer in the world. I figure if I can audition in my car, that would obviously be enough to get me on the show, then maybe the coaches can help me transfer my car singing greatness to the stage.

But this got me thinking...

What if there are others out there just like me? Other people who totally fail at singing in front of others, but would blow you away if there were just some way of hearing their alone car singing. This led me for the idea for the next great talent search show.

Now...there are a few stipulations. This show wouldn’t be possible right now. You might think that you could do it Cash Cab style and call it Singing Cab or something stupid like that, but no, because then the contestant wouldn’t be alone, and it wouldn’t work. So, we would just have to wait a decade or so.

Since we’re kind of descending into a constantly monitored George Orwell 1984-esque police state, it’s only a matter of time until every vehicle is equipped with a surveillance camera, right? So, we just have to wait until that point in the future, then someone needs to make this show happen.

So you’d still have to sign up to “audition.” This way the producers would know which surveillance videos to watch, and, therefore, don’t have to watch video feed for all of America and the contestant would still go on believing they’re totally alone because they don’t know when they’re actually being watched. Then, producers, or whoever, would watch until the contestant started singing. Then they’d chose the best (which of course would include myself because I am the greatest singer in the world when I’m in my car alone) who would then get chosen by a coach a la The Voice who would then help them be able to sing outside the car.


I mean, this is a great idea. I know a lot of my renditions of songs include some road rage outbursts which would just add to the entertainment factor, yeah? Someone needs to make this happen. And in 20 years, when I see this show up on my TV, I can point to this post to prove that the idea was mine first and I will sue the crap out of the network because that’s what we do here in ‘Murica.

Slower than a heard of turtles stampeding through peanut butter

Although I would like to take credit for this clever title, I got it from pinterest which is the source for most of my life now and I sincerely hope that the MLA people have someone on the task of figuring out how to properly cite a pin from pinterest. After all, they have already figured out how to cite a tweet.

My home internet is slow. I don’t mean like “waiting a few extra seconds for a youtube video to buffer” kind of slow. I mean like “most of the time I cannot even dream of playing a youtube video because it WILL NOT HAPPEN” kind of slow. No joke. It’s easier for us to watch videos on our phone’s 3G than it is on our home internet.

My inspiration for this post came while I spent a solid half an hour trying to get one, JUST ONE, picture into my previous post. It took me that long to find a viable Wendy’s logo image, get the upload dialog box to show up, and get it to properly fit into the post before publishing it.

Here are just a few examples of how slow my internet is:

• It took about twelve hours for pinterest to finally load yesterday.
• We have lived here about nine months and have yet to get Netflix to work on our PS3.
• It can sometimes take ten minutes to load one blog page. Not exactly media heavy.
• Trying to load animated weather maps will not happen.
• I absolutely cannot have more than five tabs open at once and expect them all to load property.

That's just to name a few. It's not always horrendous. Sometimes, it depends on what kind of mood our internet is in. For instance, we managed to watch season 4 of Arrested Development in just two sittings. Now...I had to get out my old PC laptop and hook it up to the TV via VGA cord for us to be able to watch it on an actual television because, like I mentioned, we cannot get Netflix to work on our PS3, but it still played. Things have gotten so bleak that I got a text from AT&T that my data usage exceeded 3 gb, and therefore my data speeds on my phone will now decrease. That's a different post to itself.

All of this creates a crapstorm of difficulty in really making a high quality blog that includes pictures, videos, drawings, comics, and whatnot. Is that going to keep me from blogging altogether? I hope not. I suppose if I want to illustrate a post or add lots of pictures, I’ll just have to go to my in-laws or the library. I would say Panera, but the closest one is about 35 minutes away. More evidence to support the idea that we live in Mordor...which I think is what I’m actually going to call where we live. No offense to the internet, but I don’t want everyone knowing where we actually live. I digress.

Words cannot describe the first world problems type of inconvenience this creates. I fully realize that there are far worse problems in the world and that there could be far worse things even in my own life, but guess what? That doesn’t make it any less frustrating to deal with.

I've heard people say that you should never pray for patience because then God will present you with the opportunity to be patient, in other words, he'll make you wait. I do not recall praying such a thing in recent history, but our turtle runner internet has undoubtedly been an exercise in patience. That being said, I would much rather continue to be patient regarding crappy internet than continue to be patient about finding a freaking teaching job. More on that another day. 

The Report of my Death was an Exaggeration: How old fashioned hamburger magnate Wendy's prompted my return to blogging.

Okay.

So.

I haven't blogged in over two years. My bad.

In the interim since my last post, I finished my Masters degree, quit my secure, relatively high paying job for the much less secure and unpredictable, low paying job of substitute teaching which is currently on hold due to summer vacation and has been replaced by a job as pool bouncer. More on that in subsequent posts...if I don't drop off the face of the blog earth again. I've also moved 600 miles away from the state I was born and raised in to a state with much better climate, much nicer people, and much better pimento cheese. That last one was the biggest reason for moving.

So now that we're all caught up, it's time to get back to business. I've been toying around with the idea of blogging again for a few months, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't find the motivation to actually do it. Why? I'm lazy. That's pretty much it. I've had lots of blog posts rolling in my head, especially the last couple weeks, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It's not like I don't have the time. I have time in torrential downpours of abundance. I just wouldn't do it.

But you know what finally gave me the swift kick in the butt to get back at it? A Wendy's commercial.

Look at her. She looks all sweet and innocent and not like the greedy ginger that she is.

Here's the deal: I love me some Wendy's. Of the ginormous international fast food chains, I think Wendy's is the closest to producing an actual burger. That being said, we now live way out in the boonies, the closest Wendy's is about 25 minutes away and it's only on the way to other restaurants, so it has become a rare treat. A large part of my love for Wendy's developed when I was in college. I survived my college years on a steady diet of 99 cent Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers. Broke college student budget + el inexpensivo bacon cheeseburger = match made in heaven (it also = the notorious freshman 15...or 50). Recently, Hubby and I were at Wendy's on one of those rare treat occasions. Given the lengthy journey to our home in Mordor (no we don't live in an allegorical version of Hell [although it is close], I'm just trying to help you visualize the scale of our remoteness), the drive thru is not an option. The food gets cold before we get to eat it. Anyway, I noticed that the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger is no longer 99 cents, but is now $1.79. A freakin DOLLAR AND SEVENTY NINE CENTS!!!! That's a price increase of nearly 81% in about six years. At this rate, the JBC will be $5.79* in twelve years. I know that doesn't seem like a lot for a burger, but when you consider it hung out at 99 cents for probably more that twelve years, then it is.

So back to today. I'm sitting on my recliner with my laptop perusing Parenting in Crappy Pictures (which is hilarious, and you should check it out), a Wendy's commercial comes on whatever I'm not paying attention to on the TV, and I just happen to catch one part of it...the 99 cent four piece chicken nugget. That's four piece. It used to be five. I think this might tick me off more than the $1.79 JBC. You know why? Because they're trying to be sneaky about it. With the JBC, it's not like you can shrink it and pretend it's the same burger at the same price as it always was. But with quantifiable chicken nuggets, you can. Now, there will obviously be a lot of people that will notice it. That includes people like myself that lived off the 99 cent menu for years. BUT there will probably be more who don't notice it. They'll just see 99 cent chicken nuggets and think it's still a bargain. Forget that you're getting 20%* less food for the same price that you would have paid a few years ago, it's only 99 cents. Nothing's 99 cents these days! So I say, be outraged! Go to Wendy's and flip some tables in protest (Actually, don't do this. It might get you thrown in fast food jail or blacklisted or something).

All that to say that Wendy's's (With all my grammar knowledge, I don't know how to properly punctuate in this situation. It's the possessive of the proper noun "Wendy's.") supposed sneaky price gouging enraged me enough to finally return to blogging. I guess it's better than letting all this crap continue to roll around in my noggin.

So, here's hoping I actually stick with it for a while. I certainly have plenty to blog about regarding my absurdly awesome and yet still occasionally stressful summer job, my job search, and my learning experiences living in an entirely new region of the country.

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* - Yes, I can actually do math even though I'm a certified English teacher. I've actually always been very good at it. I've just forgotten most of it.