It’s all about choices

“I didn’t have time” may be the lamest excuse in the book. There are very few situations in which it is true. Most of the time it actually means “I chose not to use my time for that.” Conscious choice or unconscious avoidance, decisions are made all the time, every day. Can I fit in a trip to the grocery before picking up my daughter at school? What if there’s a line? Is it worth the hassle of potentially freaking her out by being late? Can I do anything to make sure I am still on time, or, barring that, that she doesn’t freak out?

I’m thinking about this today because I went through that calculus and computation this morning, trying to fit all the puzzle pieces of my day into a frame that seemed too small. So many things to do for the holiday! Errands Jason asked me to run, ones I need to do, and an appointment with my doctor that is awkwardly placed smack in the middle of the day. My brain has a map, a clock, and a list all open, shuffling tasks around like some sort of bad movie animation.

 If I exercise, I have to drive back to the house to shower and change, which means no time to return the boots, and all of my exercise stuff will be soggy when I try to pack. Oh, shit, the wet laundry from last night is still in the washer. Add that to the list. This would all be so much easier if I just skipped the gym. But I have a streak going, and I know I’m going to be slacking later this week. Not the way to kick off a holiday devoted to sloth and food.

I made a choice. I could have said my day was too busy, I don’t have time to hit the gym, and no one other than me would have known.

But I do have time, if it’s important to me.

I can return the boots next week, and Jason’s errand is on the way home from my doctor. And exercise doesn’t have to be performed in sweaty Lycra to count. It won’t be a full-on workout, and I’ll be drinking my tea and writing this post while I walk, but I can make it work, because it’s important to me.

So if you saw me at the gym this morning in my jeans and sweater, now you know why. A brisk walk in street clothes keeps up my streak and cuts 45 min of cleanup out of my schedule, or at least pushes it back to when it’s convenient for the rest of my errands. It’s not perfect, but compromise never is, and besides, I have the rest of the month to do “perfect” gym visits. This will do for today.

I’m a little tired

Ten thousand steps, which for me is about 4.6 miles
Twenty-eight flights of stairs
An hour of yoga
Ab exercises and arm exercises and pushups

All done with a nausea-inducing headache, mind you, and all since 4pm. I’m All Done With Today.

Life in the (walking) fast lane

I’m writing a blog post while walking laps at the gym. Must be November.

Since NaBloPoMo seems to not be a thing anymore, I’m trying something new this year: #Create30. It’s not blog-specific; instead, it suggests trying to do something creative every day, no matter what that means to you. So if I want to write a blog post, awesome. If I want to post a photo on Instagram, more power to me. Twitter haiku? Totally counts, as long as I tag it.

Since we all know I’m an overachiever, I’m hoping to do at least two things each day, but we’ll see how that goes - I do have a life to live, you know. Gotta get the blog fodder somehow!

Interested in joining me? Check out the organizer’s site for more details: https://www.blissfullemon.com/create30-november-2018/ And thanks, Aimee, for the idea and the gumption to start this up! I’m looking forward to seeing what other people do for their daily posts.

Proof that I am trying to dilute the crazy a little

It's pledge time on our local public radio station, which means I've been listening to a lot of commercial radio in the car recently. I keep hearing the same commercial over and over again, and I think it's starting to get to me ... because walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day is starting to sound like a good idea.

Pros of participation:

• I've lost 10 pounds this year, and I'd like to keep losing at least another 10 or 15 in the near future.
• Walking - it's healthy! It's cheap! I don't have to join a gym or drive across town to do it!
• The training schedule would have me walking four days a week, with the worst of the distance training on the weekend when Jason could be in charge of Small Child With No Endurance.
• Walking that much will give me a better appreciation of the spring and early summer weather - look, flowers! Birds! Biting insects!
• I know several people who have made it through breast cancer, and it would be a good way to celebrate their lives.
• Completing it would be the most impressive thing I've ever accomplished.

The crazy:

• Dude, it's like walking most of a marathon ... three days in a row.
• Camping? After walking for 20 miles? You can't be serious.
• The training schedule is set up for 28 weeks. As of right now I've got less than 20 weeks before the Cleveland event, which means that I'd start training at higher mileages than I'm probably ready for. Like, I'm supposed to walk 10 or 12 miles tomorrow.
• Who decided it was a good idea to put this thing at the end of July, anyway? Did nobody look at the average temperatures for July and August?
• Whoa, do I really want to do an activity where chafe-reduction products are recommended on the packing list?

I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm leaning far enough toward participating that I've printed out the training schedule and I'm going to try it for a week or two to see if it's even feasible for me to do it without massively injuring myself.

I started "slow" today with a walk that was about 4 miles, and I think I should get bonus points for doing it in the 40F rain. I know I weighed about three pounds more when I got done than I did when I set out, just from the rain that soaked into my jacket (and pants, and shoes, and hair, and gloves). And while I definitely felt like I was exerting myself more than I usually do and I'm a bit stiff this evening, a walk of that length wasn't unpleasant, and I don't feel any worse than I usually do after the first day or two of working in the garden each spring.

So I'll let you know what I decide ... especially if I decide to go for it, since I'm going to need all of you to help me raise the required minimum donation to participate :)

Sense memories

I just got back from a nighttime jog, for the first time in, oh, years. Don't ask me why - my body tells me to go jogging at 9:30, I'm going jogging, especially considering how snug my jeans have been getting.

Believe it or not, I used to jog all the time, and always in the evening. Of course, we lived in Japan at the time, and it was the only time I wasn't at work or commuting back and forth, and the crime rate in Nagoya was about 0, so jogging at night over there was a little different than doing it over here. It's funny, though, how the slap of shoes on concrete and the damp night air on my clammy legs brought back a bunch of memories of running in Japan.

My route over there was a large loop that started and ended at our apartment building. Our neighborhood was insanely hilly, and I purposely routed myself up and down the hills because the downhills gave me a (very brief) break. Don't get me wrong - I suck at running. I have bad knees, I get winded walking uphill, and I have the determination of a banana slug. But jogging in Japan was one of the few ways I could be by myself in a socially acceptable fashion, and after a few weeks of gradually running more and walking less, it became a lot less painful. There was even one or two nights when I ran the whole way, a much longer route than normal, because I finally got the fabled "runner's high." Okay, it wasn't a "high," more of a "not nearly so sucky," but it was fun all the same. After we moved back to Cleveland the weather was so bad - and my need for solitude was so reduced - that I gave it up pretty soon, managing to straggle through one 5K sponsored by my employer in spring of 2000 before hanging up my shoes for good.

I last jogged in Japan in November or December of 1999, and I can still picture virtually my entire route, one stride at a time. I carried a flashlight, but that was mostly so I could turn it on to warn cars I was there when they infrequently came by. Mostly I ran in the dark, the glow from the television sets shining through front windows and lighting my way on the sidewalks and streets. I knew where to shift left and right to avoid cracks and potholes, where the curb wasn't nearly as tall as it looked, and which neighbors cooked the best-smelling dinners. I saw another runner every couple weeks, usually the same guy running on the opposite side of the canal.

I'd start uphill from our apartment, walking to the corner before I started to jog. I'd jog uphill for a few blocks, then it leveled out, then it went up again before dropping off steeply on the back street where the VW bus used to park. When I took the longer route I'd swing past a few shops that I never went past when I wasn't running, past the izakayas where I'd have to dodge the drunk salarymen if I had waited too late to start running. Back down past the school, the grocery store/supermarket, the tennis courts where the bats flitted in and out of the streetlights. Stop running at our corner, walk up the block past the new construction on the street behind us, then circle around to the front of the building and stretch on the steps before buzzing myself in.

Where am I going with this? Heck if I know. I just had half an hour of mindless exercise, and it all came flooding back, and I thought I'd better write it down before I forgot.

Next time: Why stretching my quads makes me think of earthquakes :)

Note to self: I realized today that most of my sports bras and some of my spandex exercise shorts are the same ones I wore in Japan. Eyech. If I keep up the schedule for two weeks, I get to go to Target and buy some new duds. And if I keep up the schedule and can complete a 5K before my birthday, I'm buying the biggest freaking brownie sundae in the state and eating it all by myself.

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Edited to add: I've been futzing around on Google Earth. If you want to see where our old apartment was, here are the coordinates:
Latitude: 35° 9'54.68"N
Longitude: 137° 0'15.73"E

If you search for Nagoya, Japan, then zoom in on Meito-ku, it will get you to the right area. We're just a little west of the highway and the canal which runs parallel to it, just north of the big dirt courtyard in the elementary school across the street from our building.

My god, it's a trip down memory lane. There's the temple with the dragon water spouts. The Denny's where I had my first Japanese curry. The McDonalds where we used to get pancakes. The park where we had a nice rural walk until we found the huge piles of condoms behind every shrub or large rock.

Good times, good times.

Speaking of which, I kinda miss this place: http://www.shooters-nagoya.com/index.asp . Oh, Fowl Balls, how I miss you!