Have I told you how clumsy I am?
I could sit here and write pages of
stories about how I've fallen down doing something. Tripped on
something, Fell into someone. Spilled something. Broke something.
Burned myself cooking. CUT myself cooking. Let me just take you on
a few short journeys...
When I was in elementary school I had
this secret dream of being a BMX biker. You know, doing flips and
stunts all X Games style. I say elementary school but it's more like
4th grade on into 7th. 8th grade
brought 180 pounds, so I wasn't riding the bike too much. Anyway, I
had this fantasy of being able to do all those nifty stunts and me
and my ten speed did what we could to satisfy those urges. I would
ride down the street and flip a leg onto the wrong side and sit
side-saddle style on my bike. I'd put my feet up on the handle bars.
I'd stand up with one hand... sit down with both hands off... Yea,
I know, I was hard core.
I got this brilliant idea: stand up on
the bike and remove both hands. Okay. So the logistics of standing
up on your bike can go a couple of ways, but really the only way to
stand up on your bike while having your hands free is to have one
foot down and the other up, putting all of your weight to one side.
That doesn't work too well on something without training wheels...
Needless to say I flipped over the
handle bars and the bike landed on my arm, chipping the bone enough
to score a cast just in time for summer. Kids. Don't break a bone
before summer starts. Swimming with a trash bag wrapped around your
arm is lamesauce.
I haven't been able to do a solid
cartwheel since.
Another instance I was walking/hiking
(it was woods, so does that make it hiking?) in Waverly Park in
Louisville, KY with some other kids. Louisville (that's my home town
if I never established this) is for the most part flat... especially
now that I've seen New England, Louisville is VERY flat, but the
further away from the river you get, the more hills you come to. So
this park in South Louisville had some hills to climb, not too
shabby. Unfortunately, climbing hills leads to going back down them.
This particular trail was littered with
tree roots shooting up out of the path down the hill. Katie found
one to trip on and literally rolled down the hill. Quick and easy
way to get down the hill, I guess. But it smarts, for sure.
I mentioned in my last post that my
ex-husband ruined hiking for me. This is one of those reasons why.
He was always adventurous. I'm a goodie two shoes. If the sign says
stay off the grass, I'm not on the grass. If there's a fence, I
don't cross it. It takes me so long to decide to do certain things
because if I don't understand the norm or the rules in the situation,
I can't bring myself to try it until I know. So he would find ways
to go off the path, always. I could never trust that he would know
how to get back, so I wouldn't want to follow. He'd also want to go
off and walk on things that weren't really made for walking on.
The girl who tumbles head first down
the hill doesn't take kindly to terrain that could increase her
chances of falling down. Especially not with someone I don't trust
to reach out a hand and help me back up without making me feel like
an idiot.
We had this goal in our relationship to
hike all of the parks in Louisville. This may seem like not that big
of a task, but Louisville has 120 parks (plus a handful not run by
Metro Parks). If I recall it right, we did about 25. Then we both
got to be too chubby to want to (okay, I got too chubby to want to,
he still wanted to and I felt fat and sweaty and disgusting out in
the 90 degree jungle humidity). We had our first date in a
Louisville park. He proposed in a Louisville park. It was kind of
our thing. I've just recently been able to reclaim my love for the
outdoors back for myself. It's hard when you have something you
like, then you find someone who has that similar interest (we all
start relationships with similar interests, right? Hopefully?), then
you participate in said similar interest together, then when it's
over, at least for me, you can't remember why you liked it for
yourself because it's been so long since that walk in the woods was
just for you. It's being Dick&Jane instead of Dick. &.
Jane.
I visualize a 1000 piece puzzle and you
leave the last two pieces without mounting glue because separately
they have brilliant color, and when you put them together they finish
something beautiful, but you can appreciate the fact that they exist
separately and are both beautiful too held in opposite palms of
hands. You can still pull magnets apart. How can you enjoy coming
back together if you're never apart?
Why is my clumsiness the topic this
week? Because of all the running. I finished 2/3 of Week 5 on
“Couch to 5k” this morning and I had to share with you my biggest
fear about running. I've actually started getting anxious, just a
little, before I go out to run or during the day when I know that
running is going to be in store for me when I get home. “Couch to
5k” does different intervals and once you get up into Week 5 they
change every day. Today, for example, I warmed up for 5 minutes,
jogged for 8, walked for 5, jogged for 8, then cooled down for 5. I
sit there and wonder if I can do it. I think, “Today I have to jog
8 minutes straight. I've never done that before. What's going to
happen?”
 |
| I don't think the GPS liked the track... |
And it's not the physical exertion and
it's not tiring out that really worries me to the core. What worries
me is, okay, I'm running and the sidewalk gets uneven and then I'm
going to bite pavement. I'm going to trip over myself and I'm going
to be alone and my face is going to hit the ground and I'm going to
skin my legs up and I'm going to end up doing a 2 mile walk of shame
back home. I'm so scared of falling down.
Maybe I wouldn't be so scared of
falling down if I weren't so clumsy to begin with. This morning I
ran on the track at the high school and it was so smooth and
comforting and safe feeling. But the downside to that is I can't see
the intersection up ahead that I know I need to turn right at... I
can't see a point in the distance that keeps me going.
One thing I did like this morning was
that because it almost felt like I had “nowhere to go” on the
track I was able to keep a much more steady pace and I was able to do
the 8 minute stretches of jogging not terribly quickly, but the
endurance was there. And that's the point, right? Having the energy
to get to the end of it. Not necessarily how fast I get there.
I've always had issues enjoying the
ride. I'm really trying to work on that.
In the 90's I always thought, “Jeez,
I'm going to be 15 in the year 2000. I can't wait for the year
2000.” Even now, I think, “I can't wait to be 30.” I guess it
could be suggested that I have this thing in me that assumes that
with age comes experience and I'll be better at things when I get
older. Maybe I won't be so scared of things. But I've gotten older.
I do that every day. Every month. Every year. And there's so much
of me that is the exact same. There's a lot of me that's different
too, but it's all built on a foundation that isn't going to get dug
out and poured again. It's why I try to keep my eyes up and forward.
Quick glances down as I'm climbing the ladder. Unfortunately, I'm
clumsy.
I'm trying to take this running thing
the same way I take weight loss, as a process. And I'm really glad I
have some sort of program to follow because if I had tried it myself,
I would have tried too much too fast and I would have stopped right
away. I've been actively trying to lose weight now for 4 years.
FOUR YEARS. And I'm not done. And I'll never be done. It's life
now. It will always be something I have to do, have to consider,
have to manage. It's the wet, sticky substance that I layer on top
of my foundation to start building upward, something that can slip
into the cracks in me and not repair, because I see the seams
still... but it's helped me do so many things I didn't think I could
do. Clay I try to sculpt confidence from. Something I did with no
one but me.
Food this week was tasty and plentiful.
With burning calories comes eating calories and I ate them with a
fiery passion this week. I made a Cooking Light recipe that lasted
for a couple lunches this week and it was quite tasty. It's called
Chicken Posole Chili and though Cooking Light has about 300 different
ways of making something called “Chicken Posole,” this is the one
found in the Superfast cookbook. It took me 10 minutes to make,
altering their technique just a little. I made it on the stove at
work. Here's how it goes:
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 cups cooked chicken breast (I used
rotisserie chicken)
1 can hominy, drained
1 Tbsp cilantro in a tube (mmmm...
herbs in tubes...)
1 ½ tsp cumin
¾ c salsa verde
This seriously couldn't be easier.
Combine broth, hominy, and salsa in a pan. Bring it to a boil and
set your timer for 10 minutes, reducing to a simmer. In a bowl,
combine chicken and cumin and stir that nicely until well
distributed. When you have about 4 minutes left (5 if your chicken
is cold...) put the chicken into the mix and stir occasionally. When
the timer goes off, remove from heat and stir in cilantro. This is
so good and it's about 186 calories for a 4th of the
recipe so either go nuts and have 2 servings or eat something with
it.
I think I could write so much more
today... but the sun is out in who knows HOW long here... and it's
only going to be out for today, so I really don't want to spend the
day at the computer. Despite the fact that my really large window
here next to me is giving me a great view of the outside, I want to
be where the action is.
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