A twenty-something thirty-year-old Hawaii transplant living it up on the East Coast for the past 10 years (Boston and Stamford, CT). This blog is to document my daily adventures and things that I find cool, uncool, hilarious, awe-inspiring, and annoying. Please feel free to email me at hawaiigurlinct@gmail.com.
February 5, 2012
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Day 1 - February 1 - Your View Today
Welp, here we go again.This was my view on February 1st. It was a big deal. A very big deal.
As you know, I am the queen of lazy-dom. The queen of making up hundreds of excuses why I cannot exercise today. Which isn’t a problem, because I’ll just exercise tomorrow. Or the day after that.
But that was all changing and I was on my way from couch potato to marathoner. Sure, that was a little presumptuous as I hadn’t even made it to a 5K yet but I was sticking to my work out for two months (I don’t think I’ve lasted that long consecutively working out since I was 20). Instead of saying my ankle or back was too sore, I massaged muscles with bengay and added ankle braces to my gym bag. When the pain got really bad I would yell to myself, “you are better than this!”
That peptalk worked on January 2nd when my abdomen was killing me from what I assumed was a prolonged New Year’s Eve hang over. It was hard to stand without being in pain. So I stared at myself in the mirror and said, “suck it up Sonja. You’ve come this far. You are going to do this!!!” And I did. I’m proud of that. But the next day all that work came to a grinding halt when I found out that I wasn’t in fact hung over (I didn’t think I had drank THAT much!) but that I had appendicitis.
One tiny, stupid, unused organ was not going to defeat me. That’s why the first question I asked the doctor during my discharge was “when can I work out again?” Not because I’m tough (world’s biggest wuss over here) or even enjoy running (that runner’s high is totally a myth!), but because if I stopped I didn’t trust myself to start again.
I read online about a guy that completed a triatholon 5 days after his appendectomy. That was going to be me. But then I wasn’t really walking too good 5 days later. And then when I was walking better it was with the help of some heavy duty pain killers. And so while I waited for my body to catch up with my newfound desire to run - I lost the desire. I got a clean bill of health from my doctor and was told I could exercise. I told myself, “what does she know?” So another week went by. And then another one.
But on February 1st I ran out of excuses. So I moved my C25K app back to Day 1 (sooo disheartening) and I started again. It was the worst experience ever. I was running for 45 second intervals only and I was barely able to breath. My heartbeat was coming in over 185 bpm. I had lost everything I spent two months trying to achieve. I came home almost in tears. And I found excuses not to go back the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that.
But I really couldn’t find anything preventing me from going today. (It helps that I forgot my wallet at work and the gym is one of the few places I can go without needing money.) So I went. And I completed Day 2 of Couch-to-5K. Again. I was embarrassed to be panting after running those 45 seconds when there were people sprinting through miles on treadmills next to me. But I felt good. The breathing came a little easier. The heartbeat didn’t go quite so high.
And now I’ve found the motivation I need to not quit. The motivation of being devastated to find out that after 2 months of running, stopping for 1 month got me right back to where I started. And I never want to be there again.
