June 22, 2008 (Last Day of 43 Years)

The funniest thing that happened this week happened on the 5 mile Killer trail. I am really trying to get that down to 1 hr and 15 minutes. This time I was timing myself as I went along. At the 1 mile mark I had walked 17 minutes, which was 2 minutes slower than I was shooting for. At the 2 mile mark I had made up 1 of those minutes. At the 3 mile mark, I was still 1 minute behind. At the 4 mile mark, I was still 1 minute behind. I thought, I'm going to jog half of this last mile so that I can tell you guys that I met that goal, since it appears that I may never get into those old fat jeans or lose any significant weight. The last mile is the hardest mile, not just because it's the last mile of 5, but also because it has the steepest hills. I don't jog in front of people because I'm pretty pitiful. I jogged a few feet and then I saw a couple of men in the distance, so I stopped. I wasn't wearing my glasses because they get all sweat covered and I can't see with them any ways when they're like that. It wasn't until I got right next to them that I realized that they were from the math faculty of the community college that I work at. I was so covered in sweat with my ball cap and hair up that they didn't recognize me, I think. We said "hi" and kept going. Then I realized that in an effort to minimize how much extra laundry all this sweating is costing me, I was wearing the same shirt that I was wearing when I saw them the day before. I really hope they didn't recognize me. They probably wouldn't have recognized the shirt as wet as it was any ways. (I found out later that they did, in fact, recognize me.) Well, I got so distracted thinking about that that I ended up losing two more minutes and finished at 1 hr and 18 minutes. It's still my fastest time since trying to get back in shape, but I was so close that I could almost taste it. I did the trail in 1 hr and 20 minutes in the heat of the day on Friday, but this time I had my new pedometer from Human Resources and can now tell Susie that the Noland Trail is 11,125 steps, so the 10,000 steps a day that the state is hoping for us to walk a day is less than 5 miles, but still a whole heck of a lot.

I met with Marcella, the trainer, Saturday and she worked my arms so hard that I wasn't sure that I could lift my arms without any weights in my hands, much less with weights. At the end she stretched my legs and kept telling me to relax. She had my leg up in the air and was trying to push it over my head I think. Any ways, I said that I was trying to relax, so she let go of my leg and it stayed up in the air and she explained a relaxed leg would have fallen to the floor. (Who knew? Oh well.) My legs have not felt that good since before I was on crutches last year. (I'm back to feeling like an old lady again today though.) We've become sort of friends so she hugged me when the work out was over. I'm not much of a hugger, but being hugged when you're sweaty and slimy and the other person isn't is kind of humiliating. Eww.
I did the flatter 3 miles up and back of the trail today for a total of 6 miles before church. I was able to jog about a fourth of it and still only averaged 16 minute miles. Trail time is different than treadmill time. Marcella knew that I had to be jogging some to do the trail as fast as I am doing it--she actually said that was a good average. I still want to get it down to 15 minute miles, but in an effort to save my toes and hamstrings I'm doing the flatter part up an back and only doing the hilly part occassionally. I have 3 blackening toe nails and a blister on one of my toes. I think its totally unfair to have ailments like runners toes before you get benefits like a runners body. Well, tomorrow, I get to start hanging on to 44, dang. :-( I guess hanging on to 44 is better than not hanging on at all. :-)