Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

Alright, alright, alright… Real life intrudes from time to time and masturbatory activity such as blogging is banished to the corner, where it sits and sulks. As does Constant Reader, apparently. ‘Cept Constant Reader also whines. “Why no updates?” “I keep checking, but there’s nothing new!” “Are you evvver going to write anything evvver again?”

I have been on both ends of this problem—fielding complaints from youse lot and getting all sucky from time to time, myself, with cy about late or altogether missing posts in his daily blog—thus, I do understand.

So.

Two new developments have diverted my attention lately—one I will not talk about here (a man I rilly like) and one I will (a hobby I hope to rilly like). The hobby is running—if running can be termed a “hobby”, that is. I mean, when I think of hobbies I think of activities during which glue sticks are used. In this case, there is BodyGlide used, and it sorta looks like a glue stick. So perhaps that counts.

Now, you must bear in mind that I have not travelled on foot (to use Werner Herzog’s oddly akimbo turn of phrase) at a rate faster than a stroll in many years… I tried running—briefly—back in the early 80s, but that was a long time ago. Since then, the fastest I’ve travelled on foot has been at what Our Gang at university called The Harold Bergen Forced March—the pace we kept when we were late for film screenings. It was faster than walking and slower than running—so as not to jostle the mickeys we were smuggling in our knapsacks, natch. Having lived in Tronna sans car for 16 years, though, it’s safe to say I’ve walked a lotta miles (and I’ve certainly ridden a lot of miles on my bicycle, too).

But running? Ummm, no. For one thing, nothing ever seemed so damned important that I should have to run to it. And, for another, there was just something sorta undignified about it, y’know? (And God knows I am the pinnacle of “dignity”… *ahem*) I mean, there’s the sweating and the hair flying in the face and the jiggling boobs and the panting (and the swearing) and then there’s the blisters and the chafing and the charley horses and the blackened toenails (and the swearing).

My sister ran the Detroit marathon a coupla years ago and while I was very proud of her accomplishment, I didn’t understand the urge that drove her to do it. Also that year, I went down to Moab—in southern Utah—with a couple who are friends of mine, where he ran the full marathon and she ran the half-marathon and I remained bewildered by their desire to do this strange thing. I mean, it didn’t sound like “fun”. “Fun” to me is stuff like rollercoasters and scary movies and fast boats on choppy waters… Not sweating and blisters (and swearing). Oh, my. Not to mention the fact that my sis told me about how running marathon-like distances tends to jostle the guts so much that some runners who don’t want to stop and use the port-o-lets along the route end up with shit running down their legs by the final kilometers of a race. (Now, do you remember what I said earlier about running not seeming to me to be terribly dignified?) I just can’t get down with that. I mean, what horrible choices: a port-o-let or shit running down my legs. Tweedle-dee-dee, what shall I choose for my discomfort and public humiliation today?

Nevertheless, I made a snap decision, back in June, that I would give running a try. I have a history of making what have turned out to be life-altering decisions as snaps, for some reason. So far, the decisions I’ve made in this way have worked out very well for me, so I don’t question the instinct. Thus, I went out on June 12th and, with my sister’s advice, bought a pair of Saucony running shoes (in an oh-so-girly pink) and went out for a walk that very evening. I’d been told to start out walking and work up to running. Being the impatient sort (as you might’ve guessed from what I’ve written about my drives between Sarnia and Chatham…), that only lasted four days—even though I was long out of shape, I wanted to start to run. On the advice of another running friend (who just ran the infamous Man V. Horse race in Wales), I tried to start out at 45-60 minutes of running one minute and then walking one minute, running, walking, running, walking, you get the pitcha. Yeah. Hrm. Well, in reality, the first time I tried that, it was more like staggering and panting for 30 seconds and then shuffling and wheezing for a minute. Or two. And it only lasted for half an hour. Ye gods. Not a very auspicious beginning.

But I did get up to 1-and-1s that week (five days of this, and then biking or tennis the other two days) and then graduated to 2-and-1s the next (the two minutes being the running, the one minute being the walking). The next week, I failed to tell time properly and managed to skip over the 3-and-1s straight to 4-and-1s. This week it is 5-and-1s and I find myself amazed when I think back to a month ago when I could barely manage 30 seconds of running!

So far, my only “injury” is the blackened toenail and blister which have rendered the middle toe on my left foot hideous. Nail polish helps but nothing can hide the blister. Ugh. Dunno what happened there, ‘cause the shoes don’t hurt at all.

So far, it’s a small price to pay.

Because I am feeling a considerable sense of accomplishment after my runs. And my self-confidence level is up. Plus I’m losing weight, and getting into better shape was one of my goals in the first place.

So now you know why I’ve been neglecting this thing lately. I’ll try to do better.

(Incidentally, Running with Scissors is a pretty funny novel by Augusten Burroughs. It has absolutely nothing to do with running. The film version is coming out later this year.)