SarahWurrey.com

Fact #1: I absolutely love to swim.

Fact #2: My incredibly ill-advised stab at becoming a runner last year has left me with a bum foot. I’m actually not really sure what’s wrong with it, which is shocking since I am a certified WebMD. Maybe a stress fracture? Maybe lingering plantar fascitis? Who knows. I can has x-ray?

Fact #3: I still want to exercise–hence? Deep water aerobics!

It’s supposed to be an amazing workout.

…..

It’s reeeeeally not. Certain parts are tough, especially the arm work with the foam rubber underwater weights, that’s the only part of class where I get out of breath. Sadly those sections only last for about the first 20 minutes, then the rest of the hour-long class is taken up by ridiculousness. Like underwater “crunches.”

Note to all water aerobics instructors: You’re on the side of the pool shouting instructions, NOT IN THE WATER. So when you’re suggesting I do this killer ab move…well it’s just really not hard to do when you’re underwater with a flotation belt on and clinging to a flotation noodle. What IS hard is trying to not swallow public pool water (mmmm, urine!) and drown while thrashing around like a damn marlin.

Why the thrashing, you ask? Oh that would be from attempting to do squats while balancing with a noodle under each foot. Squats on dry land? Incredibly effective, and an incredibly simple movement to perform. Underwater squats on noodles?  Incredibly ineffective, and insanely difficult to execute without getting a foot cramp or dinged in the back of the head from the noodle flying out from under the old lady behind you.

(Insert noodle jokes here.)

(That’s what she said.)

5:40 a.m., Old Town

“You realize it’s still dark out, right now, right? And we’re about to run around and up and down hills and such? Dark out.”

“Yeah! Isn’t it great!?”

“Are we expanding the definition of ‘great’ to include ‘ridiculous’ and ‘nauseating’?”

“You’ll be so glad to have it done and out of the way!”

“I’ll be so glad when I can go back to bed. And what is this? Seriously, I thought the advantage of exercising before dawn was that it’s nice and cool. The air feels like pea soup mixed with phlegm.”

“Well, just imagine how much worse it would be if the sun were out!”

“This is supposed to comfort me? I’m going to end up like that rat in The Abyss that they made breathe in the liquid oxygen. That rat wasn’t too happy.”

“Maybe not, but it survived.”

“Damn you.”

HALP!!!!!

In related news, I received the following email from my dad last week. Now we see where I get it from.

“Wow.   I knew I was in bad shape as I have done nothing for some time now.  Did not realize how bad it was, but am determined to do something about it….again.  I took my man boobed, muffin top body to the treadmill yesterday at my hotel in GA and gave her hell for twenty two minutes (that means a fast walk with varied inclines).  After narrowly avoiding a major quad cramp, I survived.  So sore today, could not face treadmill, so I brilliantly went to the hotel pool, a small affair outside, but it is a nice day.  Water was warm, and while I never swam competitively, I know how to swim.  Nobody was mistaking me for Michael Phelps as I looked more like the turd from Caddyshack having a seizure as I wheezed my way across the pool with a vicious breast stroke.  Laps and lengths be damned in this event, I  carried on for my twenty plus minutes, and now am totally crippled.  Capped it off with a few sit ups on the incline board and can’t even laugh at how pathetic this situation is as the painful abs revolt.   Upside is I worked up an appetite, and a thirst so tall it casts a shadow.”

I know the feeling, Dad–but the thing is you’re pushing sixty and I’m supposed to be young and strong. After two days of Jillian Michael’s evil “Shred” and one early morning of cross training through Old Town, I am weak in the knees like Timer. I clearly need some cheese.

A slice, a slab, a chunk-a!

Hey, remember when I was training for the marathon? Yeah, technically, I still am. But in reality, I’ve been sidelined for weeks now and I can’t see how I’ll ever be able to do it. My sister claims otherwise. By the plantar fasciitis pain coursing through my foot right now after a morning that included only some running (and also some stairs and some hills and lots of power walking after two girls who claim to not be in great shape but, uh, are) is really saying otherwise.

Regardless, I guess it’s time to get ready for work, to say nothing of my currently desperate coffee situation that needs attending to.

So I know all I ever talk about anymore is running and the marathon and such. My friend Dan informed me that my self-deprecating posts about how crap I am at this undertaking are “not as funny as [I] think they are.” (Thanks, DAN! Appreciate the feedback! Have you met my friend, Mr. Suckitdan, yet?)

But this is…pretty much all that’s going on in my life lately that doesn’t involve cats (already widely covered), work (not something I really blog much about), or beer (and that’s happening less and less what with me actually doing exercises that are not “lift drink to mouth, repeat”). And it’s my blog, so if you gotta problem with that, I would like to politely introduce you to a little something I call “The Hand,” and urge you to converse with it.

Ahem. Anyway…

Week four was pure crap. It marked the first time I didn’t cop out on any of the runs or workouts (yay!), but also the first time I really started wondering whether or not I can actually do this thing. I was tired. I walked most of my mileage, bitching all the while, and had some major heat issues on my long run that left my head dizzy and my hands sausage-esque.

My sister also informed me this week that if you can’t make it across a bridge at Mile 19 by a certain time, they re-open the bridge to traffic and you have to take a humiliating “Losers Shuttle” back, effectively forfieting the rest of the race. My new goal, aside from just “finishing alive,” is to not end up riding the Fatty Bus back to Loserville.

So all in all, a demoralizing week. Saturday, I went out on the Mt. Vernon trail to do the four miles round trip up to Reagan Airport and back. It’s a beautiful trail, not very hilly, I can see it being really enjoyable to those who aren’t in danger of keeling over and dying on the ground alongside it, unlike me.

The worst part was the entire second mile, when I was trailing a family out for a pleasure walk. They were flip-flopped tourists, strolling along, carrying shopping bags, conversing. I was behind them, and could not. catch. the eff. UP. No matter how much I gasped or how hard I tried to add a little actual “power” to my power-walking (having abandoned jogging after the first half mile, during which I lost more fluids in the 90 degree heat than that gross guy with the armpit sprinklers in the new Axe deodorant ads). Just a bit unsettling, particularly since they kept looking over their shoulders at me, no doubt confused as to why the drenched tomato making all the racket with the huffing and the groaning couldn’t just pass them already. Eventually they stopped to take pictures, which I interpreted as a pity move. “Let’s just pretend to take a picture so the sweaty dying girl can get by us…cheeeese!”

Then, there’s nutrition. Sigh.

The good news is, I’m officially pissed. The bad news is, after heading to Maine and New Hampshire to visit friends and attend a wedding last weekend, consuming along the way approximately my weight in fried foods and drinks, I managed to lose exactly 0 weight last week. The cheerful lady at Weigth Watchers assured me this was a GOOD thing, as I had babbled to her all my excuses prior to getting on the scale, and I’m sure that running actually did stave off a massive uptick in LB’s….but damnit. i kind of thought I’d get off the hook. This is the most I’ve exercised in months, I can’t have one bad weekend of booze and junk-food consumption without punishment?

I am now ranking my metabolism somewhere in the vicinity of my Mr. Suckitdan, in terms of affecting the mood of this update. So, onto the Facts n Figures:

Week 4 of this Godforsaken Why Did I Do This And Where’s the Emergency Exit Training:

Day 1: Rest
Day 2: 2 miles, 29:50, walk/jog, hurt like a sonofabitch.
Day 3: 2 miles, 30:30, walk/jog, followed up with Jillian Michael’s Shred, which coincidentally? Also hurt like a sonofabitch.
Day 4: Rest (swapped out the rest day this week)
Day 5: 2.3 miles, 35:00, walked all of it, and not much different than my walk/jog pace, interestingly. Also did 20 minutes of hills training on staitionary bike, which was a LOT harder than I thought it’d be)
Day 6: Cross day, got up early to do the Shred before work. Decided Jillian can also suck it, along with Dan.
Day 7: 4 miles, a billion hours, as I had to walk the last mile at around the pace of a paralyzed snail, so as not to, you know, actually die, as opposed to just making jokes about same repeatedly to torment Dan. Must, must, must start doing long runs early in the morning–the 90 degree weather absolutely destroyed me, and my hands swelled up to the size of catcher’s mitts. Also got a bit lightheaded. Very bad day.

Weight: 100 lbs (see previous entry for explanation on this entirely fictional starting weight!). That’s right, after getting all fired up, I lost NO weight. How embarassing. But this week has gone much better on nutrition, except for some missteps this weekend and maybe a bit too much to drink a couple times. Memorial Day weekend during week 2 of a new nutrition plan? Is balls.

(New Mantra: Next week will be better, you will not end up on the Fatty Bus to Loserville, you will not actually die on the side of the Mt. Vernon Trail and end up a bloated corpse floating around in the Potomac and frightening the tourists on the water taxi…you will NOT.)

William and Harry (before Harry got all hot)

So my sister, Brooke, is running the Mardi Gras Marathon in New Orleans tomorrow, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t write a post wishing her luck. She’s been training for about a year now, is in redonkulously fantastic shape (and taking no end of grief from me about it, considering I myself am only “in shape” if the shape you are referring to is “spherical”), and I’m sure she’s going to do great.

Growing up with her was basically what it must have felt like to have been Prince Harry (before Harry got all smoking hot and Prince William grew a little more balding and horsey-faced with each passing day). She was always thin, blonde, blue-eyed, and gorgeous where I was chunky, frizzy-haired, lazy-eyed and generally troll-like.

just about right...

So the fact that we made it through adolescence (despite a few awful incidents that involved flying books, one steak knife, and lots of spitting) (don’t ask) and ended up in adulthood as great friends without me resenting the hell out of her whole existence speaks volumes about her coolness (clearly, my own coolness was never in question).

If you’re interested in running, you should definitely check out her blog–it’s actually really popular, I’m amazed at how many comments her posts get–and maybe leave her a comment wishing her luck. It’s her first marathon, so she’s just looking to finish without any of the following happening:

Massive coronary
Excessive toenail casualties
Loss of bladder control

And, of course, pants-crapping. I told her today that all I really know about running marathons is that sometimes people crap their pants, and that she really ought to be careful. She assured me that would not be an issue, but like a good little sister I reminded her that generally when people crap themselves it’s becasue they had no choice in the matter. She appears, however, undeterred.

I wish I could be there, because I would insist that she celebrate the accomplishment by going to the drive-thru daquiri place, and then maybe that bar near her place with all the hula-hoops. WHOO!

Huuula hooop!

Now, if you’re excuse me, I have to go to the gym to start in on my catching up with her fitness train—even if I’m currently still holding out hope that after 31 years, she’ll enter her “balding, horsey-faced, Prince William” phase any moment.

(crosses fingers)

I love my Wii Fit. If I don’t have time or motivation to hit the gym, it’s a great way to at least move around, and some of the exercises are actually fairly difficult and I feel like I’m actually working out rather than playing a silly video game.

But my favorite part are the “Tips,” where they weigh you and then give you helpful hints about getting enough rest, and drinking water, and making sure to do something every day. Then last night I got this.

Wow, thanks, Wii Fit! And just when I was starting to feel good about myself!