Splintastic dawn rising . . .

Some random thoughts:
1. Now that the annual fall time change has occurred the sun rises about halfway through bootcamp every morning. Sure, it’s pretty and all that but it makes me feel like I’m running late every day. And I always get that uncomfortable feeling that I’ve stayed on the dance floor too long and my makeup is all sweated off and that sexy gyration I was just doing has suddenly become kind of scary when they unkindly turn on all the fluourescents and tell us its time to LEAVE.
2. My shins don’t mind jogging but they’re not a big fan of sprinting. I had almost no problem with them in the 5K but they consistently hurt during bootcamp. Yesterday we did sprinting and I’ve been hobbling around with sore shins and one aching hamstring ever since. This morning we did Altitude Adjustment and tackled hills all morning. My legs are uber annoyed with me right now. But that’s ok. I have a 6 year old. I am impervious to whining.
3. My abs continue to amaze me. Situps are the easiest exercise we do, I look forward to them as a break from everything else. I’m wondering if they were already in better shape than I gave them credit for due to compensating for my weak back for all those years.
4. My back feels good, I still am careful about the way I move it sometimes but so far it has taken everything I’ve dished out.
5. I’ve mapped out five races I want to run over the next 2 months, including the Paideia one this weekend. Three are in consecutive weekends in December, all are 5K. I’m also eyeing the St. Pete Beach Classic on January 19. That’s MLK weekend and my vacation will have rolled over so we could visit family, hit the beach and I could run a really cool race. There is both a 5K and an 8K option. Doing the 8K would rock, then I could shoot for a 10K sometime in the Spring.
6. One of the major stressors in my marriage over time has been my lack of health and fitness and my husband’s concern about same. Given my current attitude I can’t really explain why I resisted exercising for so long. I remember major fights about his expectations that I could do things like “run”. I used to tell him that demanding something like that was totally unreasonable, that I could NEVER be a “runner”. If bootcamp had been advertised as a runner’s camp I’d never have signed up. I would do things like walking, and not particularly quickly. I was all about the “low impact” options. I believe that having low impact options is important, and done properly they are valid cardio workouts. But I abused the “low impact” terminology and translated it into minimal effort. I put great faith into this “8 Minutes in the Morning” workout that was on all the talk shows a few years ago, completely ignoring that the author of that program said you ALSO had to do cardio three times a week in addition to the 8 minutes of sitting in a chair lifting 3 lb weights. So when my back would go out, or when I couldn’t manage something physical, he would get frustrated because he felt like I had put myself in that position needlessly. And he was right to be frustrated. So last week when he was feeling badly due to some health issues going on with him I got really frustrated with him because I felt he hadn’t been taking care of himself and I snapped at him, “I’ve got limited sympathy because your pain is due to the fact that you’re not taking care of yourself!” Even before the sentence was completely out of my mouth I realized how ridiculous I sounded. I turned to him with a stunned expression (and he was understandably looking pretty annoyed). “Can you believe I just said that to you???” I asked. He softened and chuckled, and I started laughing. I couldn’t believe how ridiculous it was that I was at last in a position where I could even begin to say that without being a total hypocrite. As the evening wore on the deliciousness of that exchange just kept cracking me up. I was totally tickled with myself.
7. “Delicious” is one of my favorite words. As evident above, I believe it should be applied in many situations that have nothing to do with food. Although the results can be a little disturbing as when Anne Geddes was quoted as saying that she thought newborns looked “delicious”.
8. We’re hosting Thanksgiving at our house for the first time EVER this year. It will be small (thankfully) but is sure to still be amusing. I’m tempted to purchase everything already cooked but we do have a beautiful kitchen now with acres of countertop on which to screw up. Hey, I can run over 3 miles. Perhaps cooking something that doesn’t come out of a box (“all ingredients included!!!!”) isn’t such an impossible feat either.
9. Pumpkin pies are like Pringles, can’t have just one!
10. Sugar Free Red Bull probably isn’t really “good” for me.