Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

Ran again yesterday. I could lie and say it's getting easier. At least the recovery afterwards is getting better. Instead of being immobile, I'm just stiff in the calves today.

I hope I will get better soon. My lungs feel completely dried out by the end of a run. Is that normal?

Running today went significantly better. I did some more research and discovered the run-walk-run technique. Basically it's where you run for a short amount of time, then walk for a short amount, then repeat until your race is over. And by short, I mean really short. For beginners, a lot of sites suggested running times of 15-30 seconds. You increase the run times only after stamina has been developed.

I went with the following pattern:
- Run 30 seconds
- Walk 30 seconds
- Run 30 seconds
- Walk 30 seconds
- Run 30 seconds
- Walk 3 minutes

By doing that, I doubled the amount of time I was actually running and halved the amount of pain I felt. We'll see how I feel tomorrow, but I felt pretty good today. Gives me confidence that I might actually keep this up.

And I had enough energy afterwards to do some cleaning too! I finished going through nearly all the boxes that had to return to the sewing room. I have a few more things that need to find homes (books!) but other than that, the room is nearly up and ready again. Then I can finish cleaning the guest room. After that, I have the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen, living and dining rooms, and the stairs. IF I have time after that, the upstairs bathroom could use a cleaning too.

In other news, Maggie discovered a box turtle the other day on one of our walks. She curiously sniffed it until the turtle squished up into its shell. Then that was it for Maggie. She wanted to go back home as far away from the turtle as possible. What a weird dog. Mighty hunter she is not.

In sad news, Nugget died this morning. I cried. :( She had been fighting a tumor for a long long time. The vet had given her maybe a month to live, but she managed to hold on for over a year. The last couple days she wasn't doing well. Mom was feeding her baby food. Then this morning, she went out, did her business, came back in, rested on her pillow, and stopped breathing. I guess she decided it was finally time to go.

She was a good dog that was always grateful that we had rescued her from bad breeders. When we first met her, she was covered in fleas and her fur was totally matted. The first thing she did when we brought her home was poop on my homework. But she settled in easily after that and was always friendly to everyone she met. I think she could remember that bad times and appreciated the chance to live a better life. She lived 16.5 years, which is pretty good for a dog. I'll miss her.

I'm writing this down so I won't give up.

I want to run a disney race, which means I have to actually learn to run. Not just any disney race, but the Tower of Terror 10 miler. The completion medal GLOWS IN THE DARK!

So I started learning today. It was terrible. I could only run, not even run, JOG for about 90 seconds at a time. Then I needed 4-5 minutes of painful gasping for air before I could try again.

The training plan I'm using wants me to run for 3 minutes at a time, followed by a 3 minute walking break. HA. I have a long way to go.

But I don't want to give up, so I'm hoping my publicly mentioning all this, I'll keep at it.

This morning I achieved exercise. My wii fit instructor changed her haircut. I am not ok with that. Fictional people should not have outside lives!!!! This is like that time she was late and her hair was messy or the day she took the day off and the guy covered for her. NOT OK!

Anyway, took a shower after that, which was very badly needed. Had to shampoo twice, my hair was so disgusting.

Then I went to the library. They finally had Pebble in the Sky back on the shelves so I grabbed it before it disappeared again. And I found the comic book section! Of course I had read most of it already. Figures, right?

On the way back to my car, two guys who had been hanging around outside called me over and explained that they were students and doing a small experiment on social perceptions. They asked me what I first thought about them before they called me over.

They were dressed like teenage boys trying to look tough (baggy jeans and all that), so I told them they looked like a group of teenage boys with too much time on their hands which made me nervous because people with too much time cause trouble. But I also added that once they spoke to me so politely, I perceived them in a much more positive light.

They took lots of notes and thanked me. It was all very strange.

After that, I went to the food store and bought lots and lots of veggies to make stir fry. I also needed cooking sherry, but couldn't reach it on the top shelf. I had to wait until someone else came down the aisle so I could embarrassedly ask for their help.

The stir fry ended up pretty good. I served it with quinoa, which complimented it all nicely. I tried to take pictures but they were all blurry. It was sad. At least I got to enjoy the taste. I topped it with this sauce, which was pretty tasty, but slightly too salty. I would make it again, but maybe cut the soy sauce in half. Ben enjoyed it all so much he went back for seconds. Yay for culinary victory!

Exercise has been achieved. Sooooo sore.

Must now resist the smell of the tasty fresh baked bread in the kitchen. Mmmmmm...

Day 2 of wii fit plus! I got my wii fit age down from 37 to 20. Woo! The yoga I did on friday really helped me with the balance test today.

I have made myself a little routine of 5 yoga exercises (plus the breathing exercise), 5 strength exercises, 3 balance exercises (bala-balance!), 3 aerobics exercises, and 3 training plus exercises.

That takes me slightly over 30 minutes of exercise. I hope all of this will improve my back strength and posture.

And ben is lucky I love him, because he thinks it's funny to poke me in the butt while I do yoga.