Needed This Yesterday

I needed this so badly yesterday:

 

Some days are just hard. Being under-employed can feel like a burden instead of a blessing – too much time to think, and thinking about sad things like getting older can lead to feeling like I’m not doing enough with my life. Feeling like I’m not doing enough with my life can lead to thinking that I’m wasting my life. Thinking about wasting my life can make me feel like life is moving really fast and I’m not going to get to see and do everything I want to unless I go go go but I’ve already wasted so much time, so is there even a point?

When I finally pulled my head out from within myself and made it to the gym, I felt like a million-billion-gagillion bucks. And this, my friends, why working out in the morning is vital – you can alleviate feeling like anything less than priceless early on.

Go sweat.

Tight Pants Redux

Dudes. And dudettes. I learned something about tight workout pants: they are not all created equally! 

So, after reading my trials and tribulations on tight workout pants, my dear friend Liz (who incidentally is one of the main reasons I began running in the first place, though that’s a story for another day) mailed me a pair of stretchy athletic pants along with a card that involved two hedgehogs and some hearts. Awwww. The pants freaked me out at first – they looked small, they looked thin (like, “what if these hit the light weird and someone can see my underwear?” thin) and I looked at my boyfriend and said, “I’m not sure I can do this.” 

I opened the card and saw that there was a reference to buttons in it – I’m a huge sucker for buttons, and upon looking at the pants again, I saw they were cropped with three decorative buttons running up the side. #SOLD. I laid them out so I could take them for a run the next day. 

And on that run is where I realized these pants were lovely. Airy. Light as a feather. It was as though a soft, form-fitting silhouette decided to glom onto me in a friendly manner. They didn’t make me too hot. I was in fact not drenched in glowing sweat while wearing them. 

Yep, tight pants are a-okay on hot days, provided you’ve got the right pair. 

Big thanks to Liz, my favorite Nexus Burrito, for bringing this realization to light. 

 

A Runner’s Love Poem

Every Day

by Thomas A. Clark

Awake the mind’s hopeless so
At a quarter to six I rise
And run 2 or 3 miles in
The pristine air of a dark
And windy winter morning
With a light rain falling
And no sound but the pad
Of my sneakers on the asphalt
And the calls of the owls in
The cypress trees on Mesa Road

And when I get back you’re
Still asleep under the warm covers
Because love is here to stay
It’s another day and we’re both still alive

 

Tight Workout Pants, Activate!

One thing no one ever tells you about those skin tight workout pants things is that they. are. hot. Like, melt your face off while you’re running hot. Like, put them on and sweat buckets hot. Like, I went to spin-class and all I got what this bag of sweat hot. Hot.

Yes, I caved and purchased tight workout pants.

How it Happened

I had zipped over to an outdoor mall (California, folks, this is a major thing here) and while nabbing a gift for Brian, I saw a Lulu Lemon and thought I’d see what all the fuss was about. They had a sign outdoors promising a Clearance section (silent fist pump, yeah!) and I figured I’d stroll in casually, race to the back, and try not to look at anything else. Except I couldn’t find the Clearance section and got stuck at the normal priced area, embarrassed to admit to the hot, ship-shape women working the floor that I couldn’t afford their goods unless the prices were slashed. Price: $92.

I didn’t even try them on, opting instead to remove myself from the situation. Was $92 truly ridiculous? I run every day. If I loved the pants, I could foreseeably wear them for years. Assuming I only put them on every other day, or even every third day, I’d still be getting my money’s worth. Plus, LuluLemon offered a deal: wear them once, and if you don’t like them bring them back.

Um, that’s amazing.

Still. That $92 scared me, so I walked away and found myself in Gap Body, where I’ve never actually been. The idea was to check out their underwear prices (lo and behold, sticker-shock me had been annoyed to see the price of Victoria’s Secret underwear had gone up again) and see if maybe they were a little better (answer, yes). And Gap Body also sells workout clothes. Tight workout pants, in fact. For an extra four dollars, tight workout pants with pink stripes.

#Sold for $54 (along with five pairs of plain-Jane black underwear for $20, in case you had to know).

Practice Makes Perfect

After tumbling those new pink striped pants around in the washing machine, I wore them on a visit to my parent’s during the day before my first run. I wanted to practice being in public in skin tight pants before actually being in public in them. I also wanted to practice pulling them onto me, as getting them up felt like trying to stretch a too small piece of Saran wrap over a really large artichoke that you want to save for lunch tomorrow. Upon saying hello to me, my parents didn’t vomit in disgust, or mention that I looked like a hussy, so I decided I could run in them.

First Run

Nessa is one of my frequent running partners – she lives close by, is uber chatty, and likes running the lake. Perfecto-mundo, dude. So I ran down to meet her in my pants. “Fire legs!” she said upon meeting me. I’d been running for about five minutes and already wished I could take my pants off and thought she could see the sweat (though I’d purchased black pants purposefully to help aid in hiding any darkened fabric). I then realized she meant the pink stripes, and that the black was doing it’s cover-up job well.

As far as pants go, I admit the tight pants thing is pretty comfortable. They move with you, it’s almost like wearing nothing, but with a barrier so you don’t get heat rash. With the pants going down to my ankles, I deeply wished I had opted for the below the knee version which would likely have been less hot. But the heat. Oy, it was like being trapped inside a bearsuit. A really tight bearsuit.

What I’ve Learned Since Then

Well, obviously, don’t bust those tight pants out on hot days unless you are darn prepared to whip your shirt off midway through your run, or if you don’t get hotter than Hades on a regular basis.

But more importantly is where to buy those darn legging things: Marshalls. Seriously. I went into Marshalls (aka TJ Maxx, or basically Ross) and there were so many leggings of various sizes and lengths it was hard to believe. At prices that weren’t horrible. I wonder if that should become their motto: Prices that aren’t horrible. Has a nice ring to it.

 

 

 

Discipline

Thanks to K for floating this across my desk (aka, sending it to me via email):

 

Especially after seeing what I look like interviewed on TV (and stepping on a scale this morning for the first time in a month), it’s time to remember this when those magical “Pizza” words are uttered…or when contemplating long naps versus long runs.

Get out there, friends.

Workout Pants Conundrum: What If I Don’t Want to Pay?

Lately I’ve been thinking about yoga. Not just in a “let’s be twisty-bobcat-pretzel” way, but in a “huh, maybe I should go back to yoga class and try to relax but without trying because making that much effort feels kind of against what yoga stands for” way. While I typically don’t subscribe to needing a certain type of clothing in order to exercise, I do know that I enjoy yoga and dance in mostly form fitting bottoms that cover the knee – and seeing as how the pair of pants I’d had since college finally wore out (as in, I was using a shoestring to keep them around my waist and there were holes showcasing my ASSets) I figured it was time to find a replacement.

Pants Purchasing: A History 

Admittedly, I don’t remember the last time I purchased workout pants. That’s not true. I do remember. It was probably when Mervyn’s was still in business. And like, not yet announcing they were going out of business. Yep, that is how long it has been. I’ve been lucky – four years ago someone gave me workout pants for Christmas, and two years ago Dr. Dad gave me another pair. And I’ve had the same soccer shorts for at least five years.

And now you know the history of the contents of my workout drawer. This is relevant. Promise.

Pants Purchasing: Yesterday

I spent far too long pondering just where one buys workout clothes these days and settled on Target. I needed a new toothbrush and a pencil sharpener anyway, so this seemed like a reasonable choice. Target even hosts a wall of workout pants. Options! And in petite sizes! Under $30! I felt like I had struck gold. Except, while Target was home to one heck of a lot of pants, they were not home to form fitting workout clothes with the exception of, I kid you not, lycra capris with neon pink stripes.

Not on target.

Something else you should know about my workout drawer is that it’s actually a bin under my bed. But also in that bin are a pair of biker shorts I have had since I was eight. Yes, eight. And those things are great for wearing under a dress when you’re worried about wind, or hanging out in the house when it’s warm outside. But since I already have one lycra item in my home, in no way could I justify bringing in another.

Curiously, I felt a bit optionless at that point. Where does one even go for workout clothes? It occurred to me there’s a Sports Authority nearby, and while I haven’t spent much time in there, I know they’re home to a full-on training section. Workout pants perusing, activate.

Immediately I came across viable contenders in the Under Armour section and felt like, “Yeah, baby! Pants!” I nabbed a few to try on, and then the sale section caught my eye. I’m the child of a man who grew up close enough to the Depression to know the value of a dollar – which is a fancy way of saying we like to not spend more money that needed. So I moseyed over to the sale and found a pair of pants nearly identical to what I was holding in my hand. Same brand, same length, same texture. So I flipped the price tag over.

And the pants were literally $59. 

Sticker shock.

More sticker shock.

Obviously, I hadn’t bothered to price check the full-price pants in my hands. I clambered for the tags, dug them out from under than hanger (sneaky) and hello, $75 pants. Almost as though the pants had suddenly whispered a both creepy and dirty comment breathily into my ear (when I had assumed they were perfect gentleman pants), I returned them to the rack.

If this is the authority on sports, I’ll stick to those who don’t know jack.

Pants Purchasing: Denied

My family is a little…peculiar. We recently were having a conversation about how anything is negotiable, which to me makes me wonder about the true cost of anything. If bartering at Macy’s is acceptable, why the heck are price tags involved in the first place? I don’t want to live in a negotiating society, so I choose not to negotiate when I make a purchase. However, this whole pants thing did some pandemonium in my brain. Maybe I should have offered the clerk $30 and seen what he said?

Looks like I’ll be checking the thrift store…and until then, doing yoga in my biker shorts.

THE biker shorts from 1990.

 

 

 

Runner’s Delight Goes Slightly Personal, Then Rallies

I got an email this morning from a friend that had the line I can’t imagine you not being able to swim or run like you do at at the end of the first paragraph. I was like, I know! in my head. Outwardly, and on the proverbial paper known as a screen, I said nothing.

Because the truth is, I have it good. I can still walk and jog and elliptical, and none of this is permanent. It feels permanent. But it’s not.

The permeating sense of permanence comes from a mixture of things. It’s not being able to run heartily or swim strongly and thus not being able to manage my anxiety appropriately. Not managing anxiety means more unresolved panic and thoughts that dash about regardless of rationality, and more thoughts means less quality sleep and less quality sleep means inability to focus and inability to focus means attention is taken away from my memory so my memory is bad and whatever almost-dyslexia I’ve had in the past haunts me and mixes up numbers and letters and dates and times even more. And when everything about the way I think and live is going all wonky-cakes, it’s impossible not to feel like I’m going to turn everything right-side up again.

I jogged for thirty minutes yesterday. I ellipsed for an hour this morning. True, I also slept for eleven hours Saturday night, then for another two as a nap, then went to bed hours before Cinderella would have been riding home in a pumpkin but whatever. I’m fine.

More importantly, I’m still me. My running needn’t define me. How I cope sans running does.

Three new goals:

1) Find a race to cheer on before my next doctor’s appointment.

2) Research and write a post that isn’t in the now

3) Keep writing about running in the states.

Go-go-gadget, not letting myself being taken down and out by reasonably treatable health related thingamabobs.