Cherry Creek Sneak

It was a cold and dreary morning for the Cherry Creek Sneak. Again.

Last year, I was pregnant and relatively miserable in my prenatal running. This year found my nearly recovered from my son and close to back to my running self.

That, however, did not make it any warmer or drier for me, Michelle, Trisha, or Christina. We froze and got soaked, but ultimately, had a pretty successful race all around.

My body was completely uninspired to run. On the drive up, I only felt my maternal exhaustion and just wanted to sleep. And not be in the cold rain. Even after the starting gun, when I began to wog through the icy puddles, my muscles revolted. I just felt drained and weak and tired and cold.

The first two miles were unpleasant, and I was not exceptionally happy. I questioned if I felt this depleted already, how would I finish the race? How would I start running 10 miles? I was irritated by the contradiction of being cold in the rain and overheating under my raincoat. I was bored at the straight flat stretches of the course.

Yet after the two mile marker, the pain broke. The rain had relented, and I permitted myself to shed my raincoat to my waist. I also found some measure of a rhythm and was able to focus on a maintainable pace and proper form. Straighten the back, drop the shoulders, tighten the core; keep the sciatica from acting up.

In the third and fourth mile, I was able to glimpse such exquisite floats. I just plodded along, ambivalent to the toil of my muscles. I felt myself able to go faster than my wog and not feel myself burning out; I could feel improvement. In my muscle and sense memory, I had flashbacks of my pre-pregnancy self. I could feel in my body that I am getting close to my former state.

When I do a race of identical course year after year, the running takes on a touch a deja-vu. I experience the present run in tandem to remembering the previous runs. Present and past get slightly muddled in the blur of senses and incoming neural messages. This time, with the familiar awful weather, it was an especially strong sensation. It was like I was running last year’s race all over again, without hefting the baby belly.

At least I knew what to expect.

The last mile snuck up on me, just like last year. My float dissipated, and instead, my wall appeared. I oscillated between wogging down to suspend the nausea and exhaustion and speeding up with to sprint toward the end. Somewhere in the middle, a balance emerged, and I managed to make it. In good time, nonetheless.

I finished in 58:44, which could be considered a normal 5 mile time for me. 55 minutes is my personal record.

In the beginning, I was hating the race and noting to myself how I should drop it from next year’s roster. However, by the conclusion, I was giddy and levitating on my runner’s high, feeling accomplished and nearly normal.

In the end, it was a good race.

Gym Koolaid

(For the purpose of this post, “koolaid” refers to an idea or doctrine pushed by a particular establishment. It is a sarcastic reference to the koolaid cults use to administer group suicide.)

When I was in my 20s, I squandered my youth getting fat. Somewhere between nearly drowning in underage drinking and a self-destructive disposition, I put on 50 pounds. When my doctor snapped me out of it, I used a gym, personal trainer and all, to drop the weight. And I did, successfully, in just 6 months.

While successful, this weight loss took a heavy psychological toll. It was fueled mainly by that same self-loathing that got me there in the first place.

I did what they said. I restricted calories. I worked out 5+ days of week, half cardio, half weights. I gave my personal trainer thousands of dollars.

I drank the koolaid.

In the near decade since then, I have managed to keep said weight off for the most part, aside from that gained with each of my two pregnancies. When I got pregnant with my daughter, I was suddenly repulsed by the gym and refused to go. Maybe it was because the koolaid is not safe to drink while you are pregnant.

After my first child, I instead belly danced and picked up running. I recovered from that baby weight just fine and rapidly after starting thyroid medication.

From that point, running became my fitness fixation. I started making my own running koolaid and doling it out to my running mates.

Yet I have not been recovering from my second pregnancy nearly as well. Despite absolutely killing myself for months, the surplus pounds stubbornly cling to my body. Enough so that I was willing to indulge a gym again with my husband and our roommate.

No surprise, the koolaid still pours freely. And I have a lot of trouble with it.

Only eat like this. Only work out like that. Only our gym has the supplements you need. Only look like this. If you listen, it is like a religion. Or a cult.

For me, it tugs on all that self-loathing and self-abuse I used to attain my goal the first time. Sure, I lost the weight, but I ended up with eating habits that bordered on an eating disorder and a sense of self that invested way too much worth into bullshit, superficial numbers.

The gym makes me feel bad about myself, and of course it does because that’s how it makes money.

I am trying my best to rise above the bullshit, to use the gym for my purpose without drinking that koolaid, without feeling how it always used to make me. I don’t know how successful I am being, but I need the childcare to get my workouts in.

March Stats

Sigh.

March was another month of utter plateau. I worked, and I killed myself. I sacrificed sleep and time working or with my family. I even worked on the eating component, shifting to a high protein, lean, organic diet.

And nothing.

This is the first time in my life that I have behaved, eaten right, done the workouts, and it did not work. Usually, I earn getting or staying fat. It bends my mind to do what I am accustomed to working for nothing, to suffer for nothing. I have been so blindingly frustrated that I do not even really want to talk about it. I do not want to be just another fat girl ranting about how she can’t get the weight off.

I did ask my doctor about my issue. She is checking my thyroid, as we do every six months, so we’ll see what that says. However, I doubt that it is. She thinks it is from breastfeeding. She says a woman’s body usually holds 10-15 pounds of fat while nursing to keep producing milk. I cannot compare this experience with my last post partum because that is when I started my thyroid medication. She said if I maintain the proper diet and exercise, the weight will fall off easily after I wean. In five months.

But who knows.

I am going to just continue on, stay the course, and only shift my focus. Instead of counting pounds and inches (until my son’s birthday), I am going to focus on number of miles, pace, strength, endurance. If I can’t lose weight for five months, I will be stronger, faster, and in more shape before I get there. It is all I can do besides give up.

I feel trapped and very unsuccessful. Weighing in at the gym every Tuesday is always just a punch in the chest.

Total miles: 38
Total miles run outside: 38
Longest distance: 7.8 miles
Best times: 5K in 33:28, 7.8 miles in 1:47:25

Total weight loss: 26 pounds
Weight loss in March: 2 pounds

Total inch loss: 5″- 6″- 4″
Inch loss in March: 0″- o″- 0″