A rage-fueled treadmill workout

39:30 in my 5k yesterday.  WHAT. UP.  I get that this is far from Olympic quality but I broke 40 minutes holy crap we so excited we so so excited.  On an unrelated note, Old Navy's active line is hella sweet.  Stuff is cheap and it is truly pretty good.  I got a pair of "compression" pants there this week and they are A+. 

Sundays, based on my half marathon plan, are "easy" days, and I generally hit the treadmill for these.  Conveniently, a week ago, the TV on the wall was showing some new workout for laydees and I therefore adjusted my speed and incline for each stupid and/or sexist thing the commercial showed.

(I'm joking here.  This wouldn't work because I'd be mashing buttons every three seconds.  But the anger did really help me to finish.)  

Increase your speed by 0.1 every time

• The founder says "tone"
• They interview a woman wearing a pastel workout top
• A bikini-clad model is shown emerging from a pool with no connection to the product being sold

Decrease your speed by 0.1 every time

• Someone verbally shits on another workout for no reason
• They show a perfectly groomed smiling woman performing the workout
• "I got the body I've always wanted!"

Increase your incline by 0.5 every time

• They show the beginner, intermediate, and advanced next to each other and there's legit no difference between intermediate and advanced
• A picture that could be the poster child for Worst Posture Ever is used as a "Before"
• They say Hollywood actresses are using this method and fail to mention anyone by name

Decrease your incline by 0.5 every time

• The founder asks some of the laydees who have tried this workout "what inspires them" and they all say "you do! and this workout does! and OH EM GEE, it's just the BESTEST!"
• Someone says they lost a certain amount of inches without specifying any more than the number (can someone explain this to me?  Sometimes it legit seems like you just chopped your legs off and got shorter or something "WEEE I LOST 14 INCHES" like in height? JE NE COMPRENDS PAS)
• Anyone in the commercial says "problem areas"
• Can we seriously retire this phrase forever?  You know what's a problem area?  Darfur.  You know what's not?  Your stomach.

Run at 100% speed and intensity when

• The commercial legit brings these ladies' husbands in to talk about how nice their butts are now and how they look better than ever and how they're "so happy with the results"
• Okay this one I didn't plan but I was in the middle of a hill repeat and they brought the husbands in to this weird looking room with their wives to leer at them and talk about how they got "strong in a feminine way" and I just went "you've got to be effing kidding me" and cranked up my speed so I could take advantage of my anger-fuel
• They bring in twin sisters, one of whom has tried the workout and the other who has not and they interview the twin who did not and she says "I saw my sister's results and I told my husband 'I'm the fatter twin now!'" and then bursts into tears
• There are so many terrible things about that sound bite and using it that I don't even know where to begin 

I don't really know how to wrap this up.  Just anger.  Lots of anger.  Love you all. 

Why making fun of "resolutioners" is a shitty thing to do

Someone told me today that judging other people is America's new national pastime.  I am in absolute agreement.  We're all aiming constantly not to be "good" but to be "better than that person over there."  There are infinite manifestations of this around us, but one of the more prominent ones right now is judging people who join gyms in January, also called "resolutioners."

I'm gonna break each reason I've heard down and explain why making fun of anyone who joined a gym in hopes of getting fit in 2013 is an asshole move.

1. "Ugh, my gym is so crowded now!"

Son, yo' gym was crowded before.  It's really not much worse, you just think it is.  Also, when you signed up for your gym there's no way they said "nah you'll be fine, machines are always free."  Gyms with always-free machines close down.  Your gym probs even has peak and off-peak hours because people go to the Goddamn gym.  They paid to be there, so did you, and you both have equal rights to touch things.  Deal with it.

2. "They're not even going to be there past February!"

Some of them will.  And a huge chunk of people who sign up for gyms regardless of time of year don't return.  I didn't realize that every membership given out in January is invalid if the user doesn't make it till March.

3. "Like, I don't understand why gyms let all these people sign up at once."

Seriously?  TO MAKE MONEY.  GYMS MAKE MONEY.  They make even more on people who sign up and DON'T return, so if they are run by not-so-nice people, those people will be thrilled to take your initiation fee and then do a little joy-dance in their office if they think you're never coming back.  Decent places want you to feel good, but all places need to make money and barring some fight in the yoga studio because someone's elbow was in someone's face because they fit 80 people in a 20 person room, they're gonna continue to sign people up.

4. "*some comment about how you can 'always tell' who's there as part of a New Year's Resolution*"

You're calling them fat, we get it, and you're a terrible person.  When you aren't skinny, it's freaking hard enough to get up the courage to sign up for a membership, and then you have to worry about everyone else there judging you and hoping you disappear because your fat ass is taking up space on an elliptical that you apparently inherited and have complete rights to?  I've been there, okay?  I'm still not skinny and I don't know if I ever will be, but when you gave me some dirty look because my size 14 ass was on a spin bike in the back of class (to which I arrived 25 minutes early to set up my bike and hide in the back row) I feel even more shame than society in general makes me feel for being chubby and this makes it less likely that I'll change.  Not that this happened to me or anything.  Grrr.

5. "They never even know how to use the equipment!"

There are PLENTY of decade-long gym goers who don't know shit, too.  I've seen ladies and dudes run like 8 miles on a treadmill, sweat all the hell over it, and not wipe it down.  I see plenty of GTL-ing-esque dudebros screwing up lat pull-downs or whatever and clanging machines and dropping weights or whatever else you're pissed about them not knowing.  There are regulars in every spin class I've been to who come in late, hang out in the front row, don't follow the instructor's directions, leave early, and don't wipe down the bike.  I have no proof on this, but I'd be willing to bet money that new people are actually more courteous about gym etiquette than regulars are.  Because the regulars don't get judged like the new people.

6. "Blah blah first world problems blah blah"

Whatever other reason you can come up with, just shut up.  Seriously.  You're being mean and rude and unhelpful and judgmental and just awful.  Stop it.

I'm so 3008, you're so 2013

Yeah I adjusted some Black Eyed Peas lyrics.  I should be ashamed but I'm not. 

In general, I am not sorry to be wishing 2012 goodbye.  There were some good parts but I am happy that huge parts of it are gone.  Mostly because this is the first year in about a half dozen that I'm not sure if I'm better/happier than I was a year ago.  I'm pleased to be done with this year, even if there's really no difference between December 31st and January 1st.

I've got some pretty scary goals for this next year, and not all of them are really conducive to a blog post format (hey, you gotta keep some parts of your life off the internet) but I do have a few to share.

• Break 3 hours in a half marathon. I signed up for a half marathon in June, and I'm debating doing a second in September.  Since I've never done one before, I'll PR automatically as long as I finish, but I wanna come in under 3 hours.  I think I can do this.
• As a related note, I want to break 39 minutes in my 5k.  Writing these things here is to let anyone reading this know two things: you now can encourage (yell?) at me to make these times, and y'all, seriously: I ain't fast.  I am still a runner.  Speed doesn't matter.  If you run, you are a runner, and that is all that matters.
• Keep my life neater.  I don't really ever lose things, I just don't usually have places for them, so where I set them down is supposed to be "special" and then it's so special I can't find them again.  I will be neater and cleaner and my life will look like a damn IKEA catalog because I said so.  
• Feel less shame.  This part is and has been a lifelong process, but I want to be at a point eventually where my mistakes do not send me into a spiraling mess that lands me at "I'm a terrible person." Humans make mistakes.  Good people make mistakes.  I can make mistakes without being ruined.  
• Trust in God more.  I am so terribly crappy about this and it hurts me when I don't trust.  When I do, I feel less lost, less useless.  
• Get angry.  This is going to probably be the toughest one of all for me.  I've internalized this concept that if I am angry with someone, I've done something wrong, and to express that anger is also wrong, because it makes people uncomfortable.  This is simply not true.  There are things to be angry about.  There are enough things to be angry about that I could walk around in a rage every waking minute and that would actually be totally reasonable.  And I'm not talking "lol people in Pennsylvania can't drive" kinds of anger.  I'm talking about "you hurt me, and that's not okay" anger.  I have a tendency to be a doormat and blame myself all the time.  Clearly, a 180 degree switch is a bad call, but I've got to learn to call out people/situations/anything that is horrible to me.
• Thing that will help: eradicating "why are you getting so upset?" and all its variations and implications from my life

 Regardless of 2012's being amazing or terrible for you, I truly hope that 2013 is better.