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. 

Does this make me a bad person?

So for the past 6 months I have attempted to get healthier.  I have in general been eating better, but I'm pretty terrible at denying myself things, so instead of giving myself a really hard time because a bear claw at Panera was calling to me, I will eat half of it one day, half the next, and run a bunch of miles in between.  Less denial, more miles.  I just came up with that and I'm pretty proud of it.

I never thought I'd get to the point where I actually need to replace my running shoes because I beat them up, but it feels pretty good.  I'm gonna treat myself and find a specialty running shop and let them measure my feet and whatever weird voodoo they need to make happen so I get really awesome shoes.  I hope they are neon.

I've basically had three goals since starting this change.

1. Be healthy
2. Log more miles
3. Drop some pounds

Yes, goal 3 is mostly because if I'm lighter I can run more and faster, but I have started to wonder if wanting to lose weight is anti-feminist, fatshaming, or something else awful.  I've dropped about 25 pounds since I started this, but I don't want it to be at the expense of being body-positive.

I know I'm in pretty decent shape.  I am not fast, at all, when I run, but my long workouts are creeping up towards 5 miles and I know I couldn't have done that 7 months ago.  Ice cream happens, but fruit and vegetables and eating when I'm hungry instead of bored happens more.  I'm down a jeans size, which was cool but more so because I now have pants that fit me.  Pants that fit are like the 8th wonder of the world.

But then I start to think about the entire concept of weight as a measurement of health, and then I hate myself for wanting to lose anything.  I should be measuring my overall health, and if I need to look at numbers, I should be checking my mile log to see if that's going up, not the scale to see if it's going down.  At my last doctor's appointment, I got irrationally angry once I got in the car because the doctor had told me "I'd like to see you lose a little weight" after I'd told him that I run 3-4 times a week, my blood pressure and pulse rate were awesome, I eat fine, I don't smoke, and so on and so forth.  The number on the scale was more important.
 
I've since figured out that my concern over weight loss can be split into two camps: one, pounds are generally a pretty shitty way of determining whether someone is healthy, and two, no matter what anyone says, skinny is still the beauty standard for America and extra pounds means you're gonna get fatshamed.

First camp, whatever.  I'll get angry about it sometimes (see above doctor conversation), but I know I'm healthy and getting healthier, so haters gonna hate.  I don't weight myself often, so I know I'm not obsessed with dropping pounds, and overall, whatever, I'm allowed to notice weight loss.  But the second camp?  I can't come to terms with it at all.
  
The country hates fat people, and fat women in particular.  Women are allowed (and encouraged, as if this were something we could control) to have "curves," which means breasts and an ass but nothing else.  Extra pounds means you're lazy and ugly.  Lines like "they shouldn't make leggings in sizes bigger than a medium" is treated as Pulizter-prize-winning wit instead of the cruel bullshit that it is. 

I'm still generally shy and embarrassed when I go to the gym, and that's really not okay.  I paid to be there and I wipe machines off after I use them and frankly that is all that should matter.  I am constantly convinced, however, that people are looking at me and judging me because I'm not a size 2 and I'm using a treadmill.  I live in fear that after a spin class some misguided lady is gonna come up to me and say "good for you getting through this class!"  This is a paraphrase of an article I read, but this basically sums it up: pretty much everyone at a gym is there for the express reason of not being me.  No one signs up for a year-long membership hoping to walk out looking like I do.

So does wanting to be skinnier (albeit mostly because I will be able to run faster and more) make me a bad person?  Am I buying into the bullshit?  Am I letting myself feel unattractive to the world until I'm down a few more sizes? 

Thoughts and advice?

Slight but important differences between Pennsylvania and New York drivers

I drove home for Thanksgiving, and it took me seven and a half hours. This is a three hour trip, and while that long in a car (I didn't stop because apparently "it'll take an extra eight minutes to get there if I stop to stretch" > "how do you know if you have a blood clot in your leg AM I DYING") isn't fun regardless of circumstances, I was doing between zero and five miles per hour for a majority of the trip, so my right leg was all kinds of painful.  The crowning glory of this trip was attempting to go over the Goethals bridge and slamming on my brakes to avoid getting hit by some girl with a rhinestone crown on her back window.  You won, princess, congrats.

I have since driven back to New York an additional time, so on these two there and back again trips I learned several slight, but key, differences between New York drivers and Pennsylvania ones.

1. Merging

New York drivers pretty much follow the one-car-from-each-lane-goes system when it's really bad and no one's fault.  There's always Entitled Asshat who drives up the shoulder and then attempts to merge ahead of like a hundred cars and then LOL OOPS NO ONE LETS YOU IN and I am not a vengeful person but dear God that is satisfying to observe.

Pennsylvania: while it seems like it would not be possible for this to be so, I am convinced that every person in Pennsylvania is Entitled Asshat, with a side of Drifty McDrifterson who just vaguely wanders between lanes and doesn't signal. It means I get to play a serious game of "this person will be in my lane.....NOW waitnope OKAY NOW" for a mile and a half on the turnpike.  Unless you have an axe wound wait your damn turn.

1a. Merging due to construction

New York: people try to get over immediately after they see the sign that the left or right lane is disappearing in half a mile.

Pennsylvania: people try to get over immediately after they've driven straight into a construction vehicle in the no-longer-present left or right lane.

2. Speed limits

New York: that is the speed at which you drive in the right lane.  55 means 70 in the left lane, 65 means 80, and you adjust for the speed of traffic.

Pennsylvania: 55 means 40 in the left lane with your turn signal on for at least 3 miles. You are unaware that any other cars exist around you.

3. Turning left with a green light

New York: you cut this close, always, but you speed up so the person with the right of way coming the other direction doesn't have to brake too hard.

Pennsylvania: turn left regardless of light color.  Left is the almighty ruler and everyone will brake for you because you have to get Jaydynn and Kartyrsen to soccer on time in your Escalade.  (STOP PUTTING Y'S IN YOUR CHILDREN'S NAMES WHERE THEY DON'T BELONG)

4. Cutting people off

New York: you do this, frequently.  You are not a jerk about it, and give the little "sorry I know I did something jerky please forgive me" wave.

Pennsylvania: LOLWUT THERE ARE OTHER CARS WHO KNEW

5. Toll booths

New York: you pick a lane near you and near the entrance ramp to the section of the highway you would like to be on.

Pennsylvania: you pick the toll lane farthest from your current position, have no idea where you want to go, and break down while you're next to the booth. 

6. Entrance ramps

New York:  ramp's short?  Floor it.  Get up to speed as quickly as possible and get over.  (Andrew, despite being a Pennsylvania resident, calls entrance ramps "launch pads" and is therefore doing it correctly.)

Pennsylvania:Oh, those cars are fast.  I'll just wait for a half-mile gap during rush hour and then slowly get up to speed.  Aw, there's like a cute little line behind me, I'm like a mother duck with her ducklings.  Aw, the guy behind me is even CALLING me mother duck!  I am adorable. 

PA, get it together, son.

The sweetest race on earth.

Okay, I don't think that's actually what the organizers called it, but they totally missed out on an opportunity because the race was at Hersheypark, which they call "The Sweetest PLACE on Earth" so clearly I should have been consulted when they decided to advertise.

Finally getting a chance to recap this, and it's kinda boring and a little gross and a lot long, apologies, but I want documentation that I did a 6.5+ mile race.  So please forgive me that I got all Dear Diary with this entry, and seriously, no pressure to read.  :)

We went on Saturday to the park because our race sign-up included free admission to the park.  I had never been before, and the park is super fun.  I think I liked it even more because it wasn't in the summer and wasn't unpleasantly warm so you could comfortably walk around and wait in line and then totally freeze on the coasters because of the wind. :)  We all ate pasta for dinner, and then finished off the night with smores.  I also learned that I make a combination of the TROLLOLOL and the Let Me Love You faces when pictures are taken on rollercoasters, and Andrew makes a face like FOR FRODOOOO!!!! so with the two of us combined I have a feeling that the employees of the park had a good time looking at our pictures later.

We stayed overnight at a La Quinta near the Harrisburg airport and I spent the evening pacing and laying out several combinations of clothing, and also attempting about 15 times to pin my bib.  I'm REALLY bad at this, guys.  Like, questioning-the-existence-of-the-spatial-awareness-sections-of-my-brain bad at this. If anyone has any tips on how to do this better (aside from handing it off to someone else) please share.  I'm not yet ready to invest in a belt, so I'll be pinning my bibs for a while.  This is assuming I continue to enter races and I plan to.  I am Regulus about this. Regulus = more serious than Sirius

ANYWAY

The bib did at least look pretty before I mangled it with metal.

 I am also a really big fan of having your name on it because then you get people shouting your actual name during the race and that is super great.



We got to the park mad early, and I actually abandoned my group because I was trying to find where to go for the halfway point.  Andrew got the first half because I made him do this and he preferred the first half so second half for me.  It was not at all obvious where to go, and I made a friend who looked just as lost as I did, and after asking like 4 different people we finally found the buses.  I felt like an idiot because they're BUSES, it's like not being able to find the T-Rex at Jurassic Park, but we got an e-mail from the race organizers the next day that was all "btdubs apparently not putting up any signs about the buses made it tricky for people sooo let us know if that was tricky and OUR BAD SORRY."  Felt less dumb after that.

Got off buses, waited for a while, got cold then warm repeat x5, then saw Andrew running up, dragged him through the arch, handed off my jacket, and began to run.  The first section was a hill.  Not cool, Hershey.  Two friends (who had already run the first half) caught up to me and we ran for 3 something-miles with no problems and lots of cheering, but then I had to walk.  Wasn't feeling so hot.  I continued the run/walk process for the rest of the race, and probably walked a total of three-quarters of a mile.  My legs were fine, my lungs were fine, my stomach was NOT happy.  The end of the race was in Hershey's stadium, and I picked it up for the last two-tenths of a mile or so and finished in under 3 hours.  Still not feeling well.

Grabbed the water and food they handed to us and consumed like none of it because my stomach was not having it.  Andrew and I head off to drive home and I make him take a picture of me because I want proof that I did this, dammit.

You know what's not pictured?  The next three hours.  Which were awful because I overdid it and took in like no salt/electrolytes/etc.  We're like half an hour on the road and I make Andrew pull over because I'm pretty darn sure I'm going to be sick in the next five minutes.  I never actually got sick because my body had nothing to throw up, but I was so miserable I was actively trying to make myself sick just to get it over with.  And I HATE throwing up.  It's the worst thing that can happen to me.  I would rather break a bone or get several dozen stitches or like, get punched in the face.  If I am a little nauseous I will sometimes start crying, so you can imagine what I was like during this ordeal.  Shaking, crying, apologizing.  In short, a mess.  I'm getting texts from my mom that are all "I'M SO PROUD OF YOU" and I'm all "I'M DYING" and I'm really not dying I'm just an idiot who didn't hydrate or eat properly and me and this guardrail are like best friends for the next ten minutes and my dad's calling his friend who runs marathons and he's like "THIS TOO SHALL PASS" and I'm like "NO I'M GOING TO DIE HERE ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD" and Andrew's trying to nap.



After half an hour on the side of a road outside Lancaster, I get back in because let's try to at least get closer to home, and I figure I'll tell him to pull over again if it gets bad.  This gets requested in like 15 minutes, but I wanted to see if I could drink anything with sodium or anything because water was making me feel worse.  Gas station it is.  And again, apologies for oversharing, but any water I was drinking was immediately getting urinated back out.  Had some sips of Vitamin Water, and then realized I should not be drinking very much more.  I run in and get actual little salt packets, and proceed to eat two of them basically straight over the next twenty minutes.  Not pleasant but I did feel better pretty much immediately, and then kept getting better.  Andrew napped. 

Back on the road and home eventually.  Andrew got to sleep in his bed, finally, and I continue to fight off nausea for seriously a good 7 or 8 hours after the actual race is over. The longest distance I ran to prep for this was just shy of 5 miles, and I really thought I'd be totally fine, but bumping up an extra 1.5+ miles on race day is dumb.  I have since purchased and used a couple things after a 4-mile treadmill run to make sure this never happens again (energy chews, and this stuff called Nuun, which was a suggestion I heard at a doctor's appointment and never acted on, but seriously look this stuff up).  During training, I did feel nauseous on any run over like 50 minutes or so, but I didn't think anything of it.  Apparently it was a warning sign, and I need to replenish salt and some calories on longer runs if I don't want my digestive system to be like I AM STOMACH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

But you know what? It was still totally worth it.  I was miserable, and the weekend and even race day were still freaking awesome.  I could not have done any of this five months ago, and even though I will probably always be a back-of-the-pack type, I finished the stupid thing.  By this time next year, I'd love to run a full 13.1.  I think I can officially call myself a runner, and I plan to keep doing this.

I also need to continue to find races with finishers' medals shaped like candy.  Wish me luck.