Painful Discoveries

I'm sitting here, tired and hurt. Oh, I hurt! Every time I get up I want to pass out! I'm sitting here waiting for my husband to get home. I have already phoned him to whine and complain and all he had to say was "that's great!"

That's GREAT? I'm in pain, I'm hurting.... I'm literally sick! All from a mere one hour of running/walking (mostly walking) The advice he gives: Take some advil and be sure to go for a bike ride tomorrow. A BIKE RIDE? Didn't he hear me? I'm sore! I'm tired! I'll be even more sore tomorrow and he thinks I should go for a bike ride!

It figures. Meet my Husband. For whatever ails you, exercise is the answer. Have a cold? A run will help clean out the congestion. Hurt muscles? A run or ride will stretch and strengthen it. Stressed, anxious or sad? Again: The answer is EXERCISE. Tired? EXERCISE Grrrrr...

So now he's home and chuckling at me. I'm angry: he has no idea how much pain I'm in and he insists he's been there but I don't believe him.

See, my husband is AMAZING. He's one of those naturally gifted athletes. One always hears that "anyone can do it" but I'm really unconvinced. I read blogs about people that set out to do marathons or other physical endeavors and I really believe that they are special. I KNOW my husband is special. He's will say it's still determination and hard work. He'll say that there are days he doesn't FEEL like working out but he's still DIFFERENT. First of all, he's always in good shape. He is over 6 feet tall and I don't believe he's weighed over 168 pounds in his life. He was an gifted soccer player in his youth, well rated long distance track and field runner in high school, rowed stroke in college on a very fast crew boat with men that were "heavyweights" and had a lot of power.... strength-to-weight ratio he was amazing. Great surfer that picked up the sport effortlessly, impressive waterskier even though he rarely skis, agile rock climber, skilled snow skier, windsurfer.... basically he can do any and every sport relatively well without much effort. Add a bit of effort and his capability and possibility is amazing! Plus, he LOVES this stuff! (I don't love any physical exercise!) He'd rather bike to work than take his car, he loves to ride his bike. In fact, as I type this (and he has no idea what I'm writing) he just randomly informed me that he rode his bike 22 miles today and ran 6 miles. See? He's crazy. And happy.

He always comes home stress free thanks to his bike rides and lunchtime runs. But I still don't believe that he suffers like I suffered today, and I still maintain that some people are just "special". I do think it's easier for some of us than others, and David is one of the special ones: Gifted with incredible vision, focus, pain tolerance. determination, and the ability to push himself. I have to admit, I'm in awe of my husband. And he's happy that I went on a 2 mile run that I mostly walked on and had a heart rate of 194. He's HAPPY I'm in pain right now.

And I still love him.

Ready To Die

A few days ago I posted about weight. I generally don't like exercise so I simply avoid it but a friend of mine posted on facebook she was going to start running and I said I'd like to join her. That was 3 weeks ago. I got the running shoes but they stayed in a box. At church we finally made a date to "run" together. (she's been running for the past 3 weeks because she's amazing)

I don't know who was more excited this morning. Actually, I think I do know that because I was definitely NOT excited about running this morning but my husband was excited for me. I'm sure he thought I'd find an excuse to not go. Eagerly he pulled out his Garmin Forerunner GPS/heart rate monitor for me so I could keep track of my pace, distance and heart rate. I protested but he thought it'd be so helpful so I agreed to wear it.

I dropped my kids off at school and hopped in the car to meet my friend Kris. She was already running when I got there and we walked and chatted for a bit before running. I have never been a runner. I have perhaps only run in High School and I am pretty sure I managed to weasel my way out of it most of the time. I simply can't run. But we did. She explained that I needed to set short goals and then reevaluate once there. Okay. I can do that. I put on my headphones, listening to U2's Zoo station and when it got to the lyric "ready to dive" I thought for sure it said "ready to die". Indeed, I think I was ready to die. But I trudged on, then walked, then attempted to run again. I'm sure I did more walking than running! Looked at my recorded heart rate and it said I as at 193 beats per minute. Hmmmmmm.... David said I should keep it under 150 but I was over 150 just by walking fast! Kris mentioned that her heart rate also runs high so we continued on. I really had a hard time but Kris was quite encouraging saying that she was similar 3 weeks ago but now is doing better and in a few weeks I'd be able to do more as well.

I hope so. A group of us are doing a (small) run at the beginning of October. Not sure I'll be ready then but I hope too! If nothing else, at least I made my husband happy for the day.

I'm looking for music that is good to run to. Any suggestions?