My own personal fitness truths

Rather than participate in the consumer frenzy that is Black Friday, I instead decided to do a little spin and weights this morning, heavy on the weights. (Ha! Get it? I crack myself up!)

I'm really enjoying myself, despite that crazy face I'm making.

I love the barbell but hate shoulder work.  As you can tell.

Yesterday I managed a 9 mile Thanksgiving treadmill turkey trot of my very own, which essentially involved running a few miles at half-marathon race pace sandwiched between lots of slow-ish running.

Stop-motion videos are my new obsession.  You're just going to have to deal with it until this phase of my life is over, people.  Sorry.

Anyhoo, whilst I was treadmilling away staring at the big blue wall, I found my mind wandering to all of the things I've learned from fitnessing these past 10+ years or so...those little annoying truths that can only come with a lot of trialling and erroring and succeeding and screwing it all up.  Below are a few I'd like to share with the world:

1) When running in the winter, it's never as cold as I think it's going to be outside.  Whenever I have to do a run outside in the dead of winter, I'm the WORST at mentally whining about how cold it's going to be and how much the run will suck.  And then I force myself to get dressed and get out there, and--lo and behold--after the 2nd mile I'm actually pretty comfy.  (Exceptions to that rule: All polar vortices as well as anyone who loves in northern Canada, Siberia, or Alaska.  Or anywhere else that's super duper cold all the time.)

2) Time slows down when you run faster on the treadmill.  Everyone knows a mile on the treadmill at 7:50 takes WAY longer than a 10:00 mile.  It's the rule of treadmill relativity, and I'm pretty sure it was referenced by Einstein somewhere in his research on general relativity.  Maybe.

3) On any race taking place on a bike path, you will encounter three racers running three-wide on the path so you can't pass easily.  You know those runners.  We all do.  They have their place in our universe much like the person counting out exact change at a register, drivers who drive 5 miles under the speed-limit in front of you when you're late for work, and speed bumps when you least expect them.

4) The second cup of coffee before a race is ALWAYS a bad idea.  But I drink it anyway and then get irrationally mad at everyone in the port-a-john line at mile 3 slowing me down with their urinary needs. 

5) There will always be people that tell me that I shouldn't lift weights or I'll get those big bulky muscles.  I had this happen to me in a hotel fitness center recently, when a complete stranger decided to offer that little tidbit of wisdom to me as I was using some 15 lb dumbbells.  I suppose these people think females shouldn't have visible muscles...or something.  Good thing I don't think that.  My goal is to look like I could kick someone's sweet patootie (and other parts of them as well) if they met me in a dark alley.

6) There will always be people that insist that because I run as much as I do I can eat whatever I want and not gain weight. What plays in my head when I hear this: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO What comes out of my mouth when I hear this: As someone who gained 20 pounds while training for a marathon, I can tell you that is most definitely not true.  But people still don't believe me when I say that, probably because sometimes people like to hang on to these weird little untruths despite evidence right in front of them to the contrary.

7) The treadmill resetting itself after you get off to answer the call of nature is one of the most excruciating forms of agony a runner can experience.  Especially if your running watch is always way off when you treadmill run and you don't remember what the mileage was on the treadmill before it reset itself like a total jerk.  The struggle is real, people.

8) That one nonrunning friend that can never remember that a marathon is always 26.2 miles.

Me: *runs a 10K race*
Friend: "How was your marathon this weekend?"
Me: "It was just a 10K race, not a marathon."
Friend: "But that's still a type of marathon?"
Me: "Well, it's a type of race, but it's not as long as a marathon."
Friend: "But marathons are races, and you ran a race!  So, how was your marathon?"
Me: "....fine.  It was fine."

9) The hubbs will never stop telling me that I run too loudly on the treadmill.  I have no idea what this really means, but him saying this to me does legally allow me to scream "CLOMPITY CLOMP CLOMP" at him on the rare occasions he's on the treadmill.  Because that's how good of a wife I am.

10) Whenever I sneak down to the workout room to do a treadmill run, there will always be a large dog there to judge me.  Mainly because he's there to guilt-trip me because I'm not running outside with him.

*judgementrays*

So there you have it - some of my running truths that I have cultivated over the years I've been fitnessing.  And here's some learnings from this post I cultivated in my brain for the last 5 minutes or so:

• Seriously.  Love me some barbell.  Loooove.
• I was thankful that I didn't die of boredom on that 9 mile treadmill run.
• Seriously - for the love of all that is holy and running-related, just because you run a lot doesn't mean you can overeat.
• Strong is sexy, people - having muscles is a beautiful thing.
• Having large dog judge you is not beautiful - it means he's going to destroy a random part of the house later.
• CLOMPITY CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.

Tomorrow's workout: Technically I'm supposed to run 10 miles, but I'm going to go run a half-marathon in the rain because I accidentally signed up for a race series.  More on the blog about that later.