July 8, 2000 --9:56 PM
EST
I caught Paul peeking at my
on-line journal. He acted a bit sheepish. It made me laugh. I don't mind him
reading my journal. Hell, he has permission to read my off-line journal if he
feels like it. I just thought it was cute. He'd forgotten the URL and was
catching up from May onwards to see what was going on in other parts of my
life.
I wrote a rather long entry today
in the training log, but I'll shorten it down here:
- Focus: Endurance for 3.5
hours
- Total time: 3 hrs (spread over
several workouts)
- Distance: 13-16 miles.
I couldn't sleep early this
morning so I went out at 6:30 AM to walk. It felt like am armpit out there --
97% humidity! But I got an hour's worth down. Afterwards, I had a big breakfast
and a liter or water, and then took time out to rest and digest. I
miscalculated my appetite though. I should have had another snack right before
I left for gym.
I hung in there for an hour on the
cross trainer before I had to come to eat. It was making me crazy. All I could
think about was food and I was getting a food headache. I think I have to order
a box of Luna Bars and just have them around so there is always one in my gym
bag for emergencies. Downed another liter of water.
It rained all afternoon, so I
napped, waiting on the weather to let up. I checked the weather report for the
next week and it's the same as last week -- rain, rain, rain, ever-y sin-gle
day! Got lucky in the evening because it let up enough to go out.
Paul wanted to come so we biked
rather than walked. I am glad because I didn't want to get my nice sneakers
yucky walking in the muck and I could just wear the old ones out biking. The
problem with Paul biking after a rain is that he loooooves to zoom through
puddles and make huge waves. I stay a few yards behind him and then I make him
wash his own muddy clothes! It got dark so we came home and didn't bother with
the last half hour. I'll do that tomorrow with my 20 min recovery walk. While
putting the bikes up he was making fun of my helmet head hair. I don't care --
I had fun! And yet another liter of water. Isn't it sick?
[...]
Ok, so I may not be especially
naturally gifted at sports. I'm definitely training for a big challenge though,
and I'm definitely improving, so I guess I am heading on towards being
athletic. Adrith and I are getting a big kick out of the
Penguin Brigade and some of
the offshoot mailing lists revolving around the Disney marathon. It's for
"adult onset athletes" and their credo is
"The miracle
isn't that I finished, it's that I had the courage to start!"
There are people
there at our level, and people who are just a touch better in ability. I think
I could actually get into running with a group like this -- the pressure to be
superduperfab is off, and I can just enjoy it. I won't win many medals racing,
but what the hell. It's another thing to play besides biking.
[...]
People are soooo nice! Snail mail
always surprises me. I got a little postcard from Courtney telling me she hoped
the "sunny looking" sneaker brought me better weather for training
earlier this week. I certainly could use it! Then today I got the mail and
there was this great surprise card from Tara who told me she'd made a second
donation to NF in my name just because. Wow! That was totally unexpected! Her
encouraging card had this really cute picture of a baby pushing a car and it
reads "Believing. It's 90% of doing."
I added both to my
"marathon" scrapbook. I really need to take some regular photos to
put in there too instead of just digital ones.
What a great day!
~Astrophe
  
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