Thoughts on Turkey Day

/ jane in training / 3 Comments

Los Angeles vs.:

That’s my finger in the left hand corner, not a demon presence. Thanks for worrying about me.

There’s really no contest.  At least, not for me.

Blue (thankfully) sunny skies, the smell of an unpolluted ocean, and clean, fresh air.  I stopped during my run this morning to take the photo above.  I’ll be moving here in about four weeks, and the visual landscape – a deer was trotting down the road as I made my way downtown – reminded me that I made the right decision.

However, my social circle will be shrinking down to almost nothing, so I’ll have to make some kind of attempt at meeting people so that I don’t become a social misfit.  Well, okay…so that I don’t increase my misfitness.  Or, I could go back to grunting as a means of communication.  Maybe I’ll meet a nice caveboy and live an uncomplicated life with him, not with words, but with a lot of colorful gestures.

My plan is for this move to be my in-between place, to take stock and plan my next step.  Think good thoughts for my sanity, as I will be *gulp* temporarily moving back in with my parents.

But, one thing at a time.

I still have to break up with work next week, which, once done, will make my leaving that much more real.

Run and Give Me 20

/ jane in training / 4 Comments

It was World Run Day today!

I celebrated by eating hot dogs and drinking Guinness!

No, not really…although if you knew me, you probably believed me.  I actually used today as a test run for the 5K I have on December 2nd on the Universal Studios backlot.  I ran two continuous miles!  After I put my beer down, I ran/walked the rest of the 1.1-ish miles.

A friend joined me at the last minute, and after the run, we were stretching at one of those exercise stations at the park.  Suddenly, a man’s voice bellowed:  “THAT WAS IMPRESSIVE!”  We turned around, and an older gentleman was looking at us.  Huh?  “THOSE PUSH UPS YOU DID!!”  At the exercise station, I had managed to do two very shaky push ups.  He proceeded to give us advice on walking with weights and strengthening our core first thing in the morning by lying on our backs in bed and holding our legs a few inches from the mattress.  Why we should do this upon first waking up didn’t make sense to me.  After all, my bladder is pretty full first thing in the morning, and straining to hold my core steady just didn’t sound like a very good idea.

“Are you a coach?”  I asked him.

He looked surprised.  Yes, he was.  A retired coach.

I gave him a knowing look that said, I’m psychic.  Hm, maybe this is why I attract strange men.  Anyways, he looked exactly like what you’d think a high school football coach would look like.  For some reason, this energized him, and he put his cup down in order to lie on the ground and demonstrate just what we needed to do.

“If I pass out, call 911.”  He told us, lifting his legs off the ground and counting inside his head.

“Is that water or alcohol?”  I laughed, leaning over to peer into his cup.

Beer.  Awkward.

I know, I know, I just made jokes about me and my Guinness, but I’m kind of proper in some ways, and straining your core while drinking beer really shouldn’t be done before 10am.

What?  Oh, yes…World Run Day.  I do realize that I tend to go off topic, but I wouldn’t have done so if Coach hadn’t shown up today.

I have three weeks to continue my training and will be adding hills to my routine.  I’m slowly realizing that my legs, sadly, will never be gracefully slim…the sooner I can accept that fact, the stronger I’ll be for it.

P.S. Coach didn’t pass out. We thanked him for his advice and left him to do our core work by eating like pigs.

Men: Beauty & Truth

/ jane in training / 3 Comments

I am really sorry.  Truly.  I’m better than this.  But not right at this moment.

Pretty.  So pretty.

Just so you know, I’ve already received a lot of payback for being so shallow.  For instance, the last guy that hit on me looked like this (Without the cute mouse.  If he had that mouse, maybe I would have gone out with him.):

I’m not sure why I’m sharing all of these painful memories.  I think I’m just waiting for all of that pain to be rewarded some day.

Rewards, please hurry.

Gravity is closing in fast.

Men: The Early Years

/ jane in training / 4 Comments

Dating.  Karaoke.

Those two words make me cringe.  They have come up recently in my life, and because I can only tackle one frightening thing at a time, I’ll choose the subject of dating.

The topic has been floating around a lot lately between friends and co-workers.  We ask each other:  “How much younger?  Older?  Short?  Tall?  Type?”

“Match.com?”  shudder.

“Speed dating?”  nothing but crickets.

I have to face the facts.  My dating life has been…less than stellar.  Not only the number of dates, but the dates and relationships themselves.  Let’s see, in the beginning of my career there was:

– My first boyfriend when I was 15 years old.  It was a short-lived romance that started with meeting cute at a local fair over sno-cones.  It began to fizzle because I couldn’t get used to the way he kept throwing his tongue inside my mouth.  Because of my inexperience, I thought, is this what kissing is?  But I lacked the confidence to shout, “If I wanted tongue, I would have ordered tongue!”  I think it was his technique.  Yes, I’m sure he was the problem.

– The tourist visiting his grandmother.  We met while I was driving with a friend in town and he was riding his bicycle.  It’s complicated.  He should have been my first kiss, because – well, never mind.  I don’t know you that well yet, so I won’t go into it.  Anyways, he soon had to return to one of those funny-sounding cities in Washington.  He never responded to the letter I sent him.  That was before email, texting, Facebook.  It was so much easier to ignore people back then.

– Another short-lived romance was with a soldier stationed at the local military base.  “An Officer and a Gentlewoman” you say?  Not quite.  I met him when I took some friends’ kids roller skating.  He had a side job being one of those roller referees?  Monitors?  God JonBonJovi, it all sounds so bizarre when I say it out loud.  Anyways, we didn’t talk much – there was no need.  However, I realized there was a problem when I was writing to him and I didn’t know how he spelled his name.  Oops.

Wow, it’s kind of embarrassing looking back at those “relationships”.  And it doesn’t end there.  I’ve had some blind dates and interest from guys that make me question my ability as a female.  That’s why, when a friend was talking about a recent singles gathering called “Lock and Key”, I had all sorts of haunting images fly at me, from 60 year-old men who lived with their twin brothers to no one approaching me at all.

At work, I had been talking to one of the custodians and I mentioned that only crazy guys were interested in me.  His response:  “How come?  You nice!  You no fat!”

Yes, indeed.  Me no fat…I nice!  How come?

The Training Continues

/ jane in training / 3 Comments

This blog was born with a post about my zest for writing and running.  At least, that’s how I choose to remember it.  And surprise, surprise…I’m still here!  Doing both!

When I don’t have time to run after work, I get up in the misty mornings and run before.  Mind you, I’m not saying it’s for everyone.  After all, I don’t really have full control of my limbs (or my bowels) that early in the morning, so impending disaster and embarrassment loom around every street corner.

My friend Neal (now he’ll have to keep reading my posts with this shout out) claims that the average person exercises for about 10-12 weeks before slowly losing their original zeal to get healthy.  At least, I think that’s what he said – I might have nodded off at some point during the conversation.  Anyways, what I heard was that if I didn’t make exercise a habit, I would soon enter LazyAssville after a few months, per my usual routine.

No, I say.  Not this time.  I am publicly declaring that I will keep up my routine and will, yes, eat humble pie if I don’t.  I also know that I can easily delete this post.  Ah, the power.

*I just realized that I can’t piss off Neal.  He’s my only subscriber and he kindly comments on my posts even when I’m certain he’d rather be reading about Einstein’s philosophies and dirty little habits.  Thanks, Neal.