Accidentally Amagical: Attempting to get into shape

I'm a curvy girl, always have been. The best shape I was in was my senior year of high school through my freshman year of college. My first job was at a clock and rug store at the outlet mall. Between lifting and hanging rugs, climbing ladders, drinking a ton if water and living off popcorn and crackers, I shed a lot of weight. So much weight that my boss asked me if I glad an eating disorder. I maintained my loss through my freshman year of college because I was so shy I refused to eat or even go to the cafeteria alone.

When I met my ex I got seriously comfortable and put on the pounds. I've pretty much continued on this no exercise struggle since then. When I worked at the hospital I walked all day so I didn't want to come home and walk more. I would occasionally take the dog for a walk up the road, but we had a large enough yard he could get plenty of excercise with out a walk.

Then I started school again and was way to busy studying to do anything else. Plus we had plenty of yard still for Luna to play in when we got her. When I graduated I was so damn depressed with our living situation and not being able to land an assistantship or internship that the best I did was hike once a week and volunteer with the raptor center once a week.

Now I have no excuse. Sure I have a ton of stuff to work on, but I only have two classes two days a week. When I got back from field season I started strong, walking Luna every day, drinking more water and less tea. First I twisted my ankle, then I hurt my back and I started on my downward spiral again. I wasn't walking as much and tea was my best friend again.

One of my lab mates is a trail runner. That sounds fun, I thought to myself. I like trails. I have NEVER been a runner. EVER. Even at my best I only jogged. So I downloaded the couch to 5k (c25k) app. I have heard wonderful things about the program and wanted to give it a whirl for myself. Basically what it does is slowly acclimate your body to running. You only do 3 days a week for 30 min each day. The first week is 5 min warm up, 60 seconds of jogging, 90 seconds of walking for 20 min, then a 5 min cool down.

The first day I tried on trail. I followed all but two of the prompts and was exhausted afterwards. The next time I decided I needed to ease into trails so I hit the pavement. My knees thanked me! Pavement offers less resistance so my calves didn't cramp up near as much. When it came to do day 3 I had so much school work (midterms) that I missed a week.

I started back on day 1 (it's also ok to repeat weeks which I like) the other day and it wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be. My legs didn't cramp at all! So today I decided to go back on trail. Of course my second prompt to jog was mid hill (ugh) and the trail had a lot of hills, sand, and leaves (fall-duh) so there was much more resistance. My distance was only maybe 0.07 miles shorter than on pavement and I walked further after my cool down time. My legs cramped horribly and I thought about just walking the rest of the way after the third jog prompt. But I continued to do the prompts. I found that I was looking at my phone less and less to see how much longer my jog was and I would be surprised when it would prompt for walk because it didn't feel like I had been jogging for the full minute!

I have decided to keep easing into trails so I'll only do c25k on trails on Fridays when I usually take a personal/errand day anyway. Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesdays I'll either hike or do c25k on pavement. That way I'll have a "rest" day in between c25k but I'm still getting excercise and fresh air.

As I get further into graduate school the more I realize how much a few hours of personal outside time is needed. It's good to get involved with your work, but not to let it consume you. Sometimes you need time to reflect on what you're doing and why. Zen moment!

I hope you all have a great weekend, a happy Halloween, and until next time blessed be.