Sometimes you just
have to laugh at yourself and last week I had a moment when all I could do was
giggle and shake my head at the way my mind works.
What you may not
know about me is that I was an athlete in my younger days. As a child, I loved the feeling of flying
though the air with every good intention of landing on one skate with my arms
gracefully stretched out, just like my figure skating heroines. The fact that I, more often than not, perfected
my imitation of a Zamboni as I slid across the ice after a spectacular wipe
out, did nothing to diminish the pure joy of flying around the ice and
practicing my jumps.
Somewhere along
the way as the years passed and responsibilities increased, I lost touch with
that athlete and over time slipped into a sedentary life style. That said, every once in a while, “Kathy the
Athlete” pops back into my world with stunning randomness and unpredictability,
and guess who just happened to show up two weeks ago?
My church supports
a local environmental stewardship organization which is holding their annual
fundraising run at the end of September.
Two weeks ago our priest announced that our parish should submit a team
and generate some support for this event.
With that proclamation, “The Holy Terrors” was conceived and how could a
girl resist being on a team with a name like that? If I’m being completely honest, also in the
back of my mind is the fact that I named running 5km as one of my goals for
2013 and I’ve made it all the way to September (quite nicely, thank you very
much!) by completely ignoring that goal made way back in January. The Holy Terrors became my chance to get
started.
One of the
challenges that I face when “Kathy the Athlete” pops back into my world is that
my brain still thinks of me as “Kathy the Athlete”. The point of contention with this is that my
brain and my body function on two completely different planes of reality. I haven’t run in years. I haven’t done much of anything in years. No
problem, right?
Week one goes by
and nothing happens beyond a fleeting thought that I really need to start
training. Week two starts off with a
lovely 6km stroll along the Chilliwack River; absolute misery! My body immediately remembers why I don’t
usually get beyond the first attempt or two at re-introducing physical activity
into my life and I find myself looking around every bend on the trail
wondering, “Are we there yet?” This is
going to be an absolute disaster.
Last summer I
heard about the interval training program, “Couch to 5k”. After a day or two of “Research C25K”
lingering on my To Do list, I sourced out the program online. “Ooooh and what is this? A convenient app for my iPhone that will tell
me when to jog and when to walk? Hello!”
Ladies and
gentlemen, an iPhone app monster has been born.
What health
practitioners and my own personal knowledge about the fundamentals of a
balanced, healthy life style couldn’t do, a simple little $1.99 iPhone app
has. You see, my mind absolutely cannot
wait to have this application tell it how long and how far my body has
travelled. The joy of seeing my total
mileage at the end of the session is more powerful than the discomfort of hauling
this “sleek” little frame of mine around the neighbourhood.
Week three has
started with me wrangling two different friends into a walk and a hike. Oh and did I mention that I just happened to
log our excursion and at it’s conclusion, babbled on at length about the number
of miles we just walked, how long it took us and what our time per mile was? All was well in my small, little world until
one of my very dear friends asked, “How far did we just walk in kilometers?”
Never mind, Kathy. I’m sure that there is an iPhone app for
that.
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