Silly excuses to get unfit

Motivation has been difficult to find lately. I’ve been trying to stick to my little exercise regime but when it’s rainy outside and the leftover warmth from the early morning sun has ebbed away, it’s so damn hard to drag myself off my bed.

I actually wanted to go for a run this week, but decided against it because it was windy outside. Yes, yes, I’m aware that sounds like a terrible excuse to not go running, but bear with me. When it’s windy out and I have nothing covering my ears, I get the worst headache known to mankind. It doesn’t stop when I get out of the wind, either. The pain sticks around for at least an hour, and it even makes me feel a little bit sick. So while I understand I should be going for a run, I’m not ready to put up with that kind of pain.

Why not wear a beanie, you ask? Well, you see, I’d like to say I’m something of a collector of quirky hats, but that wouldn’t be strictly true, because I only have two so far. That doesn’t really count as a collection. Either way, the only beanie like hat in my “collection” has a pair of shoulder-length ears that hang down behind it. While I’m sure that I’d look mildly hilarious running along the side of the road with my hat ears flowing in the wind behind me, I’d rather not give it a go.

It’s probably a bad excuse. I should probably just deal with it. I should probably just wear the hat.

 

No pain no gain

Running. I don’t know who decided it was a good idea, but I’m going to find out, and then I’m going to track them down and . . . well, best I don’t say anything incriminating.

I promised myself I’d go for a run today, finally get off my lazy butt and do some exercise. Instead, I lay in bed and ate an entire pizza on my own. My flatmate has been away all week and without her I feel next to no motivation to try be healthier.

As it neared evening a feeling of guilt came over me, and I decided I’d do it anyway. I’d still go for a run. The next 45 minutes were spent trying to make myself get off my bed and out the front door.

I started off at a light jog, feeling pretty good about myself. Then, about 30 seconds later, a stitch set in. ‘Ugh,’ I thought to myself miserably, ‘just reach the signpost in the distance.’

About halfway to the signpost, it started getting hard to breathe. You have to understand, I am not a fit person. I know you see people who look a normal weight and think they’re just being annoyingly modest when they say they’re unfit, but for me it’s the truth. I may not look like a fat person, but I am one where it counts: inside.

By the time I reached that signpost – and I had to break into a sprint to get there before my body gave up on me – I could barely breathe. Now, as I’ve already said in an indirect way, I do not run very much, but the feeling I experienced when I stopped at that signpost is something that I can’t remember feeling before while running. It’s not even as if I’d run the furthest or the fastest that I’d ever run.

I had incredibly sharp pains running all the way up my chest and throat, that stabbed at me whenever I tried to take even the shallowest of breaths. It felt like I was inhaling knives. I have never been in so much physical pain after a short jog, or perhaps after any exercise. The pain didn’t go away for the rest of the walk home. It was only about a five minute walk, I didn’t get very far, but the whole time I was struggling to breathe through the pain.

About halfway home I started feeling nauseous – again, something that hasn’t happened to me before – and feared that I might humiliate myself by throwing up on the side of a main road. Crossing my fingers, I willed away the nausea and continued my walk. Luckily I reached my house without incident, and it was only after dropping like a rock onto the couch and lying there for several minutes that the pain started to ebb, and the nausea started to disappear.

Is this what happens when you run after eating a whole pizza? Or is it because it was a cool evening and I hadn’t warmed up before I started running? Please don’t tell me it’s because I’m unfit, because boy does that make it harder to force myself out on those runs.

Never Again

I’ve never been one for exercise. I hate running (hate it), and stopped playing sports once I reached high school because was scared about being the only white girl trying out for the basketball team. Soccer had a bunch of rules I didn’t really understand (mainly who goes where on the field), and netball always seemed ridiculous to me. So I wasn’t a very sporty person.

Over the years I’ve attempted to get into regular exercise many, many times, and each time my attempt has quickly fizzled out. Last year I bought a six month gym membership. I was actually doing pretty well. I reached the point where I was going several times a week for one or two hours a time. My routine had become easier and I was starting to feel pretty good about myself. That all stopped when an old knee injury played up, and I couldn’t return before my membership expired.

I tried running. My two flatmates and I from last year decided to go for a run together.

“Don’t worry,” Sacha said, “I’m not a good runner. You’ll be able to keep up with me.”

Lying bitch.

But I told myself that maybe if I kept at it every day, it would start to get easier, and it wouldn’t feel like someone was squeezing the air out of my lungs all the time. So I continued with that for maybe a week before I turned to a snazzy little Youtube Pilates video instead. I slipped into a routine of doing Pilates every one or two days, and going for long power walks (about the only exercise I actually enjoy).

But you know how it is when holidays roll around, and you’re flitting all around the place visiting family and friends and the boyfriend. When you’re not at home regularly, it makes it hard to keep to the routine. So that eventually died out too once classes stopped for the year.

As a result, I’m particularly unfit. Yesterday my mother did a fitness test and I decided to join in because I wanted to see how well I’d do. I am now sorely regretting that decision, emphasis on the ‘sorely’.

I jokingly told Mum last  night that, halfway through my drive back to Hamilton from Tauranga, the muscles I needed for driving had given up on me and I had to drag myself the rest of the way home by my lips. They, at least, seem to be the only part of my body not hurting right now.

This next part of my post is the pain talking.

NEVER EXERCISE EVER. YOU WILL REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. EXERCISE IS BAD AND IT HURTS.

So much pain. Send help.