Thanksgiving with the Fathlete

So I didn't run fast enough in this morning's annual Run 4 The Pies in beautiful downtown Tequesta, Fl. to earn a pie, like the first 700 finishers. So I was off my previous time in the 2006 race by about a minute. 

But I'm still eating pie tonight. It's just that I'm really gonna think about what I'm putting in my mouth today. I know, I know, that's pretty fundamental to the whole healthy weight loss situation. But usually Leslie gives herself a pass on Thanksgiving, sometimes because I'd run a race that morning, and last year, because I was chubby and injured and figured I should find my joy from somewhere...anywhere...even in pie.

Because pie is a central theme in my life. Again, these are all the reasons for being The Fathlete.

I'm not going to worry much today about sticking to allotted calories, only to just really like everything I eat, and not to waste my time and tastebuds on the mediocre. And then tomorrow...Zumba! And then more eating. And on Saturday, 8.5 miles in Miami Beach, that's gonna hurt like a mofo! It's gonna hurt like Mofro! And I don't even know what that means!

Vacation Lag and Exercise

I have yet to regain my pre-vacation workout schedule, due to lack of time and my unfortunate relationship with red wine and dancing to the '80s on Saturday night (getting too old for this schiznit).

Today I have to fit in at least two hours of working out, several interviews, some movies I have to review, and judging a karaoke contest. But I can do it. I have to, because the most dreaded of eating days is coming, as well as the 4-mile "Run 4 The Pies" on Thanksgiving morning where the first several hundred finishers get an apple pie.

I am not real confident about my pie chances this year, y'all. But I'm gonna try. Not that I need it. But it is a fruit-filled badge of honor.

Jet lag

hurts. There was a class at the gym I was thinking about going to 15 minutes ago, which didn't happen, and the next is kickboxing, which I hate when I'm motivated and in the right time zone. And since I'm chronologically confused and sleepy, that would not be pretty. This is the peak of that slippery slope that we on the semi-righteous nutrition path can slide right off. I didn't work out yesterday, and it would be so easy to say "I don't want to go today" and then say "I don't want to go tomorrow" and then "I sure do like this cheese."

And I sure do like the cheese. But I need to get up off my butt. After this episode of "Law and Order."

Are you running in San Francisco? Be sure to wear...

...a car to drive the hills.

I'm looking out at the San Francisco Bay right now - it's 4:30 PST, which is why I'm awake, because my body thinks it's 7:30. My body is wrong.

I was thrilled to find that there is a 24 Hour Fitness down the street - I'm planning to swing over and do some weights at some point, mostly because

a) I love weight training and

b) I had a half can of Pringles for lunch on the plane, because Delta RAN OUT OF FOOD. Yes. They had a plane full of folk on a cross-country flight, but the lovely flight attendant admitted that by the time she got to the back of the plane, where I was occupying the very last row, she'd been out of everything but chips and cookies for a while.

Helpfully, she had me tell her what I would have ordered if, indeed, there had been food.

Delta? What the...?

I think we're going to Sonoma later ("we" being myself and life-long pal Melanie, in whose hotel room I am squatting.) And there will be cheese. And wine.

So the Fathlete will be running.

Between meals, Mel and I went to Nordstrom, where I bought a dress for the Nat King Cole Generation Hope gala Thanksgiving weekend, and am pleased to report that everything seems to be sucking into place pretty well. There were a couple of moments where a pair of Spanx might have helped, but in my late 30s, I'm all about fabrics that suck that mess in. When I was 25, I was insulted by such things because I wanted my body to not need it. Control Top? Fie! I'm doing extra crunches.

But at 37, I'm respect the God-given genius of stretch and control fabric engineers. And I support their products and their gifts.

Tator Tot update

They were out of tater tots at Howley's. Can you imagine? The tots were my happy place during the last mile of my run, and they were out of them. (By the way, that happy place says a lot about why I can write a blog called Fathlete.)

I had a couple of onion rings, that turned out to be a better deal, calorie-wise, as well as a crabcake that wasn't as crabby as they used to be there. (I am an official Maryland crabcake snob, so you have to bear with me on that). It was nice and lumpy in most spots - only in crab cake parlance is lumpy a good thing) but bready in others. (Again, bread is my boyfriend, so only in crabcakes do I want to break up with it).

They said that some cooks beat the crabcake stuff too much and break the lumps up, but that they were trying to get them not to do that.

So stop doing that.

I am going to San Francisco tomorrow, where eating and drinking are as normal as breathing (or so I choose to believe when I visit.) Looking forward to running those hills, because I look forward to the all-you-can-eat Soul Food buffet at Farmer Brown.

We all have our priorities.

Why I'm going to have tater tots for lunch

This morning, I ran 6.3 miles with my friend Rochelle, otherwise known as TV's Little Rocky, current Florida Golden Gloves champ-een in her weight group and my unofficial trainer. This means that she wears the Garmin GPS distance doohicky, runs backwards to taunt me when I'm slowing down, and yells "Go for it" at various times on our run.

She is my hero.

Then, I came home, at a bowl of Capn Crunch with Crunchberries with soy milk and then went to Boot Camp Class at my gym, where I dusted some really skinny girls, including one with a six-pack, in the final sprint. Nobody noticed but me.

But I'm the one who matters.

I have to not judge my progress by other people because I don't know what their stories are. I don't know what their cholesterol is like, or how fast they run. I just see their abs and want to cry, because I want those abs. Heck, I want the abs I used to have.

But I am having a late lunch, and since I've estimated that I've burned about 1800 calories in my two workouts, I get a small portion of fried potatoes. Just enough to keep me going.

Welcome to my world! Got any snacks?

Welcome to my new blog, which is about being an athletic work-in-progress, which is to say that I am neither currently at my fittest, nor at my fattest. 

You don't have to be thin to be an athlete. You just have to do the work and kick some butt.

I have now returned, somewhat cautiously, to semi-hardcore levels, to running and lifting and all the sweaty stuff, after an injury last year and a sordid affair with cheese. (I still see cheese sometimes, but we have an understanding).

I am not where I want to be, speed or weight-wise. But it's better than it was six months ago. And when I see people who knew me at my fitness heyday, about two years ago, they think I'm a fatty. I had this nasty girl who was in my marathon training group pass me on an escalator say "Are you still running?" and then say, under her breath "Guess not."

Yes, I heard you. And while I can lose weight, you will probably still suck.

At the height of my nutty runner-ness, I was clocking a nine-minute mile, usually finishing 5Ks at around 28-29 minutes and having absolutely no problems flashing a little midriff.

Possibly inappropriately at times.

But I digress.

I was never the fastest, or the thinnest, in any of my age groups in races (I once came in second at a race that most of the usual suspects skipped to run a longer race the next day, and, had I run it a week later when I turned 35, I'd have come in seventh.)

But considering that I was not an athlete in high school or college, or for most of my 20s, that's not bad. Actually, it's awesome. I was so NOT an athlete in college that a) I was referred to as "The Fat Twin," and actually told by a not nice old lady at my church that she was happy I was now fat because she could now tell me from my sister and b) my fit parents bought me running shoes and a pink track suit for Christmas, suggesting a family run/walk around the lake, during which my sister and I, who were 19, chatted at such a slow crawl that we were lapped by our 43-year-old mother. Twice.

But I was a gym rat, off and on, and in 1997 ran my first 5K, which was all up hill and nearly killed me. I was hooked, because I understood that the more I ran, the more I could eat. If you had told me that the more I studied math in high school, the more pizza I'd been able to snarf, I wouldn't have had to take the Stupid Math in college, the non-credit class you had to take to qualify for Basic Math.

And when I moved to Florida in 2002, I discovered that everyone was thinner than they were in Central Pennsylvania, which makes since, because the official animal of Pennsylvania is pork. I quickly went on a crazy diet and lost a lot of weight, working out obsessively, losing my hips and boobs, wearing a 6, and worrying my mother. But things got better (and less scary thing) when I went crazy with the running, mostly because in 2004 I moved to an apartment with no gym. I ran with a friend who pushed me, and we did our first half marathon in 2004, in the pouring rain. And in 2005, I trained for and ran/walked/crawled the full Baltimore Marathon, the last 11 miles of which I had a nasty leg cramp and wished to die.

But then somebody bought me a funnel cake, and everything got better.

Anyway, I did another two halfs, a bunch of 5ks and 4 milers, and the 8-mile leg of the Knoxville Marathon with my whole family, during which I had to catch up with the clown who denoted the end of the race. But we ran that clown down, man. We ran his chunky shoe-wearing butt down but good.

But then came the injuries and the mid-30s, and then the post-mid 30s, and the cheese and the Happy Hours that turned into dinner and more drinks and a gazillion calories before bed. And that's just the nachos. And by May, around the time I got dumped (I will give that whole relationship as much time as he gave it before cheating on/dumping me. And...we're done!) I joined a new gym and realized that I weighed...get this...

You might want to sit down....

180 pounds.

At my thinnest I weighed 146. Seriously. Of course, this time, it was a combination of fat and muscle, which shocked my new trainer, who initially just assumed I was a fat girl with no fitness. When I lifted a bit and ran without getting winded, he looked at me and said "You're so strong" which translates to "What did you do to yourself?"

But in six months, I've lost a lot of inches, including a bra size, am back in clothes I never thought I'd wear again, and decided to let go some others that I'm never, ever going to wear again. Ever.

I haven't been on the scale much because it just confuses me without knowing the body composition, but I reckon I'm somewhere near 170. When I get back from my vacation I'll let you know. There will be cheese. But also running.

Run on, y'all.