My crap eating days are over for now. I can’t take it anymore. There is half a meal of that terrible stew left. I’ll probably finish it this weekend and then make sure I cook smaller portions of tastier stuff. I fell off the wagon last weekend with two days worth of good food and it was hard to eat the stew this week.

My knee is still not 100%. It’s pretty crazy that it’s taking so long to heal. My fitness is not improving either. In fact, yesterday’s run was quite difficult even though I had two days of rest. I did manage to zone out after the first lap though, so that made it a bit easier, and I tried to do that for the remainder of the lap, so I managed to run the entire mile. I should probably do a longer run this weekend, with walk breaks. Almost every day this week while walking through the park I have seen runners, most of them move like gazelles. It’s amazing how fast they can run, and how controlled their stride is. If I tried to run that fast I would be all over the place, but they’re all very calm and controlled. They make it look effortless. I can’t even guess what pace they are running at. And they must have less than 10% body fat. I would like to know what it would be like to have 10% body fat.

I have been doing lady push-ups almost every day now, but I couldn’t do more than 5 last night because of sharp pain in my left elbow. My body is falling apart.

I saw that yesterday at a Shoppers Drug Mart. It is the best set of aisle descriptors I’ve ever seen. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn’t bring my camera. I never think to bring my camera while grocery shopping.

If I do not run today it will be my fourth day of not running. I definitely could not run up until yesterday because my right knee has been having sharp pains when walking downstairs, and sometimes while walking upstairs. While walking downhill yesterday there was slight uncomfortableness, it definitely would not have been able to withstand running. Walking today still feels a bit not normal, so I probably should not run. The sharp pains are gone now, but while going downstairs I’m still trying not to put too much weight on the right knee. Pretty soon my left knee is going to complain about that. I think I have to strengthen my leg muscles. I’m not sure how I hurt my knee. I was doing some yoga lunges, so maybe that set it off. I haven’t done those in a while. And I’ve been running without doing much strength training so that probably didn’t help things. Knee pain is not fun at all.

I rolled out the yoga mat in front of the couch, so now I have a constant reminder to do some sort of physical activity while watching television, or even as soon as I get up in the morning. My knee doesn’t hurt as long as I don’t put too much weight on it, and as long as I don’t ask it to move in a certain way, so last night I did five lady push-ups and two lunges, one per side. It was a productive evening.

Today I cleaned the nosepads on my glasses with an old toothbrush. I think that is the most useful and satisfying use of old toothbrushes I have found to date.

Hmm. My knee is hurting now for no reason. All I’m doing is sitting here, I’m not even applying any pressure. I guess that means I will not run today. This is disappointing since I had just started getting back into running regularly and I could see noticeable improvements in my fitness. Instead of only doing two laps and having to stop, I was able to do three and at the same pace.

I stared at some chocolate bunnies at lunchtime, but I didn’t bring any home. I almost did though. I’ve eaten a lot of junk in the past couple of weeks: 2 large bags of chips, 3 loaves of chocolate cake, other stuff that I can’t recall at the moment.

I was thinking about making another chocolate loaf on the weekend, but then decided not to. Maybe the urge will strike again tonight. Ever since I started eating the cake I’ve been having sweet cravings after every meal. For the past few days I’ve been having pancakes with syrup as dessert. I also had a pancake with peanut butter and honey. That was quite good, it fulfilled the carb quotient and it was very filling and sugary, all at once.

I can’t remember where I got the chocolate cake recipe from, I just know that I cut the recipe in half and stuck it into a loaf pan, and it works great. I think it was the epicurious website because I remember reading reader comments about how much it rises and that various people’s oven bottoms were covered in burnt cake batter and they were not pleased.

I can’t remember the recipe. I’ll have to check my notes, but it’s something like this:

1 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the dry. Mix liquids, add to dry. I use a fork to mix it all together. Then add 1/2 cup instant coffee and stir until mixed well. Add to an oiled loaf pan. Bake 350F for about 40-45 minutes, or until done.

I went running last week. The day after I had some bilateral knee pain when walking downhill, so I took it easy and didn’t run again until Friday. It was not a bad outing, but near the end my right knee was feeling a bit funny. The past couple days my right hip has been feeling weird too. Sleeping and sitting has been slightly uncomfortable, but not too bad. Something is just not right and I don’t know what it is. I guess I should be glad that things are not so bad that I know there’s definitely something wrong. At this point, I only know that there is probably something wrong.

1. There are a lot of dumb and/or annoying people on the internet and I should stop reading what they write. It makes me want to yell any one of the following: WHY DON’T YOU READ! or GOOGLE! or  STOP BEING SO LAZY AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF!
2. I smell like fish right now because I cooked fish for dinner. I also cooked fish last week and my apartment smelled fishy for days. The fishy smell follows me everywhere. I got into the elevator with my neighbour and after a few minutes on the ride down she commented that the elevator smelled like fish. In apologetic voice, I told her it was me.
3. I went running yesterday. I now think 10 degrees Celcius is an almost perfect temperature to be running outside. You can wear a decent amount of clothes, so even when you get over-heated, you don’t have to expose too much flesh. All I had to do was take off my jacket and I felt instantly cooled. In the summer I already start out wearing the least amount of clothing acceptable for public viewing, so I can’t take anything off, and I get overheated pretty quickly and then I have to stop because my fitness level is crap.
4. I forgot to buy lactose-free milk this week. I bought the regular kind instead, but so far it has not been too bad. I haven’t had any episodes.
5. I had a very elaborate dream last night. I think it was a good one too, but I can’t remember all of the details. I think there was a pineapple. And maybe some sort of contest. All of the dreams that I wish would become recurring, or continue on, never do. It’s always the ones I don’t really care about, or the disturbing dreams that happen over and over again, like getting my computer stolen.

• It’s ingrown toenail time again. I hate this time of year. I hope it doesn’t get infected.
• I just got new toe spacers and I’ve lost one somewhere in my apartment on the way from the bathroom to the couch. They were caught up in the wet running clothes I was hanging out to dry.
• I now have to wash my running clothes after each run. They smell. A lot. They never used to smell this bad.
• I have started using perfume on a near daily basis in the fear that I smell ALL THE TIME. I do not and will not use deodorant or antiperspirant – that stuff makes me itchy and rashy.
• I tried on a dress that fit three years ago and it doesn’t fit anymore- around the waist.
• I am getting bored with Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy. There were some annoying things on GA, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention to recall what they were.

My bones ache a bit. It’s not anything too severe. I think it’s probably what getting old feels like. Last night I was going to go for a run in the park but then I remembered that I also wanted to go to the grocery store, so I decided to do an uphill run and then instead of bringing a backpack, I would carry the groceries back and get an arm workout. That was a bad idea. My walk back was slowed considerably by two 10lb bags of vegetables. It doesn’t sound like much, 10 lb per arm, that’s what I would lift if I were to do back or shoulder presses, but I had to carry them for like 2 km, which is not a lot to run, but is too much to be walking with 2 x 10 lb bags of crap. Oh well, now I know better. I was expecting my arms to feel quite sore today but they don’t. It’s mostly my shin bones and my knees. I think that is definitely a sign of aging. I have noticed that my knees are a lot more sensitive to carrying heavy loads now. They also don’t like running through the airport with a backpack trying to get to the gate on time because I had to backtrack and pick up the necklace that I forgot in security.

As I was walking back home and lamenting my stupidity, I realized that one day this will be what all my walks will feel like. I will be really old, and likely have advancing arthritis and osteoporosis, and daily walking will be the only form of exercise that I am capable of, and my steps will be laboured and slow and I will want to take a break every once in a while to rest. Carry ten pounds of anything won’t even be an option. That kind of made me feel like I should do that more often, just because I can. I may not like it, and I may have achy knees for a few days afterwards, but later on it won’t even be a possibilty.

Today my knees hurt while going up and down some stairs. Not even a bunch of stairs at a time, it was just a couple. I should do more targeted weight exercises. And I should start up those hamstring curls again. Every time my knees hurt I remind myself to do those but then a week later I forget again.

I ran 3 laps tonight and then I did a few strides. Then I took my blood pressure after a brief cool down: 100/67, 112 heartrate. There were a lot of people running in the park tonight. There was a running group composed entirely of very fit people, and also some regular-looking people running in pairs and singly. I wore my running shorts for the first time in over a year. I stopped wearing the shorts when I bought my skort, but I felt like wearing something else today. The shorts were very comfortable and didn’t ride up too much. I think the shorts are fine for when I don’t sweat too much, so my thighs don’t stick together as much and there’s not as much ride-up.

I listened to the Cardinals Ottawa show while running, specifically the new songs: Magick, Crossed Out Name, and Fix It. I’ve also been listening to those songs repeat tonight, with headphones, so as not to disturb my neighbours. Although, I have been singing along, but my voice is pretty weak, so I doubt they can hear anything. It’s so nice to have new songs. :) They have also reminded me what crappy stereo speakers I have. My headphones sound so much better. Too bad they make my ears hurt after two hours.

There’s lots of new material on Foggy: http://cave.cardinology.com, and there was some excellent fickle-blogging last week. Actually, there’s probably excellent fickle-blogging every week, but I just don’t catch it all.

PEACE OUT - R

~

hi foggy. today i spoke with a lovely english woman about you, who writes for the same newspaper T Emin writes for. she said to say hi and she liked you. you keep me in touch with the world and destroy the celebrity part (the gross part) of making things for people- so that we might all feel connected even sometimes in awkward ways. this prevents confusion, and keep me human, and keeps you, well, just foggy, the blog that is like a loved houseplant- with stretched arms of spider arms and sometimes we get the scissors out and cut away the brown bits but this dialog, it is good work, and honest and the reward is that it is the opposite of pretending we are anything other than communicating with a world- just the same as ours. so, hello foggy- today is my day off. i will share a few thoughts.

via: http://cave.cardinology.com/post/49321900/hi-foggy-today-i-spoke-with-a-lovely-english

I went for a run tonight. Just a short one, I didn’t really even sweat, I just did two laps around the park. I am not bored of the park anymore, it was quite nice actually, and my legs felt pretty strong, I could have gone longer but I didn’t really feel like running tonight. I just went because I thought I should, and I’m glad I went. And that was enough so that my fitness doesn’t decrease too badly.

There’s a lot of people on the sidewalks tonight because of the film festival. A lot of people weaving aimlessly and haphazardly along and across the sidewalk, some with bicycles and cigarettes.

I saw a cold case of Maple Leaf hot dogs selling for 2/3 the regular price at Loblaws on the weekend. The expiry date was Sept 15. Good luck getting rid of those.

I really wanted to take a picture of all of them, but I didn’t have my camera. Again. But really, I ususally don’t take pictures in the grocery store.

I have not gone running in a week. I don’t think I will go running for the next couple days. It’s kind of hot and humid and the air quality is bad, but mostly, I just don’t feel like it. If I really wanted to, I would still go even with the crappy weather. I’m just using the weather as an excuse.

I suppose I could also cite allergies. I think I had a bit of asthma cough yesterday and two days ago I had a bad nose day, with lots of sneezing. That was basically how I spent most of my vacation, sneezing and blowing my nose. I think I am allergic to my parents’ house. Claritin was USELESS against the household allergens. It works for whatever I’m allergic to in Toronto, but it is not adequate for use at home. I took two one day, on the worst day ever, and it didn’t help. I ended up sleeping for 3 hours to escape- that worked, but it’s no way to live.

I ran to the Sobeys last night. I just noticed that Sobeys has no apostrophe, so I’ve had to go back and correct it, but I’ve always written it with an apostrophe so it’s a hard habit to correct. I was slightly hungry/dizzy at the time, but not enough not to run, so I went out. It was a decent outing. The Sobeys is a fair size and it’s open 24 hours, which is awesome. Too bad it’s not slightly closer because I would go there more often. 24 hour grocery shopping is quite the luxury and should be taken advantage of whenever possible.

I was kind of dizzy on the way back so I stopped to walk a few times and I also went into the liquor store that used to be a train station. That place is quite large. I have passed by many times but never gone in before. The air conditioning was nice.

My legs are kind of sore today, running uphill and downhill is kind of hard on the thighs.

I watched the women’s marathon yesterday afternoon. It’s amazing that they can run so fast and for so long. Just amazing.