Saturday was my scheduled 25 minutes of full-on running, with no blessed walking in between. Except, when I reread the running schedule later I realized it only called for 20 minutes of running. This, then, would be why the last 5 minutes were tortuous and I had to repeat to myself "I am tough", which is mantra I totally ripped-off from Chris.

But, I did it. I've made a rough calculation and figure that right now I'm running a 13-minute mile. I'm not really concerned with speed. I figure I'll work on my stamina, and then maybe try to increase the speed and try some interval runs. Also, because of my history of being a dilletante when it comes to physical activities, I don't know how long I'll be interested in running before moving onto something else, so I'm just going to concern myself now with putting in the time and energy and increased heartbeats, and not so much on my possible future career as an Ironwoman.

I still have a few weeks left on the Couch to 5k plan. This morning the plan was back to run/walk: I ran 5, walked 3, ran 8, walked 3, and ran 5. It's weird because for the first bit I just fly, and am full of energy. But then - bam! - I feel completely drained and my legs are weak and I just shuffle along. All I ate was a few crackers beforehand. Will have to investigate about proper fueling.

At my first Weight Watcher's weigh-in this week I lost 3 pounds. I'm expecting that to level off in the coming weeks. One, because I think the body starts resisting weight loss after a while and two, because I'm going to start playing a bit with this Core program. For the most part I like to eat fruits and vegetables and other Core foods. But I really want to have a realistic diet, and I definetely cannot be happy eating sprouted-grain bread and unsweeted applesauce and plain yogurt for the rest of my life. So I going to try and incorporate some more "normal" foods into this diet and see how it works. Keep in mind that I'm mainly talking about PB&J and honey-nut Cheerios. If I can work those things in and still lose, I'll be happy. Mostly, though, I'm just trying to be practical about the whole thing. I keep thinking that if I ever get married some day, my spouse would likely not be happy eating brown rice and wheat pasta and skinless chicken and fake cheese all his days, so I'm thinking I need to prepare myself for slow weight loss in return for maintaing a realistic eating pattern.

I must say, however, that I am hyper-sensitive to cattiness at these weekly Weight Watcher's meetings. I mentioned the Couch to 5K plan at Saturday's meeting and I got a really cool vibe from the leader and everyone else. I know that a lot of people who are approaching weight loss are not normally physically active, and it can be a daunting idea, but I certainly wasn't reproaching anyone by talking about my own attempts at activity. I was sharing, people, that's all! Also, after schlepping myself on 3 buses in a rainstorm to get to the damn meeting, I might have had a teeny amount of frustration to vent in the form of tooting my own horn. One of the problems that I forsee at the Weight Watchers meetings is the need to reign myself in when it comes to proselytizing everyone with my own ideas about fitness and body image and the American food system.

I'm also a bit surprised that people I run into don't seem to share my opinion that it's better to be fat and fit than to be thin and unfit, which I thought was a fairly accepted peice of scientific thought. I was talking to my mom about it this weekend on a walk and she -- a nurse -- didn't seem to buy that theory. (On a completely unrelated side note, after the walk Mom wanted to go to a bakery, so we went to a local Christian-owened store that's yummy and walked into the middle of a worship service -- with free pastries -- and Mom was so hungry she made us stay for the whole thing. I told her that we're going to hell for stealing the Baptists' free muffins.)

The whole three-buses-in-the-rain fiasco of this weekend made me realize that not having a car in Texas is starting to wear thin. I am in love with
this scooter. I can just see myself scooting around town in it. Since I am cranky bear with my budget I doubt I will allow it of myself, and will instead keep salting away for a truck downpayment. Ah, the sorrows of being fiscally practical.

Here's a quote that reminds me of the pleasures of a exercise. It's from the novel Working Parts by Lucy Bledsoe:

"Biking is movement; movement created by the cyclist, real movement through real space. When you ride a bike, you feel as if you're pulling the landscape through your lungs."