Nobody Was Chasin' Me...

I mentioned in my entry on Friday that yoga was one of the two things I swore I would never do.  The OTHER thing is running.  The joke for this far in my life was, "I don't run unless someone is chasing me.  Even then, I will stop and negotiate."  And it has proven true thus far.  I have been trying desperately to break THAT habit, but, I'm just throwing mental blocks left and right. 

Big mental block...Monday night.

I feel that I am physically incapable of running on a treadmill.  I have tried, I've worked hard at it, and I get the mental image that I will fly off the back and land face first on the belt of the machine.  I've seen the funny commercials with the girl eating it on the treadmill and just thought, "Yep, that could be me."  Every time I try to focus on something just ahead of the machine to run, I catch a glimpse of my reflection and see that I'm all over the machine.  Immediately, the morbid image of my face chewed up by the belt pops into my head and I'm done.  I just don't know what my issue is on this! 

So, I purchased a Garmin from my not-quite-legal sister in law.  I was so excited about this and could not wait to get all geared up and head to the gym to do a run.  I calibrated everything, figured out how to affix the heart rate monitor, and out the door I went.  I was heading to my new gym to get some control over this elusive running "issue".  There's a breeze in my hair, a spring in my step, and I had on the best "determination" face I could muster when I busted through the front door of the gym, only to hit a wall of the most heavenly aroma.  Yes, folks, right there by the front door was a long table and stacked on this table were pizza boxes.  And they were stacked five deep.  How could this be?  Why on EARTH would they have one of my favorite foods right there in front of me before I could even reach a machine?  Whose side were these people on, anyway?  I was absolutely dumbfounded. 

I turned and showed my member card at the front and the little Hollister-wearing-size 2-on-a-fat-day cheerleader eagerly smiled and said, "Hi! Feel free to enjoy some yummy pizza as our way of showing appreciation for our customers!"  I half-heartedly returned her smile and felt like I was in slow motion as I tried to wrap my head around this idea.  Who came up with this?  Did someone think this was funny?  I mean, come on!  I purposely came to the gym to work OFF the insane amounts of pizza I have allowed to find permanent residence on my body in the form of fat cells over the past few years. 

I quickly make my way around the hordes of people standing around the table eating to go to the locker room and put my stuff away.  I walk in and what do I see?  A gaggle of girls sitting indian style in the middle of the lockers with plates of pizza slices stacked 3 or 4 high.  It smelled great at first, but, then quickly something turned my stomach.  I cannot tell you right now what it is/was, but this evening wasn't proving to be all I had hoped.

I went and found a treadmill, turned up my music, stared at the "Judgement Free Zone" sign on the wall and tried to get my mind on to what I was here to accomplish.  I started my routine and found that the smell was really turning my stomach at this point.  It was like someone set up the treadmill right smack dab in the middle of a Papa John's kitchen.  Ugh.  So, to amuse myself (and get my mind off the darn smell), I decided to play pretend.  I was trying to pretend that the people consuming the insane amount of pizza behind me were actually CHASING me, kinda like zombies.  I found a focal point in front of me and started to run.  EPIC FAIL.  I somehow saw a reflection of a girl just off my left shoulder on her cell phone and stuffing her face with pizza.  I lost all track and came down on the side of the treadmill--you know, the sides that DON'T MOVE?!?! 

Lucky for me, I recovered nicely.  I just glanced around and realized that nobody was really paying attention, and came on back down to a brisk walk.  This is where I stayed for 41 minutes until I couldn't take any more of the smell.

Positive thing about all of this:  I'm good if I don't consume pizza for a few more days (if not weeks) right now.  So, that's one food that won't be an issue for me (as far as how to avoid...), at least in the near future.

I still didn't do a good "run", but there's always my workout for tonight!  I'm bound and determined to make myself a runner yet!