TRAINING: Week Negative One, Day One

...So, what did I miss?

Fine, I know. I missed you too. And yeah, I am right there with you about the disappointment of the whole not-competing-in-the-sprint-this-month debacle that was the past four months.

I could go through the arm chair prostrations of how I need the gym to be the best Shortround I can be, or make up some slanderous lie about Marathon Man no longer needing me, but, y'know, who needs that? I'm still Shortround and Marathon Man still has a thing for me and we're all slappy-happy.

So let's get to today's workout.

I'm not going to launch right back into the HARD CORE COUCH POTATO SPRINT TRAINING!!!! because I'm not feeling particularly suicidal. I'm more easing into it. Yesterday, that was putting my gym card back on my key chain. Today it was a little more active.

I started out with twenty ounces of coffee to shake off the antihistimine hangover. Heart rate up, I popped Dance Dance Revolution Max into the PlayStation and went through a five song, standard mode warm-up. Then, after stretching, I ran.

Remember when I could run three clicks without blinking? Remember when I could knock out a twenty minute run without thinking about it?

Yeah, I'm back to square one with the whole running concept. Ten minutes at a slow lope, gasping and wheezing the whole way.

I am so disappointed how I let this go.

Anyway, I came back home and popped one of my many yoga DVDs into the player and went through another ten minutes of stretching before pouring another cup of coffee and coming up here to write this entry.

And just as a nod to missing me, Christy Feig is on my television, harping on obesity.

I'm back, baby.

TRAINING: Week Ten, Day One

(I'll get to the workout recount soon, promise)

There's an older guy at the gym whom I have a nodding aquaintance. He looks like one of my co-workers in about twenty years and I think of him as The Portrait. He seemed like a nice old guy, even if he can never figure out how to work the bike.

So, as I was working my way out of the gym parking lot this morning, I saw The Portrait climb into his car: a microscopic Hyundi coupe covered with Palestinian-power bumper stickers. "One World Under Allah," "End Israel NOW!" "PALESTINE NOW!"

It pushed me right out of my comfort zone; it freaked me the fuck out. I like to think of myself as well-read and aware of the conflicts in the world, but this? This doesn't happen where I live. We're supposed to be pluralists, color-blind, right? Okay, so there's the historical tension between Hispanics and African-Americans and I've seen a six-foot, 250 pound guy take a swing at a 5'10, 150 pound security guard who refered to him as "colored."

But a member of the PLO right here? It's enough to make my internal Strong Bad say, "And the CNNy just peed the carpet."

I don't know why I'm so friggin' surprised and shocked by this guy; my father's youngest sister married a Palestinian when I was baby. A bonafied member of the PLO. Had pictures of Yassir Arafat in their apartment, my mom tells me. I've always known they were hanging around my little patch of the world, I had just sort of forgotten.

I think it was such the outspoken hatred of the bumperstickers that got me. I can handle the day-to-day redneck rhetoric that pops up on work trucks and SUVs, but this rattled me.

*~*~*~*~*

On Friday, I had my first twenty mile day. I put 19 miles in on the bike and a mile in the pool and I could not shut up about it. I might as well have changed my name to Neil Armstrong and gotten a buzz cut to hear the way I went on about it. "Twenty miles!" I shouted at Marathon Man through the phone, channeling my favorite book ever. "Si, claro! Veinte miles!"

And then yesterday, I knocked off a twenty-six minute run like it was nothing and spent the afternoon annoying everyone with the accomplishment.

And then today was another bike/swim combo. This time, I only went 13 miles total, which seems like such a comedown.

Tomorrow, however, I have my first appointment with a personal trainer. I'm sure hilarity will ensue.

TRAINING: Week Nine, Day Three

Hey, Marathon Man?

I need a gold star.

TRAINING: Week Eight, Another Day

Sunday. Run day. Twenty-four minutes, not too long, but it seemed like an age.

The sky was watery blue and windswept when I went out. A later check on weather.com would tell me that it was 42 degrees but felt like 29. If I had known that going out, I probably would have stayed in, wrapped up in the duvet and had a cup of hot chocolate and said, "Triathlon? Yeah, I thought about it once, but really? I'm more of an indoor girl."

The cold slowed me down, way down. Twenty-four minutes didn't get me two miles. It wasn't so bad at first, when I had the wind at my back and I was running in the sun, but when I changed directions at the twelve minute mark it all went to shit. The wind froze my thighs, my face, the air in my lungs. On the exhale, my sunglasses would fog. My pace slowed to an absolute trudge and it was a struggle to make it to the end, but I scraped it together.

Later, when I was cleaning out my gym bag, I realized I'd left my swimsuit at the gym. Crap. I called and they have it, and I'll pick it up later, but I can't believe I'd leave it there. I'm not appreciating the total spacing.

TRAINING: Week Eight, Day Whatever

Yesterday was my longest bike ride and my longest swim ever. It was a combined 76 minutes of sweat, sweat, sweat and possibly a little grunting. I feel awesome.

Of course, last night was a little different.

"My arms hurt," I whined to Marathon Man.

"Why would your arms hurt?" he asked, not unreasonably.

"Because I used these arms to pull my bloated, disgusting body through a half mile of water," I said.

He looked at me like I was possibly the biggest moron on the planet. "Why didn't you kick?" he asked, which got him the same look back.

"Because I'd just done 48 minutes on the bike and it was time for my arms to get a little play."

He gave the "ah!" of understanding and asked how far I'd gone on the bike.

"Seventeen and a quarter miles."

"Dude!"

It was a "dude" of respect and of inspiration. It was a "dude!" of "That's longer than my drive to the office, and done in the same amount of time." It was a "dude!" of "I am so proud of you, I can't even see straight."

Damn right, dude.

TRAINING: Week Eight, Day One (but really, shouldn't it be Week Nine, Day Three, you big loser?)

I had a head cold. It's become the standard answer.

"Hey! Shortround!"
Dion says when I beep my card, and he sounds kind of happy to see me. "Where've you been?"

"I had a head cold."

He nods and says it's been going around, but, "You shouldn't let that stop you." He looks stern here, like he caught me with both hands and a foot in the cookie jar. "You've got to keep working, even when you feel bad."

I smile and nod; I'm back and that's the gold star moment in all of this.

I'm at the gym early. The morning rush is just starting to die off: the machines are empty, but the locker room's packed. I have my choice of bikes and park in front of CNN. Dubya's where today?

The plan is to pull the full workout dictated by the schedule: 32 minutes on the bike, 16 in the pool. Turns out, I read the schedule wrong and it should be 29 on the bike and 19 in the pool. Idiot.

Still, the bike part blows by, a half-hour zoning while maintaining optimal heart rate. The thin, scary woman who runs the joint swings by. "Hey, where've you been?"

I had a head cold.

She just rolls her eyes.

The gym empties out of office workers and refills with the mid-morning moms. I get distracted watching a girl who looks like me go through an introductory tour with one of the personal trainers. She's wearing coordinating pink leggings and athletic camisole with built-in bra. Her socks match. Her shoes match. Her hair's french braided into two pigtails, tied off with pink maraboo scrunchies. When he shows her the bikes, I can see she's wearing lip gloss.

I'm in my stretchy black yoga pants from Target and a t-shirt from Marathon Man's company celebrating a recent merge. Somehow, I didn't get the memo to do cute at the gym.

The trainer sets her up on the bike next to me. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he sets it up for her. Ten minutes on an easy level, with a targeted heart rate that's 20 bpm lower than mine. She starts pedaling, slowly at first until she builds a little momentum, and I will admit now that I am petty enough to smirk to myself when, at the end of my ride, I see she's still a good 40 rpms lower than me and sweating through her makeup. But I quickly think good thoughts, because god knows how many times people have thought bad things about me while I'm on the bike, and really, I've got to start being a better person. It's all about karma, right Earl?

I don't talk to her, and she doesn't talk to me, and I kind of forget about her as I transition from bike to pool. The Granny Biker Club Swim-n-Smoke is just getting started, but two lanes are open. Awesome.

Sixteen minutes in the pool feels longer today. I'm pulling off 100 meters about every two minutes. 800 meters total, half a mile. Twice race distance. Woo. It'll do.

Later in the morning, when I'm showered and dried and smelling of Philosophy's Amazing Grace and chlorene, I hit the ATM for a mid-week cash infusion. The screen's blinking. "Do you want another transaction?"

Confused, I push "no." I haven't had my caffeine yet, what do you mean, do I want another transaction?

The machine spits out an ATM card that isn't mine. It isn't anyone from the looks of it. It's a string of numbers with no name and no signature on the bank. A temporary ATM card. I wonder if a similar incident has struck the owner before.

So, I do what comes naturally. I take it out, look at it and take it inside and give it to a teller. "Wow," she says. "It was just sitting in the ATM?"

"Yep?" I half-ask, because, well, where else would it be?

"Thank you," she says. "That's very honest of you. Most people would have just drained the account and run."

Karma.

OT: I'm driving Marathon Man insane

The first day of my period's a roller coaster of crazy. Every 28 to 36 days, keep the arms inside the car and nobody under 60" is allowed.

Usually, it falls on a work day and I have to keep the crazy bottled up. Constant applications of chocolate and and Advil usually work, but the crazy will leak out a little, in phone freakouts or e-mails to Marathon Man that swing wildly from cheerful to edge of the ledge in six sentences. Over nearly nine years, he's gotten used to it. "Crazy level elevated to yellow today, or is it amped all the way up to a red level?"

Pity the poor man, because today he experienced crazy uncorked.

From the bathroom where I was getting dressed. "Why don't you like constantly man handle the blouse bunnies? They're just so pillowesque and gazomba like?"

"I dunno," which probably meant "I don't know, because I have been asleep for the last nine hours and I'm not quite sure where I am. Who are you?"

Tears.

After a breakfast of pie and guacamole? "I could really go for some french fries dipped in a chocolate shake."

"Why? Aren't you full?"

Rage.

During an especially touching scene during Scrubs? "I hate my body. I hate everything about it. I haven't been to the gym in like ten days, and I feel fat and gross and worthless and I can't even afford a pair of Manolos."

"I'm confused. What do Manolos have to do with being fat?"

"YOU THINK I'M FAT?!"

He can't win. And worse, it's like my brain is so drenched in hormones that it's on a ten second delay instead of its usual three seconds. It's all brain stem reaction followed by cogent regret. I so hate the first day of my period.

But I've got to tip my hat to the Marathon Man. He's been nothing but supportive. He brought me Advil and made me tea and didn't complain when my idea of a productive afternoon was a Scrubs marathon on the upstairs couch. He's just so good like that. I've got a keeper.

"So, how long are you crazy for?" he asked about ten minutes ago.

"You've got between 24 and 36 hours," I said.

He took it like a trooper.

OT: Deconstructing an e-mail from Flake

There it is, an e-mail from Flake, just taunting me. The subject is a simple FLAKE FLAKINGTON & THE FLAKETTES LITERARY AGENCY, not betraying the contents. This is one of Flake's flake-outs; if she just pastes the firm's masthead into the subject line, she doesn't have to be creative. Being creative is the writer's job.

I swallow when I see it. Up to a year ago, getting a FLAKE FLAKINGTON e-mail meant news, even if it was discouraging. Even if it was a simple "Hi, Shortround! What's the status on your new project?" was cause for celebration. It meant she was thinking about the book, thinking about me. Those e-mails made it easy to delude myself into thinking she was flogging my work all over Manhattan. Of course my novel was going to sell! I had Flake on the case!

But in the last six months, a FLAKE FLAKINGTON e-mail can mean anything: a group e-mail (because she hasn't figured out the BCC: feature of her AOL account), a friendly query as to the current status of a project or -- and this one became common after the current project took a 12 rejection beating in April -- suggestions for polishing the manuscript that proved she hadn't understood simple plot points.

[Sidebar: I know it's typical for failed writers to whine about not being understood, but trust me, it's different. I would pass around her list of suggestions to my first readers and they would choke on their beers. "Did she read this?" was the favorite quote. It was so bad, Marathon Man took the list and drew little extended middle fingers in the margins. When he gave it back, he said, "She. Is. An. Idiot. Dump her." /Sidebar.]

I sit for a minute, trying to psyche myself up to open this missive. She's had the revised manuscript since Thursday. She's had a weekend to look over it (although, I know in my heart she hasn't. It usually takes her about six weeks to get around to reading anything I send her) and now I'm getting an e-mail after 9 p.m. on a school night.

This is not going to be good. In fact, if I was at home, I'd be reaching for the liquor. But I'm at work, and the newsroom's rather dry considering and, Jesus woman, just open it.

It's a mass e-mail about building a press kit. It's only sent to thirty of her clients; I know she's got more. What the fuzzy fuck? I am hell and gone from needing a press kit. Why the hell is she sending it to me? Is it a warped form of encouragement like when my best friend in high school would date my crushes to prove to me that they'd date forward girls? Is it a mistake? The fuzzy fuck, man.

I know I should dump her; any woman who can't navigate an e-mail account has no business repping my work. I know that this bzzzzzz noise in my brain re: Flake isn't conducive; I haven't really had an urge to write since the second round of "This is why your book sucks, not like I understand it" revisions.

I dumped Satan, for pity's sake. I'm training for a triathlon. I can dump my agent.

Eventually.

I'll give her until April.

Yeah.

ROADBLOCK: The Cold, Day Two

Since I started training in October, I've been sleeping maybe seven hours, eight max. One memorable Saturday late last month, I slept for a whole nine hours and wandered around all day with a sleep hangover.

I slept twelve hours last night.

I'm so blaming the Alka Seltzer Plus. It's two fizzy tablets of coma every four hours. COMA! EVIL!

Seriously. I went to be before 9 p.m., the first time I've gone to bed before 9 since intermediate school. I went to bed and I conked out and the next thing I knew, it was after eight this morning and Marathon Man was wrinkling his nose to kiss me on the forehead before he went traipsing off the salt mines.

"No gym," he told me. "I know you're probably feel better, but no gym. You need another rest day."

I'm working on rest day number four, but before I could say that, I drifted off for another round of whacked-out dreams featuring broken teeth and driving to Mexico for tequila-soaked dentistry. Yee-ha!

I finally came to just after nine and stumbled downstairs in the most stylish sickie wear in my wardrobe: bleach splattered pajama pants that are older than my cat, a paint-splattered t-shirt older than my relationship with Marathon Man, and an unsplattered hoodie that's not as old as the milk in my fridge.

I've spent the morning drinking tea, taking vitamins, staying the fuck away from Alka Seltzer plus because it is EVIL! and catching up on the TV I missed by conking out at some ungodly hour. That was an excellent episode of Grey's Anatomy and Rome? We are not worthy of that level of television. Hell, we're not worthy of that level of film.

I wonder how well "I'm thankful for the British Broadcasting Company" would go over during Thanksgiving dinner?

Never mind.

I'm not sniffly today, it's just the tired, head-packed-in-cotton, aching-joints sort of malaise. I think Dr. McDreamy would diagnose it as the flu and tell me to keep ingesting the fluids.

I've got to be in work in 90 minutes. I'm so going to have to shotgun three triple shot esspressos to function.

OT: She's on her way, she'll be takin' a sick day...SOOOOoooOOOon!

Marathon Man started sneezing on Friday night. I babied him through yesterday and kind of smirked in a my immune systems so much stronger sort of way, which, obnoxious, I know.

And then I woke up this morning, sluggish and sniffly and generally icked out.

This is what I get for smirking and feeling generally superior. My immune system put me in my place and then stepped on me for good measure.

Alka Seltzer Plus cold remedy is awesome, by the way. Plus, Marathon Man seems to be endlessly charmed by my slightly phelmy rendition of "Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz."

So, I've been lying around the house, still in my jim-jams, dozing in front of the Back to the Future movies. And I don't nap; napping goes against the Shortround constitution. "You must be sick," Marathon Man says, not feeling any sympathy for me at all. "Because you're even more disgusting than usual."

He's recovering enough from the virus that he can poke and smirk at me and not face my usual-strength wrath. "Someone didn't run. Someone's icky. Someone's going to..."

"Blow snot into your chicken and matzo ball soup."

"I'll be good."

OT: Weekend! Finally.

The lamest thing that's been uttered so far:

SR: I hope the Kronk movie has shoulder angels.
MM: (mouthing) Oh yeah.

Followed by finger guns. Classy.

Even classier? We're wrapped up in quilts, blankets and two lap-sized down comforters instead of actually cranking up the heat. Yeah. Gotta love it.