My Pacer

i love running.

i know, right?  i don't LOOK like a girl who loves running.  but i do.  i can prove it!! i do it at night...in the snow and ice....and i even pay real money for people to let me run.  see, here's a picture of me dressed up like a reindeer in public....yup, i paid to be able to do that.

surprised? so was i.  see, i had spent my whole life thinking that i hated running.  i mean, i thought i hated all exercise, really.  but running had a special kind of hate attached to it.  and i really didn't do it. like ever.  never ever.  

you know how in school they used to make you run the mile every year?  i was always "sick" that day.  and the rare times they snuck it on me, i would walk out of the locker room in my stupid gym clothes, take one look at what was about to happen, and turn right around and go back inside.  if it was a male gym teacher, a simple "i have my period" was a good enough excuse...otherwise i had to fake a sudden onset illness.  but whatever it took, it was worth it.  so i managed to graduate high school without ever running.  not once. (pretty sweet, huh?)

i know this will surprise you...but i was a bit of a chubster in school.  well, always, really.  it bothered me of course. mostly when it came to shopping for clothes and things like that, which only crept up occasionally.  for the most part i was ok with it.

until one day, after a visit to the doctor, i wasn't.  

thus began the Great Weight Loss of 2007.  i lost about 50 pounds in 6 months and did it by EXERCISING. a lot.  like a LOT a lot.  it was pure torture.  

until, one day, it wasn't.  

i actually started to look forward to it.  when i got to the gym after work i could think about my day, have time with "me" (doesn't that sound completely ridiculous?) and just unwind and relax.  in a way that nothing else could make me relax.  usually all these thoughts are running through my head and i can't turn it off.  but when i was exercising, everything just started to slow down in my head and it felt great.  so, turns out, i'm kind of an athlete (like in the most casual sense).  crazy, huh?

well, the Great Weight Loss of 2007 was followed by the Great Weight Gain of 2008.  and that sucked.  not only for the obvious reasons, but mostly because i couldn't be active any more. and while that was all well and good before i had lost weight, now that i knew that i loved exercise.....it was kind of awful.   but don't worry!  this story has a happy middle.  

there was a Great Weight Loss of 2014.  like 100 pounds great.  see! i told you this story had a happy middle. i say "middle" because it's far from over.  in fact, i'm pretty sure there is not going to be an "over" or an "ending" because the thing about changing your life is that you can't stop moving.  you just keep going....and going.  wow, doesn't that sound completely awful?  

but the thing is, it's not.  it's actually kind of fun.  ok, it's really fun.  at least for me it is.  once i figured out that "keep going" doesn't mean "keep going at break neck speed" i have actually come to realize that i have wasted a lot of time in my life chasing Perfection.  stupid seductive Perfection.  when what i should have been running after was happy Medium.  and that's what i'm going for now.  happy Medium is my pacer.  

so, that's what this blog is going to be about.  me (because i love talking about myself), my progress with running (don't worry, you haven't missed much), my dog (cuz he's adorable and i'm a classic annoying pet owner),  recipes (they will all be so ridiculously easy that they are borderline boring.  ok, they'll be boring.) and most of all finding that happy Medium.