#esp bc i woke up at 10 today instead of 8 and i start work at 3pm so i didnt even get any proper me time before that

[paralien]

don't wanna go to work today. I just wanna spend all day drawing anglerfish and not thinking abt all the work that's awaiting me at work today and the potential chaos im gonna be stuck in for 8hrs

[roylustang]

ya ya I started working out exactly a year ago

   There’s been a lot of ups and downs. One year ago I couldn’t run half a mile and I had horrible IBS. I was still considered thin by any conventional standard but I couldn’t put my carry-on in the overhead bin on planes without help. Then one day I was watching attack on titan and staring out my dorm room window at the gym and everything kind of collided at once. Obviously basing body standards off any form of media (esp anime lmfao) is stupid. But I thought “fuck it. I want to be strong. I want abs. I’ve always wanted to have abs and people do have abs so its obviously possible, even if its hard,” I also used to run a lot when I was a kid and I remembered loving it, even though I hadn’t run in 5 years at the time.

   So I started going to the gym, a LOT. I have to say I was very disappointed when I couldn’t run more than a few laps around the gym at the time. So instead, I bounced around from cardio machine to machine. Rowing, cycling, stair-stepping, and my second true love- the elliptical. I didn’t realize what was going on at first at the time, but after the first couple of months going to the gym, namely to use the elliptical, became my favorite part of the day. I would say to myself “okay I’m gonna go easy today, I’ll stick to like 130ish rpm” but 45 minutes in im going absolutely apeshit at like 170-180 rpm if my hearts not physically exploding bc I’m literally having the time of my life. I saw a youtube comment last week that (jokingly) said Queen wrote “don’t stop me now” about running, and I wholeheartedly Feel That, which is why its one of my fave songs in my running playlist. 

At this point my IBS was gone. just straight up. It used to be if I ate anywhere past the point of normal satiation I got IBS. I could only eat one full bowl of soup from the dining hall. Any more and it got triggered. Going out to restaurants was a nightmare. I had just gotten prescribed a muscle relaxant bc I started having horrible stomach cramps that woke me up in the middle of the night and made me have to puke for the next eight hours. I’ve never had to use it. Now I eat entire boxes of mac n cheese at once with no problem. I can eat an entire burrito from chipotle now. I can eat however much the fuck I want now, and now I can’t possibly eat enough.

Eventually, I thought to myself, “i don’t want to just have a good body now, I want to accomplish something,” but its not like the elliptical is a sport. But you know what is.....running. Now it was Thanksgiving, and I hadn’t tried running since early September. I’d been spending probably 3-5 hours a week on the elliptical, and I had no idea how that transferred to running, so I hopped on the treadmill. The farthest I’d ever run in my life was a 10k (6.2 miles) five years prior. So when my first real attempt back at running landed me at 4.5 miles I was ecstatic. I only stopped because I was wearing cotton socks and I got blisters so horrible I couldn’t walk the next day (pls for the love of god invest in sports socks they’re expensive af but theyre so worth it). I remembered immediately how much I used to love running. Eventually I decided I wanted to run a half marathon.

The problem, however, with developing your cardio fitness on an elliptical and moving into running is that suddenly your heart can do a lot more than your joints/tendons/bones can handle. Fast-forwarding through a lot, as COVID was ravaging Asia and starting to hit Europe, I got my first mild running injury--hip bursitis-- about 5 weeks before the half marathon. I went back to the elliptical for the most part and healed just in time to do my first, and last (for now) race, the day before my city went into quarantine. I was still strength training at this point, but after about two months, I stopped focusing on weights bc I got kind of de-motivated and started focusing mainly instead on marathon training. (This is a mistake--if you want to run a marathon, having strong leg muscles will prevent injuries. Do lunges or die). 

About halfway through the training plan I got injured again (runner’s knee), but this time long enough to take me out of the game, not that there was an actual game to be had bc COVID. Honestly the injury probably occurred bc I a) don’t know how to take a fucking break b) was not strength training and c) wasn’t cross-training bc the gym was closed and I didn’t have access to anything else. So now it’s mid-July, I’m crying on the phone to my mom and impulse buying a used bike on fb marketplace. My $100 superficially shitty but functionally unbelievably durable 10-speed huffy. 

I scrapped the marathon I was planning to run by myself at home over labor day, and instead doubled the marathon training plan mileage for my bike, which works out surpisingly nicely (same time and calorie commitment lol). All of which finally culminated in my push to cancer alley (ironically) and back on Saturday.

I don’t think I honestly expected myself to stick to it for even four months, let alone a year, which gives me an incredible sense of confidence in myself. Now I feel like literally anything is possible. I already told you what I couldn’t do one year ago. Now I can put my carryons in the overhead bin no problem. I can run at least 13+ miles at a time and bike 50+ miles. I only lost 8 lbs in the entire year, but my body fat percentage went from 32% to 22%. And I also have the stupidest tan lines imaginable, but they don’t come without stories. 

Keep ur goals lofty and make ur progress one step at a time.