Being Healthy: A Promise

This is the part where I hate the most: when you're too engrossed in your work that everything else goes out of the window, with everything else being your healthy habits, be it body or food.

I get too tired to workout after work. But being me, there's just so much of complaining that I could handle before I take matters into my own hand.

So my work tires me out. BIG DEAL. I'm not the only one dealing with a taxing 8-5 job. I'm not the only one stuck in traffic feeling like a droopy flower in the car. Life is a choice and I can complain about how I do not have the time or how wiped out I am or I can just suck up, get myself some exercise for the benefit of my health.

"It's not the number of times you fall that matters but the number of times you
get up."--Confucius

This requires some re-arranging. I get tired after work... maybe PM exercising isn't working out for me. I remember back then when I look forward to AM cardio. I love it like no other but when I started working all that changed. But maybe, maybe I could squeeze in some earlier cardio... if I'm really so inclined.

The problem with that is: running is the only thing that works. No karate gym opens at 6 am, and I'm not bloody well going to swim in the chilly pool or skate/bike in that ungodly hour alone!

And did I forget... I can't run?

I could join classes again, make it fun, just a social thing after work, not really a workout. But I am BROKE like a broken tape player. I can't afford to spend money more than I can't afford to spend my time.

This looks bleak.

The ONLY choice is - SUCK IT UP. I guess that's what I have to settle with right now. I can't listen to myself complaining about how I miss my workouts anymore without driving me crazy. You miss your workouts? Then what are you doing laying down on the sofa with a book on your snoring face?! At 9pm!

I realize I'm talking to myself here.

So I'm putting this down right here:

• I promise I will try to stick to weekend workouts. I can bail on weekday workouts if I absolutely have to, but weekend workouts are a must. I need this because your body is a temple and you have to take good care of it.
• Take one workout at a time. No pressure, just go ahead and dive (or roll or punch, depending on what you have) right into it.
• EATING RIGHT STARTS HERE. EATING RIGHT STARTS TODAY. No more salty, extra processed food and too many sugar intake cause Nadia are you ignorant - you're one step behind being a diabetic. Let me bold that for you.

Forgive everyone while you could. Be grateful for the smallest, least wonderful thing in your life everyday.

GET ENOUGH SLEEP.

Call your parents. Smile at strangers. Not old, aging men with too much money to spent. And no, you can't tell them apart sometimes.

Today, I will try to workout. But if I fail (because you're yet again too mentally exhausted), there's always the weekends.

oh no

I might have smething up tomorrow but I'm unprepared mentally, logistically, financially, and physically. But isn't that how I also do things?

I ate fabulously today.

Breakfast:
- poached egg with spinach on soft roll (SEDAP GEL)
- 2 chicken sausages
- scrambled eggs
- half grilled tomato (sedap jugak)
- one bowl cereal consist of :coco crunch for flavour, special K and bran
- bihun goreng
- fruits.

TASTY. I love hotel food.

Going Downhill

Too many things to write about, but I want to talk about knowing our limitations.

 I have a training journal and when I looked back at past entries I realized I went too hard on running. This was last year before Ramadhan. I was obsessed. I think I ran everyday. During the fasting month I managed to sneak in 17 days of running. Some were done without having any sahur the night before. My knees were already hurting then. 

 I came back from Nepal with a pair of horribly hurt knees. And yet I still ran - I ran a 10k, an 11k, and 2 half-marathons, and finally the Malakoff 12k. And what did I get in the end? Bad timing, and a degenerative disease that I could never repair. Cartilage isn't something that you could produce back. It's like neurons you see. You lose them, you lose them forever. And I have people telling me, "And you're so youngggg."

 Thats right, I have early arthritis, and I'm not even 30. Blame it on my foolish obsession. 

 The same thing goes to my swimming. I swam so hard and so often and so long (hitting 3k on a normal day) that now my left shoulder is rendered useless. 

 If I had listened to my knees last year, if only I'd stopped when my knees started to hurt, I COULD have saved them, or at least extended the symptoms' appearance. If only I had held back on swimming, took my time without adding a lot of mileage every week, I could still be swimming to this day. Moderation should be the key word for both cases, one I didn't take heed on. The most important thing is sensible training. 

 I have been sick for 3 weeks. Viral fever, and then a nasty lung infection. I missed out on a lot of my workouts. Some days, you could see me packing my swimming bag only to be defeated by an aching shoulder at the end of the day, and driving straight bag home. I tried going for a run and if I didn't get reduced to a walk I would be huffing so badly an asthmatic person would gladly loaned me his inhaler. I remember telling someone what my time for a 10k was and I had two answers: before injury, and after. She said, "That is really sad. Aren't you bummed?" I never thought about it that way before, but now that she mentioned it, yeah maybe a little. Only because I was foolish.

 I would have gladly blamed all of this (my downhill fitness) to my fever but truth to be told I wished I had listened to my body when they waved out the white flag. MODERATION. And SENSIBLE training. This isn't something you could call an adversity, or something you need to experience to learn and get better. With body parts, you go down and you'll never quite get up the same way.

 On a brighter note: Bidor half-marathon this weekend. I have always wanted to run this ever since I found out about this run 2 years back. I hope I will get the chance to one day. Who would be doing this? Good Luck to all runners. Well, this weekend would not be so bad for me either. I would be having fun up north with the company of 2 girls and about a hundred more of men in tights! My fitness is in shambles and I am in the lowest state of fit, but life is NOT all about being fit.

 Remember everyone, MODERATION and SENSIBLE TRAINING. Good, repeat after me, your friendly ol arthritic friend.

 

 

7 DAYS

My dad used to tell me, "The more you know, the more you don't know."

 I remember my first 10k race. Prior to that, the longest distance I ran was 3km. Tired 3kms. But I made it through 10km on sheer race-day adrenaline and perseverance. 

 And then I started to read running books, blogs, forum, whatever you have. And I started to do all the right running things - speedwork, hill runs, lsd, tempo runs. And that's when I found out that it's sort of impossible to do a 21km without training. 

 But at the same time I know of some friends who jumped into the 21km race without proper training, that I know of. They did it again this year for BIM with minimal training that running blogs would have a heart attack on upon finding out. One dude even did the full marathon and I think the longest LSD he did was 18~ km. He finished.

 In 7 days, I'm going for a 21km. I'm freaking out because everyone says it's not easy, especially the last 7k part. Mentally mostly, and your body takes some toll on it too. My serious lack of preparation as stated by all these running blogs and magazine is freaking me out, bit by bit. But  on the other hand I'm trying to remember these set of friends that ran 2 half marathons with just hard motivation. They didn't know that running without training was suicide.

 I'm just going through with it. I wouldn't know how hard it would me on the race, but I'll try my hardest to finish it, whatever time it takes.