Phat Girl Walking

No Longer Posting But Still Walking

2009-02-11T21:47:00.001-08:00

If you've stumbled on to this blog from parts unknown, I've discontinued my little Phatgirlwalking adventures. You can find me over at my main site at SisterFriends-Together.

Gone but Not Gone Really

2007-07-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Put your fears to rest for Phatgirl is alive and well and still under the cardio-manic care of D_wn, personal trainer extraordinaire. I just haven't been blogging about it because there are only so many ways to add a creative, spell-binding spin to "I did 50 minutes of cardio on the treadclimber." Even I, the great rambling blogger that I am, have my limits.

Since April, when last I posted, life has continued on, the big event being our recent trip to Greece which, of course, I blogged about each step along the way for family and friends. If you'd like to go on a cyber visit to Greece, then by all means, just click on over to

Our Big Fat Greek Vacation

That's all for now my little jogging, walking, running peeps!

Aromatic Aerobics

2007-04-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

This would seem to be 'sound' evidence against exercise, specifically after a meal of beans and brussel sprouts.

Which reminds me, I put in a 90 minute cardio work out this morning, 30 on the TreadClimber followed by 60 on the elliptical machine. Free of sound effects or any other sensory unpleasantness. I've been increasing my cardio time in recent days because while I'm getting stronger and more toned, I'm not getting lighter and leaner. This is no mystery. I like food. I like to eat food. This isn't to imply I'm pigging out. I eat three meals a day consisting of fruit, protein and veggies. No sugar. No alcohol. No fast food. Minimal flour, fats or processed foods. I don't stuff myself with food but it would be fair to say I have a hearty appetite and have developed the uncanny ability in the course of each day to consume precisely the number of calories equaling the calories burned that day resulting in no gain, no loss, no harm, no foul. Let's put a positive spin on this. I'm an expert at maintaining my weight, a skill that a lot of other people seem to lack and this would all be a wonderful thing were I actually at a weight I wanted to maintain. And so to make some headway, I've developed a two stage strategy plan.

Increase my time at the gym in strength-training and cardio workouts which will burn additional calories and then,
Convince myself through self-deception that instead of having been to the gym I've actually been laying on the couch all day long. Thus with the false belief securely in place I'll automatically regulate my intake of calories to equal calories burned on a lazybutt day and not a sweat-n-grunt day.

Madness or genius? Only time and the bathroom scales will tell.

Athens Anticipation

2007-04-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Greece is still a couple months away and I'm already in full-obsession mode. I've done quite a bit of traveling out of the country: Israel (6 times), Greece (2 times), Italy (2 times), El Salvador (2 times) and 1 visit each to Jordan, London, Denmark, and Sweden, but all these trips were years ago, long before the internet. For me, half the fun of any trip is in the planning and getting ready, so here are some of the sites that are eating into my blog time.

A Travel Guide to Greece
This is the most amazingly helpful, fun, extensive, and anticipation-building resource on Greece you'll ever find, especially when it comes to what to see and do in Athens. Dana and I will have a couple days to ourselves in the Big City and so I've been feasting on his photos and suggestions for day adventures. I know there's been big changes to Athens since I was there last in the 1980's so I'm excited to discover it all over again! Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door is another good travel site though it provides more general information like how to pack. I guess there are secrets to packing beyond "open suitcase, put in clothes, close suitcase." Who knew?

When it comes to shopping for travel-friendly-throw-in-a-bag-and-go clothes head over to TravelSmith, Ex Officio, or ever faithful REI, and for those who'd like to provide comic relief to Athenians young and old, try learning just enough of their language at I Learn Greek to humiliate yourself while leaving them snorkeling ouzo out their noses! Remember, they'll be laughing with you, not at you.

Yep, two months before we jump a plane for Greece and did I happen to mention my carry-on bag is already packed and ready to go?

April 6, 2002

2007-04-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

Seven years ago
We met.
I adored you from the start.
I was crazy in love with you in a week.
By the end of the month I couldn't remember what life was like before you.

Six years ago
I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me.
Impatient, controlling, stubborn, overly-opinionated, emotional me.
I'm still in awe and over the top grateful you said yes.

Five years ago today
We were married.
A gift of God in every moment.
Grace upon grace.

Four minutes ago
I looked at cute you on the other side of the couch...
Three minutes ago
I listened to your familiar warm laugh...
Two minutes ago
I held your hand in mine...
And in this very minute
I'm whispering another thank you to God who brought you into my life because it only gets sweeter and better and deeper and truer with every passing day...minute by minute by minute.

Silly corny lovestruck words from silly corny lovestruck me to beautiful, sweet, brilliant, kind-hearted, forgiving, gentle-spirited, hysterically funny, adorable you.

Happy anniversary Honey.
You and you only.
Forever and forever.

The song, "Forever with Me" was written and performed by Nedra Johnson.

Eyes and Thighs

2007-04-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

I've been losing weight slowly. I've been getting stronger slowly. And apparently while all these wonderful signs of physical health are progressing along, I'm on a collision course with the reality of getting older.

Evidence for the court's consideration.

When I use to get a stiff back or sore muscles years ago it was for a real reason. I'd unloaded a six-month supply of snacks for the early childhood department at my church from the back of my car. I'd mowed the lawn, pulled out a couple dead shrubs and spread out 15 bags of top soil into the flower beds. I'd hauled food supplies upstairs from the camp cellar and then spent 16 hours prepping and cooking on a hard tile kitchen floor to feed 200 campers. I'd singlehandedly hauled an antique kitchen cabinet, complete with a porcelain table top down a flight of stairs. All valid reasons for some muscular discomfort.

Nowadays reaching the wrong way for a bar of soap in the shower can have me wincing and gnawing on anti-inflammatories. Turn in bed? Proceed with caution. Reach down to get a book off the bottom shelf? Surely there's a book on the top shelf that could satisfy my literary interests. Drop the TV remote on the floor and find myself considering reaching down to get it? Hey, this info-merical isn't all that bad. An hour with D_wn my personal trainer and the next morning even if I don't feel any pain when I first wake up I end up limping down the stairs to get my coffee just in case something decides to go out on me willy-nilly. This is all up for me because more than a week ago I went on a cleaning spree in our house and my hip and legs are still a little achy. Whether it was the dusting or polishing that put me over the age, I really can't say but I intend to avoid them both in the future as a safety precaution.

If I hadn't been doing core-training for the past several months who knows...the vacuuming might have left me in traction.

Pathetic.

Oh yes, and I just returned from the optometrist. No, I take that back. I don't have an optometrist. I have an opthalmologist which is another indication that I'm getting older. I've come to the conclusion that given the realities of aging and the increasing odds that when something finally goes wrong it will require a major overall rather than a minor tuneup, I just head directly to the big guns these days...the opthalmologists, the pariodontists, and any and all medical professionals who have given their entire lives to train in a miniscule and confined area of expertise in hopes that they will just so happen to be skilled in treating the precise bit of real estate on my body that ultimately decides to go out of whack. [As a point of reality, I enjoy excellent health and am extremely grateful for it...this is nothing more than silly nonsense, which is in actuality my particular area of expertise. As if I need to tell you.]

I was talking about my appointment at the opthalmologist. It seems I need stronger glasses. Computer glasses; formerly known as reading glasses, yet another clear indication Bob Dylan knew what he was talking about when he sang "the times, they are a' changing." With glasses designed for a specific task, the doctor mentioned it was important to know as near to the exact distance that the computer would be from my eyes to create the best prescription and without hesitating I crossed one leg over the other knee, placing my hands on the invisible keyboard across my bent leg and confidently said "Right here" and so I'm happy to report that in 10 days I'll have a pair of glasses perfectly set for viewing my laptop 24 inches away...e-x-a-c-t-l-y.

A Little of This A Little of That

2007-03-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my honor to present Mr. and Mrs. My Brother. I mentioned in a previous entry that I had just been in Portland to attend the wedding and it was indeed a beautiful day and they are a wonderful couple. Mazel Tov!

It just came to my attention that I received a mention by the organizers of the 2006 Portland Marathon in a follow-up article they wrote on Steve, BayCityWalker. Hey, I have no problems riding in on someone else's sneaker laces! And thank you Steve! It was an honor my man, an honor.

I've been getting to the gym every day for cardio and a little one on one with D_wn, my personal trainer, who I am here to report is no longer just a personal trainer but in recent days has been promoted through the ranks of 24-Hour Fitness to the lofty status of Master Trainer. Considering how she's been increasingly upping the ante in my training sessions, and my misery threshold, calling her D_wn, my Master Trainer seems only right. Today during the last 5 minutes of a brutal-show-no-mercy-take-no-prisoners session as I was straining to complete a final set of one-legged squats, I muttered under my breath something about how someone might think she was a really nice person because of her cute appearance and not the cruel task master that she is, to which she smirked, and I swear by Nautilius that it was a smirk, and said "That was even more true when I use to wear pigtails to work." Oh please. Sweating to the oldies with Pippy Longstockings no less. Trust me. She is no Pippy Longstockings.

A Day of Good Stuff

2007-03-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have nothing spectacular to report but after my recent double dip plane landing I'm just fine with blogging on the mundane. Mundane. Good. Double dip landings. Not so much.

The day started at 7:00 a.m. at the gym. Not that I wouldn't have loved to have slept in and worked out later but the 24-Hour Fitness I go to when I'm in Portland is smack dab in the middle of 'burb-landia and if I'm not there that early the Mommies get there before I do leaving nary a vacant TreadClimber, Elliptical machine or Treadmill in the house. As it was, I beat the Mommies to the punch and had a good 30 minutes on the Elliptical and 30 on the TreadClimber before racing to Starbucks before the maternal herd migrated in that direction.

Yesterday I made a beeline for Zuppan's Grocery for a few bottles of Viso, the magical yummical elixor of all beverages made here in the Rose City. We're talking vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, deeeelicious and oh so hip in a totally cool blue bottle. I decided this time a few bottles wouldn't meet my growing dependancy and so I bought two cases of the sugarfree flavors, one of Pina (pineapple) and one of Razza (berry) to ship back home where careful rationing and a no share policy would be instituted. But then, oh joy, oh bliss, I visited their website again this afternoon on a whim to discover they've recently begun shipping Viso! A cold bottle of Pina after a workout...liquid paradise.

What else has been good in the day?

Time with Mommy, my Mommy, not the sweaty ones at the gym though I'm sure they're equally nice. . . as long as you don't get between them and their cardio-machine of choice.
Wearing my favorite lime green Crocs with rainbow-colored jelly buttons.
Discovering some really amazing blogs by evangelical christians of the open and seeking variety.
Listening to the latest podcast of NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!" Nothing makes me laugh like this NPR offering of pithy wit.
Reading the next chapter from Sara Miles', "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion." I've been going through spiritual memoirs like an elephant goes through peanuts.
Watching "Darshan: The Embrace" on DVD. It's a amazing documentary on Amma, the Indian Mahatma (guru) who's known as the hugging saint, and the film follows her as she travels cross-country through India doing what she does best...embracing and touching thousands upon thousands of people, young and old. The photography of India is stunning and unlike anything I've ever seen.

All around a mellow, low-key, cozy day. For which I'm so very thankful. Amen.

Plane Peril

2007-03-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been in the mood to blog only to discover your mind void of bloggable chatter? Such is this moment in my life. Wanna blog. Got nuthun. Oh, except for escaping death at 300 miles per hour by mere inches yesterday. Other than that, nuthun. Let me round out the details for you just in case you care and I know you do. Why else would you be here day in and day out if you didn't love the Phatgirl?

I took a flight to Portland yesterday because my younger brother (younger of two brothers but both older than me thank you very much) is getting married this week and I'm the flower girl. Okay, I'm not the flower girl. It's just fun to imagine myself in a frilly pink dress with ruffles, mary jane's with lacey ankle socks and little white party gloves. Oh wait, that's my Easter outfit. Nevermind. Back to my near death experience.

We were just about to land in Portland, the landing gear was lowered, the engine slowing for the last minute of descent, the lights in the cabin dimmed, tray tables and chairs in an upright and locked position, and random passengers grabbing for their bags to have their cell phones at the ready, forbid that they keep them off one minute longer than required by air traffic safety regulations. We were (and I'm making every effort to not exaggerate in some cheap attempt to over-dramatize the actual events) THREE INCHES from touching down on the runway when the pilot lifted the nose of the plane, pushed the pedal to the metal and tore us back into the sky at a rather severe Movie-of-the-Week angle. For a moment more than I feared the possibilities of a plane crash I feared that the second glass of Diet Coke and the bottle of water I drank had been a tragic mistake. Do I need to spell this out for you or do you have a general sense of what I'm talking about?

The funny part and I use that word ever so loosely, were in those few minutes following the unexpected re-entry into the stratosphere and before the pilot explained to us what the heck was going on, we all found ourselves looking at the person next to us fully realizing that though their lips weren't moving they were in their head and heart in the middle of a rapid-fire conversation with the God of their understanding just as we were. Nothing like a hearty dose of fear to bring Jews and Christians and Muslims and agnostics all together in communal prayers and supplications. My own went something along the lines of "Oh God, I beseech thee now to hearken onto me, your faithful daughter and servant Anita. It's been a really great life and I want to take this moment to personally tell you of my deep gratitude for your blessings O Lord. Please comfort and draw close to those I love as I now prepare to enter into your presence with humility of spirit and thankfulness of heart. Amen."

Or was it more like "God, HELP!!!" ? My memory is so fuzzy on details.

What I do remember with crystal clarity is that when the pilot was finally able to break away from his decaf skinny latte and call to his wife to see if she wanted him to pick up anything at the local Piggley Wiggley on his way home, he informed us that another plane that had just landed before us on our runway was going so slow that we had to pull up at the last minute to avoid the unlikely risk of making contact with the other plane. It seems that when a Chevy Chevette makes contact with the back end of a Ford Tarsus at a stop light it's called a fender bender but when the same occurs between two landing Boeing 737's it's a whole different ballgame.

One more detail I think I should mention, not for your benefit but for mine since I really need to just get this off my chest so that the healing can begin...when the pilot was explaining what had just taken place he had used the expression "during our first attempt at landing..." and then he went on to say something about our upcoming "second attempt." Have you ever looked up the word attempt in the dictionary? Well save yourself the time because I've done the research and the definition is, "to try to do something, especially without much expectation of success" and the synonyms offered included "take a crack at, make a stab at, take a shot at, give it a go." I'm not making this up people and maybe you're all just fine with this but personally, I don't take a lot of comfort in the idea that my pilot is going to TRY and land the plane that I happen to be occupying. I need a little something more than "This is your Captain. We are now approaching the airport and I'm going to take a stab at landing this bad boy so hang on!" I require a modicum of conviction from those who hold my life in their hands. I wanna hear the squeak of the cabin speakers followed by "This is your Captain, and I'm going to land this plane on a silver dime I had the ground crew toss in the middle of the runway and if I miss it by so much as a centimeter drinks are on me!"

Oh, and I'll save the story about the girl and the barf bag for another time.

As I said, I got nuthun to blog tonight. Nuthun.

Live, Lunge and Learn

2007-03-08T01:03:00.000-08:00

Here is my arm. If you look close you'll see a black line across the top of my arm. See it? Okay, now look really close. This will no doubt involve leaning in toward your monitor but you will be rewarded for your efforts. Trust me. Now that you're up close and personal, squint and focus directly above the black line and you'll notice the widdle biddy bump of MUSCLE extruding from my upper arm. There! That's it! That my peeps is what you get for 2 and 1/2 months of core training. Breath-taking, isn't it? Now, may I direct your attention to the dotted line toward the midway point of the photographic image. Step back from the computer. In fact, go position yourself in the doorway of the adjoining room. Now look at the photo again. Oh wait....

Look at the photo again! Do you see

that fleshy mound dangling toward the

floor? See it? Okay, now come back

into the room and sit down again.

That dangly mass of flub took me 50 years of intensive eating and couch occupation to develop. Breath-taking, isn't it? But I gotta tell you, I'm far more hyped about the widdle biddy lump of MUSCLE than I'm discouraged by the dropping flubbage. I'm just a half-full glass Phatgirl.

A story for your reading pleasure. The teeshirt in the photo is one I had made at Zazzle. The personal trainers at 24-Hour Fitness wear red teeshirts that say "Personal Trainer" across the back. On the back of mine it reads "Personal Trainer's Victim" and on the front is a block of text comprised of all the pithy, annoying little phrases, questions, and demands D_wn, my personal trainer, offers as accompaniment to my workouts. The melody goes something like this, "Are you okay? How you doing? Keep your heels down. Keep your chest up. Stop rounding your shoulders. Breathe! Tighten those ABS! Posture! How do you feel? Are you okay? Pull from your shoulder blades. You should feel it there! 10 more. Another set. Quit crying you babypants!" Okay, it doesn't actually contain the last line but now that I've thought of it, I wish it did. Back to the story and yes, there is one. So in I stroll the other day sporting my brand-new-my-trainer-is-going-to-bust-a-gut-over-this-one teeshirt and sure enough, she grinned. And then she proceeded to put me through a workout that lacked any trace of compassion, gentleness or simple human kindness. Brutal I tell you. Brutal. After 50 minutes of this little glimpse into the bowels of Hades and sweating like a long-haired dog in the middle of the Negev on an August afternoon, I pointed to the words on the back of my teeshirt and grasping for that last breath of air I had misplaced during the final set of lunges (lung-less?) I said "Truth in advertising." And that's when she laughed. Outloud.

I'm wearing a white teeshirt tomorrow. No graphic images. No words. Nothing. Unadored. Innocent.

The King and Queen

2007-03-08T00:53:00.000-08:00

SimbaKitty, the Black Panther of Suburbia
Stuffed and catnip-laced mice, you have met your conquering king!

AnnieCat, Still Reigning Queen of the Shag Princess Tower

The child kitten bores me. Off with his whiskers!

Pictures Speak Louder...

2007-03-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

I pass by this memorial to the American soldiers who've died in Iraq every day that I drive to work. I've watched the crosses added and the hillside fill up. The number doesn't even begin to reflect the number of military dead from other countries or the citizens of Iraq killed since this all began. My fear is we'll run out of hillside before we run out of war.

For more on the Lafayette Cross Memorial

Racewalking Weekend

2007-03-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

I returned home this morning from Carmel-by-the-Sea where I was participating in a racewalking clinic with Dave McGovern. The same one I attended last year. Since making the decision to discontinue walking for the time being I reconsidered whether I should cancel my plans to attend but after our schmooze and supper on Friday night I discovered eight reasons why being there was so important.

Brandon
Steve
Sue
Ann
Vickie
Melody
Becky
Dave

These are the folks I got to know last year and with whom I've encouraged and been encouraged by for these many months via a casual little mailing group we formed following our first racewalking clinic gig. I love these people. Love. In the real sense of the word.

Vickie has become nothing short of freakishly fast racewalker and were she not so incredibly kind I might feel inclined to envy her. Becky's racewalking form is a pleasure to watch and Ann isn't anyone I'm going to be catching up to anytime soon. Better form, faster speed. Melody is our Disney athlete with a half or full marathon at Disneyland or Disneyworld always up ahead on her calendar. My personal suspicion is she's got a secret thing going on for Goofy but if she says it's about the race. Fine, sure, whatever. Then there's Sue who I refuse to mention on my blog until she ponies up and gets her sorry racewalking booty on the internet! Apparently she's too pre-occupied driving her 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle down the road to the haunting tune of "Hotel California" playing over her 8-track tape player and 3-inch woofers and tweeters to catch up to modern life! And when it comes to "the boys," they've already had center-stage on my blog and in my heart more than a few times. Steve is the definition of humble tenacity and five months after the fact, I still can switch on the tears remembering those last yards as he ended toward the Portland Marathon finish line. Then there's Brandon. I could describe him in single words like funny, generous, thoughtful, and tenderhearted but let's just say, if you're needing some inspiration and encouragement Brandon is the guy you want in your corner. A true-blue sweetheart. And then there's Dave. As in pavement-blistering member of the US National Racewalk Team stop-by-my-website-and-buy-some-of-my-merch-as-long-as-you're-there Dave McGovern. Elite athlete. Trainer and coach extraordinare. A really nice guy with a certifiably twisted sense of humor.

These are the eight people who in one weekend a year ago made up for all those really horrible years I endured in gym class with their kindness and genuine encouragment. So where else should I have been this weekend but with those eight and the other racewalking pleebs and pros who joined us this year?

I haven't done any racewalking, fitnesswalking, powerwalking or hurry-up-or-you're-going-to-be-late walking in months and so it felt great to get out there and give it a go again. While my foot placement is solid (a nice roll from heel to toe) and my front knee lift needs more heighth, the place I noticed the most improvement from last year was in my posture. Last year I was pitched forward, bent at the waist, shoulders rounded. This year it was stomach in, back straight, shoulders back. Thank you core training. Thank you D_wn, my personal trainer! After this weekend of hanging out with bona fide racewalking atheletes and all-around cool peeps, I'm giving some thought to aiming for a local 5K race. Not as a fast walker but as a racewalker. Right now I couldn't keep the pace or the form for 3 miles but I'm just simmering on the idea for the time-being and seeing where it leads.

Funny story. I woke up Saturday morning in the hotel and realized when I went to pull my yogurt and blueberries out of the mini-fridge that I'd forgotten to pack a spoon. I looked around the combination kitchen/bathroom, a combination I don't imagine will ever take off in residential home design, and spotted a cellophone bag containing coffee stirrers, a pack of sugar, and a napkin. I took the three plastic coffee stirrers and tying them together at one end with dental floss fashioned a utensil with which to eat my breakfast. The spirit of McGyver lives long after it's vanished into syndication!

The Man of the House

2007-03-01T18:01:00.001-08:00

What I've Come to Know About Simbakitty in His First Week

He has the funniest meow I've ever heard. Imagine the sound of a toddler's delighted squeal mixed with the low contented sigh of an old man eating apple pie ala mode and framed within a question. You now have something close to this little guy's chatter.
When Simba's sleeping on our dark burgundy couch he becomes nearly invisible to the human eye.
He's pretty convinced that the cursor moving across the screen on my computer monitor is something he should capture and bring to me between his teeth as his manly duty. For the sake of my monitor I pray not.
a) His poop stinks to high heaven and b) he has feline flatulence that could peel paint off a wall. Following the vet's advice we're going to try a new cat food. If that doesn't work, I'm tying a lemon-scented car deodorizer to his kitty collar.
Simba's most active time of the day is 5:35 a.m. when he enjoys doing a close examination of my head. Nothing wakes you up in the morning like a cold wet nose attached to pokey whiskers sliding across the bridge of your nose.
When 4b takes place while 5 is occurring the biggest concern is not paint peeling off the wall.

Did I Mention?

2007-02-27T21:22:00.000-08:00

We have a new 9 month old rescue kitten. We knew another cat would be joining the Cadonau-Huseby family at some point since Annie the Cat has been pathetically sad and pouty since Tweety took a direct flight to Cat Heaven. Okay, so have I but that's not the point. Anyway, Dana and I had some long conversations about what kind of cat we'd bring into our home and had decided that while we were open to consider any cat we were leaning toward a kitten and perferably not a black one and definitely not a male one.

Welcome Simba. A nine-month old black male cat. Annie's new playmate, once she quits hissing at him that is. She has yet to fully grasp the ramifications of his gender limitations, for as a male she will always retain the Queen of the House status she inherited from Tweety and he will forever be her little prince. Her very own boy toy. Simba is a bombay cat and has all the appearance and movement of a baby black panther, along with being a total love monkey. Just a big ball of purring cat love. I can't keep my hands off him. Now, there's a sentence I've never typed before but I digress.

Anyway, so we're back to a two human two feline household and it feels really nice. And just right.

Tread Climber Utopia

2007-02-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

This morning after blogging my last entry I went to 24-Hour to put in an hour of cardio. I noticed as soon as I arrived that all the individual televisions that were installed months ago on the elliptical machines and a line of treadmills were finally functioning. And then...and then...I can barely talk about this without tears welling up in my eyes...give me a moment please.

Okay. I can do this. As I started to say, I had just about reached the line of machines where my beloved TreadClimber resides, that sweetspot in the gym that I race to each time I enter the hallowed halls of the fitness sweatshop so as to beat any other cardio-seeking souls when I noticed....deep breath...that the four old faithful TreadClimbers that have been at the heart and soul of my cardio workouts for the past four months had been replaced. Now, standing heroic and proud in a row seven brand new right from the factory shiny beautiful and most certainly virginal TreadClimbers. Here come the tears again.

With fingers trembling from emotion I punched in my weight, my desired speed and time and then, unable to contain it any longer I began to gently hum a music classic that captured all that my heart was feeling, "I'm the luckiest girl in the whole U.S.A."

Christmas has come early this year.

A Change in Plans

2007-02-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

I've been silent on the blog front for a few weeks because I've been doing a lot of thinking and if you follow my blog with any regularity you understand that thinking and blogging don't always occur simultaneously with me. What I've been thinking about is walking. Not ordinary walking as in walking across the grocery store parking lot, something I tend to do without much thought involved and do quite well, thank you very much, but walking as in training for a marathon walking.

The collective sum of all my thinking has led me to decide not to continue to pursue marathon training. At least not in the foreseeable future. My natural resistance to quit anything plus the vast wealth of electronic gear and quik-dri apparel I've accumlated over the past year intensified the mental ping-pong tournament going on in my brain but having made the decision I felt relieved and the relief confirmed the decision I arrived at was the best one for the time being.

The biggest con in my decision making was that after two solid months of recovery time, two months of physical therapy, and strength training work since January I continue to be plagued with problems in the same leg and foot that led to my DNF in the Portland Marathon last October and given that completing a full marathon seems doubtful at this point. I've already thrilled at the excitement and sense of accomplishment in crossing the finish line at a half-marathon and the starting line at a full-marathon, and with doubt looming over the possibility of reaching the ultimate goal of crossing a marathon finish line, I lack the motivation to make training the priority it would need to be.

With that said, it's the pros that ultimately helped me reach my decision; those being that all I had hoped to gain from walking, training for a marathon, and then entering a marathon have already been realized beyond my expectations. I had three hopes when I began; to gain physical and spiritual health, to find a new purpose, and to have something to do. I needed all three desperately and I needed them right now to keep one foot moving in front of the other following one of those ridiculously painful, "life at its snarliest" moments. In walking, first for no other purpose than to get out of the house and then walking to prepare for a marathon gave me all that. Walking in the rain cleansed me. Walking in the sun warmed me. Walking in the solitiude of early morning and the calm of closing twilight centered me. And walking fast and long re-energized me. As I said, I received all that I wanted and more.

The more I received was you, the people I've met along the way. The wonderfully amazing people I met last Spring at a Dave McGovern Racewalking Clinic, strangers when we gathered for the first time at the Friday night orientation dinner and now people I easily call my friends. And then there's you, the bloggers who walk, run, and joggle, who train for 5K Fun Runs and full-out marathons, who parent and love their families, who laugh easily and share honestly, and who offer encouragement and kindness to someone you've only met in words glowing from your monitor screen. Training for a marathon, if even only one marathon, gave me all that and I'm to-the-bone grateful.

Just in case you're wondering, I'm staying right here. Phatgirl will keep walking (for pleasure) and blogging away about everything and nothing, and you can be sure I'll be around to cheer you on. Keep sweating!

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T21:09:00.000-08:00

Dana,

Anita

I Told You So

2007-01-30T17:34:00.000-08:00

I just returned home from a torturously long appointment with my adorable little gay hairstylist (Can you wrap your mind around the atypical reality of a gay hairstylist?), to see my original copy of Marathoning for Mortals on the kitchen counter. I told you right in this very blog it would take ordering a new copy from Amazon to set the wheels of the lost-being-found principle in motion. Trust me when I tell you such things. With book in hand I hurried upstairs to ask Dana where she had found it, having already assumed it was to her credit, and not to Annie the house cat's, who is still very much alive and meowing. This simple inquiry led to the moment when my dear wife with more patience than anyone else I have ever known, the single most important factor that assures we will live out all our days together since endless patience is required to endure a lifetime with me, revealed that she had found the book in my gym bag while searching through the entire house to find the gym locker I had borrowed from her the other day with the absolute promise that I would return it to her immediately. When I tried to suggest that perhaps it had been divine intervention that had caused me to not return the lock so that she would be led to find my book, she simply muttered something about my faulty, full-of-holes theology and returned her attention back to her studies. Fine. I was wrong to not return the lock and more wrong still to blame God for having a hand in it, but still, I was right about the whole order a new book so you can find the old book thing. Tie goes to the runner. She shoots. She scores.

On another note, I channeled my car this morning. What I mean by that is I knew what my car was thinking and I felt it's pain. Let me explain. Oh wait....one minute. I hear the UPS truck. Just as I suspected. I now possess two copies of the same book. Convenient if my eyes ever row back into my ears and remain lodged there. Back to what I was saying. As Opie and I were heading down the freeway, Opie's my car but you already knew that, I saw it coming. It being one of the biggest rocks that has ever been propelled airborn by a semi-truck tire into unsuspecting traffic and in that dark instant before impact I could have sworn I heard Opie groan with resigned acceptance "Oh, this is gonna hurt." We wept together.

Who would have thought that the sound of a front windshield giving way to a hurling projectile would be reminiscient to childhood memories of a favorite breakfast cereal. Snap. Crackle. Pop. And so it appears both Opie and I will soon be developing a meaningful relationship with the folks down at Hank's Auto Glass Repair & Meditation Center.

Lost in PhatLand

2007-01-28T17:23:00.001-08:00

I can't find my copy of "Marathoning for Mortals" anywhere in the house! It's not in the bookcase (no surprise there!), the garage, my car, any of the three backpacks I'm currently rotating, the storage bins in the cat room, my nightstand, the living room, the office, the bathroom reading basket...nowhere! My one and only copy, autographed by the one and only John "the Penguin" Bingham. A crisis situatino under any conditions but all the more so now because my plan was to sit down tonight with the book and my calendar and chart out my Phatgirl training schedule, scheduled to begin in the morning, with my regular Anita life. I finally gave up and ordered a rush delivery on a copy from Amazon and I think we all know what that means. That's right. My original copy will show up before the UPS driver knocks at our front door with the replacement but then, if I didn't order the second copy, the first copy would never show up so I had no choice but to set the wheels of fate into motion.

Before I committed to punching the "order now" button on Amazon, I succumbed to my need (a word I use loosely) for another motivational toy and ordered the Tanita BC554 Ironman Glass InnerScan Body Composition Monitor, a bathroom scale that in addition to weight, outputs body fat percentage, bone mass, metabolic age, body weight and while it's not listed on the manufacturer's product description, I suspect it might well spit out daily lottery numbers and my credit rating in the United States and most sovereign nations east of Ecuador. I'm wagering that among all the calculations that spew out of the scale everytime I risk standing on it there will be at least one result that doesn't completely unravel my ego. One can hope.

Tee-Shirt Lovah

2007-01-25T18:19:00.000-08:00

I've become a Threadless.com tee-shirt junkie over the past couple months and if you bump into me these days odds are I'm going to be in one of the following designs.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

2007-01-24T16:44:00.000-08:00

I picked up Tweety's ashes today. They're in a nice little cedar box with a gold padlock and key, and a printed note on the top that reads

"In Remembrance of Your Beloved Pet

TWEETY

Cremation Service Provided for

Anita and Dana Cadonau-Huseby

January 15, 2007"

Several years ago an elderly couple who were my neighbors at the time learned their faithful golden retriever had terminal cancer and that they would need to eventually put him to sleep to prevent their friend from suffering. For several weeks I'd peek through my front window or stand quietly in my driveway and watch as the man and woman would accompany their dog outside in the rain and the sunshine, tossing a ball into the empty field across the street from our home, and every time that old golden retriever would return to them with the ball wedged in his jaw, tail wagging, they'd lean down, rub his head gently and speak words to him I couldn't hear but that I'm certain were filled with affection and love. Words that were often accompanied by tears and a prolonged hug between the man and woman.

One day they told me that the next morning they would be taking their dog to the vet's to be put to sleep. He was in pain, whimpering and limping, and as much as they hated it, they knew the time had come. That afternoon I went and bought a copy of the children's book, "Dog Heaven" by Cynthia Rylant and the next morning when they left for the vet's, I took the wrapped book and placed it against their front door. It's all I knew to do for them.

So why did this memory come back to me and why am I telling you about it? I don't know. Maybe just because I'm feeling over-the-top sentimental sitting here beside a small wooden box that holds the ashes of one of my best friends. I'm a mush-ball when it comes to those I love (furry or furless) and I accept that about myself. You should too or face the inevitable fact that at times reading my blog will make you a tad queasy. Chill and deal peeps, chill and deal.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when the copy of "Cat Heaven" I ordered will be arrived to my front door.

The Magic Elixir

2007-01-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

I went to the podiatrist's office to seek professional help with the ongoing saga of the Evil Twins which I'm hoping to resolve before getting too far into my training schedule. After looking at my feet and confirming that the Twins are indeed acting up as a result of nail fungus, he offered me four treatment options.

Option 1: The nails could be removed (oh now, that sounds fun!) however there's every chance the fungus would return. Nix that.

Option 2: The oral medication Lamisil could be prescribed however a side effect can be liver damage so monthly blood tests would be required and there's only a 40% success rate. I'm gonna say "no thanks."

Option 3: Penlac Nail Lacquer, the first FDA-approved topical treatment for nail fungus could be applied but again the success rate isn't that high and the cost is 300.00 for an extended treatment. Better but try again Doc.

Option 4: A nightly application of Vicks VapoRub. This home remedy is affordable, pain-free, liver-friendly, and if you check around the internet, apparently highly effective. So it's off to Long's Drug Store for me.

In My Other Life

2007-01-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

Remember when you'd stay home from school because you were sick (or had successfully frayed illness to avoid going to school) and upon returning to school you presented a note to your teacher signed by your mom explaining your absence? Consider this my note, unsigned by my mom, for why I've been absent from blogging for the past week.

I was working. It's true. I work. It's hard to conceive of how I'm squeeze a job into my rigorous schedule of "Gray's Anatomy" and personal training sessions but there you have it, I work, when push comes to shove that is. My official title is the Programming Director for the Center in Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at PSR in Berkeley and the Co-Director of the Bay Area Coalition of Welcoming Congregations (CWC). And yes, that all fits on one business card which is no problem as long as you can read point 3 font size or your business card is produced on 8.5 x 11-inch card stock. My other unofficial, non-business-card-reflective job title is that of Audio-Visual Girl and Caterer and this weekend I wore my caterer's cap at a conference focused on transgender issues and religion that was attended by 60 transgender leaders in religion and in the nation. Preparing five separate meals (one reception, two breakfasts, two lunches, assorted snack breaks) required one week that included: 72 hard-boiled eggs, 50 grilled chicken breasts, 30 bags of garbage, 12 bags of ice, 8 gallons of tomato basil cream soup, 5 full carloads of food and equipment, 4 trips to Costco, 3 continuously emptying coffee pots, 2 pounds of triple-cream brie and 1 sore and weary Phatgirl. It was an incredible amount of work but the participants were all so appreciative of every little thing I did that it made it all a pleasure, however I learned a valuable numeric lesson in the process. Two 16-hour work days and one 50-year old Phatgirl are incompatible. You would think that after several months of core-training and cardio nearly every day of the week a few days of hard physical work wouldn't leave me feeling like a 4 ton truck had driven over my body but if you would have thought that, you'd be soooooo wrong. Whimper, whimper.

Four Days Til' Friday

2007-01-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

Friday is the official start of Phatgirl's return to training with a 2 mile walk scheduled, and then it's training walks four times a week, and core-training/cross-training three times a week. My plan is to follow the Marathon for Mortals training schedule so that I'm up and ~~running~~ walking in time for the April 29 half-marathon in Eugene, Oregon. I still have the option of doing the full-marathon but honestly, it would be a real time crunch and I'm not all that invested in all those long-distance training walks so soon. Besides, I honestly have one full-marathon goal and that will be my second attempt at the Portland Marathon in October. I have to try that one more time and so I shall. Those two events plus the Napa to Sonoma half-marathon in July are my only planned events for the year and the latter may be forfeited for a potential two week trip to Greece. Been there, done that, want to do it again.

My other intention around marathoning is to volunteer at several events this year because I want to be one of those wonderful people who stand on the side-lines, hand you water and tell you how courageous and amazing you are. I want to be there long after the fastest runners have zipped by to cheer on those who are hobbling more than running, and stumbling more than walking to say "You can do it. You've come this far already. You're doing what others only dream of doing." Those are the words that bring tears to your eyes when you're out there on the pavement nursing fantasties about giving up and feeling discouraged because it's not going the way you thought it would. Even in my pathetically short marathoning career of one completed half-marathon and one attempted full-marathon, I know how important those volunteers are and I wouldn't at all mind paying it forward a time or two this year.

Today holds another step forward in preparing for training. A visit to the podiatist's to have a direct confrontation with the Evil Twins, particularly Leftie, he being the toe on my left foot riding shotgun to Big Toe. This runt has caused me nothing but trouble since last January when he emerged after a six mile walk. I don't know what miffed him off originally but ever since then he's taken every opportunity to be a nuisance and today I say "Enough!" I'm all for having his nasty little nail yanked clean out of the nail bed if that's what it takes. Okay, I'm willing given enough drugs that is. I didn't mean to go overboard and sound like a big brave dyke when the reality is I'm just a big baby whinypants. So much for bravado.

The Kindness of Blogger Buddies

2007-01-22T16:12:00.000-08:00

This is just a short and sweet blog note to shout out a heart-felt thank you to those of you kind people who took a moment from your lives to offer a kind word at the loss of our favorite furry friend. There have definitely been tears around our house this past week and Annie, our other cat has resigned herself to the fact that for the time-being she's going to have to endure excessive hugging and holding in our desperate need for kitty consolation. She's our official grief counselor. Isn't it amazing how much love and fun and comfort such tiny little creatures can bring into our lives?

And finally, in tribute to my sweet kittencat, here's a rather humiliating video I made of her a couple years ago with mi amor. The humiliation isn't attributed to Tweety since all she's doing is minding her own business and politely tolerating her annoying human, who in a goofy moment is talking babytalkese, thus the humiliation factor.

My only disclaimer to what you are about to see is that Tweety did in fact have brains. She had smarts and plenty of them, proven in her firm grasp of the English language as her second language. Everytime I called her name, she came running. Everytime I said "Tuna" she looked at me with eyes filled with hopeful anticipation. And so the "no brains" comment in the film is just playful teasing. Tweety and I were like that. We teased and played jokes on each other. I'd say "you got no brains" and we'd laugh and laugh. She'd cough up a furball in the middle of the night somewhere on my usual three in the morning journey from bed to bathroom and she'd laugh and laugh. What a jokester.

Mourning Morning

2007-01-16T07:56:00.000-08:00

Life is sad around the Phatgirl home this morning. We only had Tweety home for a few hours yesterday before she died on my lap on the way to the Emergency Clinic late last night. This morning we miss calling her name and having her lumber through the bedroom door to get her five fingertips of coffee. We miss being pawed awake and getting squished under the weight of 18 pounds of pure cat sweetness piddy-paddying over us. She was Phatgirl's phatcat, a beautiful cat, a goofy cat, and one of my most faithful and loyal friends for the best nine years. It's a wonder how something so small can bring a person so much joy and comfort when all they ask in return is a bowl of water, a little food, and a scratch under the chin every so often. And your heart. They require all the love your heart can spare and Tweety most definitely had that. She always will.

Let's Talk Training - Shall We?

2007-01-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

The past three weeks have been sloppy. Not a total loss by any means but between Christmas away from home and two weeks of a really annoying cold that's finally riding it's pony into the sunset my training and food plan have been a bit of a crap shoot. I missed some sessions with D_wn my personal trainer, opted for the couch and a kleenex box over crunches and cardio, and was haphazard more days than not in recording my food. Christmas is over. The cold has been reduced to a sniffle and so tomorrow morning it's back to 24 Hour Fitness every 24 hours, and charting my food plan, water intake and daily sweat factor at www.calorieking.com.

My original marathon schedule for 2007 included two half-marathons and one full-marathon. I'm definitely on for 26.2 miles in Portland, but the half in Napa Valley in July is in question because of a possible scheduling conflict, and I'm still trying to make up my mind about whether to do the half-marathon or go for the full-marathon in Eugene this April. Wisdom says stay with 13.1 since I haven't gone on a single training walk since October and won't begin for two more weeks, but I have to admit, I'm tempted. Having lived in Eugene for about four years, I know the marathon course and love the idea of completing my first marathon walking the park paths lining the Willamette River, seeing my former home from the trail, crossing the footbridge, circling Autzen Stadium, and hoofing through familiar neighborhoods in that great university town. Tempting. I might need to do some calendar calculations just in case there's time to shift from 13.1 to 26.2 which, as anyone who's been in a marathon knows, is more than just adding another 13.1 miles.

Now begins a radical shift in content. Don't bother to read what follows if you've never loved a dog or cat. You'll just scratch your head and not "get it" anyway. Your loss.

On a very sad note, so sad that it's still not fully registering, my sweet adorable much loved kitten cat Tweety, appears to be rapidly fading with kidney failure that's plagued her, and us, for the past few years. She's been at the kitty hospital for the past five days in hopes that constant fluid IV's would get her out of renal failure but her tests aren't showing any positive results. One last round of tests tomorrow and then we're bringing her home to be here with us where some serious kitty snuggling, ear scratching, and fur brushing will ensue. And tears. There will be plenty of those. Since Tweety's been gone our other cat Annie has been certifiably depressed, remaining curled up on one corner of the couch glum as glum could be. Every so often she'll look up at the staircase landing where Tweety normally sits surveying her kingdom that extends as far as her big blue eyes can see, but realizing Tweety isn't there, she curls up even tighter. The human occupants of the house are pretty glum too.

Tweety Kitten Cat

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Albert Schweitzer

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.

Joseph Wood Krutch

The cat has too much spirit to have no heart.

Ernest Menaul

Another Brain Cell Goes M.I.A.

2007-01-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

I came home this evening and had the totally scrumptious idea to jump in the tub for a nice hot sudsy soak before dinner. While the water was running into the tub I headed to the other room to take care of a couple work-related emails. Eight minutes later I headed back to the master bath eager to jump into a deep tub of steamy hot water only to realize I'd started the water but never dropped the plug into the drain. It's moments such as these that make me wonder if it's too soon to start worrying...

I'm Not Contagious

2007-01-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

Cold and flu season has officially arrived here at La Casa de Phatgirl where Dana and I have been competing for top prize in the homegame version of "Who's the Sickest Now?" It's been neck and neck for a few days but it seems Dana has finally pulled ahead by upping the anty with a low-grade fever. Ah well, you can't win everything.

Due to said coughcoughhackhacksniffsniff-athon I haven't been to the gym all weekend which means along with missing out on my regular workout I haven't even had a chance to take my portable DVD player on a test run OR my newest cheesy zazzle teeshirt!

Sugar Story

2007-01-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

I was reading a recent entry by Jeanne of "Not Born to Run" infamy on her recent commitment to not eat sugar and thought it might be time to tell the tale of my own adventures with sugar.

Sugar's been a mainstay of my diet since childhood. When I was in grade school it was a very hip-slick-and-cool thing to bring a box of Jello for a snack. That's right. Put your finger in your mouth, dip your finger into the box of Jello, return your finger to your mouth. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

Lime-flavored crack. Had we thought to snort it there would have been a schoolyard full of sugar-crazed kids with green powder residue on the tip of their noses. Solitary adolescent souls searching their next hit of strawberry dope in the local Piggley-Wiggley. Wild knee-high party-goers with lampshades on their heads throwing back chasers of Mountain Dew laced with hallucinagenic orange sugar dust. Pass me a line of Blueberry Bliss or some of that south-of-the-border Raspberry Razamadaz. Groovy Baby.

As the years rolled on I continued getting more rolly-polly from chasing the sugar dragon. It wasn't out of the norm for me to eat an entire gallon of ice cream in an evening, polish off a two pound bag of M&M's, or make a batch of raw chocolate chip cookie dough disappear before it ever found it's way onto a cookie sheet. A six pack of Dilly Bars from DQ. Heaven on a stick, dipped in chocolate.

A little sugar is fine; moderation is a beautiful thing. I just didn't have the power to be moderate when it came to sweets because I was and am addicted to the stuff. A certifiable sugar junkie.

I was an addict because when I wasn't eating sugar, I was either feeling physically and emotionally sick about what I'd just eaten or planning for what I was going to eat next. There was no down time when it came to sugar. It had my full attention. Sit at home with a bowl of ice cream or go for a walk, visit a friend, stroll through the museum? Is that a question or a joke? Nothing was better than eating something sweet with sugar.

I was an addict because my addiction was continuing progressing. A little sugar was never enough because I always wanted more. Bet you can't eat just one! Sure I can...one box, one container, one package, one carton, one gallon, or one jar. Not a problem. Easy-peasy. But even then, even when the one was huge, it wasn't enough. A little like the "recreational drug user" who given enough time goes from using on the weekends to every night to all through the night to being the next candidate for a featured role on "Invention."

I was an addict because I couldn't stop even though I clearly saw what it was doing to me pound by pound by pound. The weight I was gaining was limiting my life and making my world smaller and smaller as I got bigger and bigger. I was miserable but I couldn't stop.

And I was a sugar addict because sugar is an addictive substance. Just like alcohol, heroin, cocaine or marijuana, ingesting sugar has been found to increase the serotonin levels in the brain and the higher those levels are the calmer and happier you feel. Of course, the calmer and happier only lasted for minutes compared to the hours of feeling horrible but still, had sugar been made illegal and the price of Snickers spiked to 100 dollars a bar, I would have been selling packets of table sugar on the streets to earn enough to buy a mini-snack size of the chocolatey caramelly nutty treat.

Fast forward to January 1999. Phatgirl weighs in at 325 pounds and feels sick and tired and willing to try anything. And that's when....drumroll please.....I. Gave. Up. Sugar.

Statistics now calculate that the average American consumes approximately 135 pounds of sugar per year. That's 2-3 pounds of sugar a week, up from less than 1/2 pound twenty years ago. After some rough calculations, I've estimated that by the age of 26 and a 1/2 I'd eaten my life time quo of sugar so nada mas for me.

In my last few years sans sugar here are some little sugar-free tidbits:

Read labels. Even if you don't keep a bag of pure cane sugar in your pantry, it's still there in foods like breakfast cereals, mayonnaise, seasonings, peanut butter, microwave popcorn, soda pop, spaghetti sauces, ketcup, canned kidney beans and in a surprisingly high percentage of the cans, jars, boxes, bags, and packages whereyou would least suspect to find it. While limiting all sugar is impossible, try to avoid foods that list sugar in the top five ingredients.

Sugar by any other name is still sugar. Corn syrup, dextrose, sucrose, dextrose, lactrose, cane syrup, cane sugar, molasses, maple syrup, and yes, honey. Even though honey is natural sugar and not refined sugar, it's still comprised primarily of simple sugar and contains more calories (65 per tablespoon) than common table sugar (48 per tablespoon). The only difference is that it's sugar that's gone through the body of a bee on its way to your blood stream. And remember, "sugar-free" doesn't mean "calorie-free."
I gave up sugar all at once instead of cutting back gradually and that worked for me because the sooner the sugar is out of the system, the sooner the cravings will diminish. In other words, I only wanted to snap the fingertips of anyone who stood between me and a Hostess Cupcake for a couple weeks instead of a couple months. How long it takes clean out the system is up for grabs but time varies between 21-30 days.

Once the physical craving diminished then I just need to tackle the emotional cravings or mental obsession; those ideas that told me that it wasn't really my birthday if you I didn't eat a piece of cake or starting the day without Starbuck's cinnamon crumb cake made it hardly worth getting out of bed in the morning. Those were just feelings and feelings pass and as time went along they passed quicker and showed up less and less. That doesn't mean I never hear the pastry shelves at the coffee shop talking to me but it's more of a whisper than a shout.
I use Splenda as a sweetener, however the truth is the more I use it the more I crave sweet things that I see in the dessert aisle at the store. It just tends to keep that sweet thang going. When I minimize my intake of artificial sweeteners or remove them altogether, that's when I have the easiest time.

The first 40 pounds I lost came from giving up sugar without making any other changes to my food or adding exercise. Even if you don't make any other change to how you eat, if you only give up sugar there's every chance you'll end up with a weight loss.
Despite popular opinion there actually is life after chocolate and caramel and an apple with cinnamon or frozen grapes can be considered both fruit and dessert.

I'm not saying everyone should give up sugar. Believe me, if I could eat a dessert once in a while, or nibble on one cookie and then put the rest of the package away, or walk away from a half-eaten scone then I'd be eating sugar. But I can't so I gave it up. Out of necessity. And as a result life is sweeter than ever!

The Queen Rejoices

2007-01-05T15:39:00.000-08:00

I am spoiled. SpoiledSpoiledSpoiledSpoiled. But then, should royalty expect less? I, Queen Phatgirl am now the happy late Christmas gift recipient, courtesy of my wife and the UPS delivery guy, of a Sony portable DVD player, suitable for viewing at my gym on my Nautilus TreadClimber® TC916. Pardon me while a queen speaks like a commoner but ----

Yippee Skippee!

It's not that I haven't enjoyed moving to the groove of RuPaul singing "Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous" but after two years it was edging up on my last sweaty nerve. Now, the entire world of film media is mine! What shall it be first? Treadclimbing to vintage episodes of "Thirtysomething," weeping on the elliptical to "Terms of Endearment" or shall I say it, enjoying the sight of Grey's Anatomy's McDreamy and McSteamy while I'm PhatGirl McSweaty? Oh joy. Oh bliss. As the great theologian and all around good neighbor Mister Roger's observed "What a lovely day in the ~~neighborhood~~ suburban gym!"

Speaking of which, the gym I mean, this has been a full out cardio-kickin' week despite a drippy-nose-sore-throat-nasty-cough cold. I know, just the kind of gymrat you want to follow onto a piece of exercise equipment but hey, that's yet another reason why pre-moistened disposable disinfectant cloths are such a great idea!

And in other news, in getting ready to begin training again I have an upcoming visit to the podiatrist scheduled to deal forcefully, once and for all, with the ongoing exploits of The Evil Twins, those two mad-cap zany toes that began their comedic rise to fame on my first day of training last year and continue to dazzle audiences and sneakers everywhere. I've cottled them too much. Custom soles, top end powerwalking socks, cutting escape hatches in the top of brand-new running shoes, hot baths, ointment soaks, and ridiculously expensive medicine. The time has come to just end the misery and rip our little annoying knuckleheads off. Let me clarify. The toe nails, not the toes. The end. The final curtain call. Say "Goodnight Gracie."

PhatGirl's Deep Dark Secret

2007-01-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

After reading my last entry my wife offered up a gentle suggestion that went something like this, "So Honey, why don't you blog something about, oh, I don't know, walking maybe?" Apparently she's under the impression that a blog called phatgirlwalking should occasionally mention none other than...walking. Fine. Okay. I can do that.

In a nutshell, I started walking in January 2006 and over the next nine months kept walking, training first for a half marathon in July and then a full marathon in October. I logged somewhere around 500 miles more or less during that time. Since pulling a DNF at the Portland Marathon I discontinued walking. First, there was a full month off for recovery and physical therapy and then in November I started back to the gym and have been going nearly everyday with cardio six days a week punched with two to three sessions a week with D_wn, my personal trainer.

Here's the thing. When I was logging all my miles outside I couldn't have imagined spending time in the gym unless it was 20 degrees below or 100 degrees above celsius. No, more than that. I mocked those who did. Why would anyone choose to walk for a couple hours on a boring dreadmill in a stuffy room when you could set out from your front door, walking in a half-dozen directions, each with its own sights and sounds and surprises? I was an outdoor-training snob and proud of it, thank you very much. But something has happened over the past couple months. I've fallen in love with the gym and it's recirculated air, the stiff white terry cloth towels, the clanging weight machines, the sound of Britney Spears singing "Oops, I Did It Again" pulsing through the sound system, and yes, D_wn my perky and adorable personal trainer. It seems that Phatgirl has become a gymrat.

All fine and good except for one little thing. Later this month I need to begin my sixteen week training schedule to prepare for a half-marathon in April and I've come to realize that I'm actually dreading the idea of leaving the cozy artificial environment of my gym cocoon for the highways and byways of the great out-of-doors a few days a week. This surprises no one more so than it does me, Phatgirl. Can anyone else relate?

Adventures in Cheese

2007-01-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

I'm in bed with a cold. Within reach is a box of Kleenex, the tv remote, the cordless phone, a couple chewable Zicams, a bottle of Robitussin and two cats that have been vying for position all morning long; Annie wrapped around my head on the pillow and Tweety at my feet. I've already had my sick naps, dozing to the sound of the TV, and eaten a sugarfree popsicle because you eat popsicles when you're sick. Even if you don't like them, you're suppose to eat them. Fortunately for me, sugarfree popsicles are my methodone for real sugar food so I'm more than happy to ingest. I share my health status to serve as a warning. I'm bored and when I'm bored I blog. About absolutely nothing. As if you needed proof...

Christmas 2006 will forever be known as the Year of the Cheese. Delice D'Argental Triple-Cream. Shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. Mascarpone. Smoked Gouda. Stilton Blue. Sharp Cheese. Brie. With fruit. With Crackers. With Fig Jam. With dates and almonds and chocolate-dipped strawberries. All accompanied by the muffled sound of arteries gurgling with cholesterol. I served some gorgeous cheese platters at our house over the holidays but I am so over cheese. All cheese has been banished forthwith from the house with the exception of a single package of Kraft No-Fat Shredded Cheddar (can you even call that cheese?) in it's handy-reusuable bag and four mini-wheels of Laughing Cow Original Cheese.

All this cheese talk reminds me of the first vacation Dana and I took as a couple six years ago to the Pacific Northwest for the ritual show-n-tell of new relationships. You know how it goes. We've all done it to one extent or another. You kidnap the other person, trapping them into the passenger seat of your preferred mode of transportation, and take them on a guided tour of all the sites from your former life, former life being loosely defined as all time that occurred prior to meeting him/her. It goes something like this: "Here is the house where I grew up. This is street that I walked everyday to school. This is my grade school. This is my high school and that is the bus stop where I caught the bus every afternoon unless I was driving my 1968 Chevy Nova. This is the church where I worked and worshipped. This is my old dry cleaners, my old grocery store, this is where I got my videos, that's the station where I filled up my car with gas." (Blogger's Note: I just read this paragraph to Dana who laughed and said, "You still do that. The information is ceaseless." Compliment or criticism? You decide.)

Cheese. I'm getting to it. Stop nagging.

So on this trip we spent a few days on the Oregon Coast and because everyone had said "Oh, if you're anywhere near Tillamook, you've got to go to the Tillamook Cheese Factory because it's so interesting" and so, like naive children, we went. Dana and I were at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for an hour. Let me now share with you all that we saw and experienced.

We arrived and entered along with a herd of eager cheese tourists. We were led through a hallway that looked down on a factory room filled with shiny stainless steel equipment that, given it was the weekend, wasn't doing anything cheese-like. We were given a free sample taste of cheese the size of a postage stamp and then guided to the predictable Souvenir Shop slash Cheese Store placed stragetically in front of the only ~~escape~~ exit door. While the rest of the cheese mecca worshippers were buying up sharp cheese like it was a blue-light special and ingesting mammoth mountains of Tillamook ice cream we made our hasty retreat.

The best part of our Tillamook Cheese Factory tour is that it was so highly over-rated and dismal disappointment that it's now become our gold standard against which we compare all other less than momentous adventures. "Well Honey, at least it wasn't as bad as the Tillamook Cheeeeeeese Factory," and please note, the word cheese must be articulated as cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese to signify the ridiculous notion that cheese could ever be worthy of a guided tour in the first place. It's not like we're talking about something as intriguing and spell-binding as Velveeta.

Say Yes

2007-01-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Advanced mea culpa's if what follows sounds more like an audition for a motivational speaker than a simple blog entry. It's just that I'm passionate about this human tendency we have to often settle for less simply because we can't or don't or won't take the action to begin moving us in another direction. If you've read any of my previous blog-o-ramble you know I love my life, and because I treasure so much the quality of my life today I have regret for the years I wasted living a life that was less than it could have been. I wish I could have known myself sooner, found love sooner, opened my eyes to the world sooner, taken care of this phatgirl body sooner. At the same time, I hold each "if only" hand in hand with accepting that the Anita I was, was doing all she knew to do and so I try to go easy on her and remember her gently and treat her compassionately, for while it's true that sooner is better than later, I've come to embrace the idea that later is better than never.

All that I've muttered through in that scrambled first paragraph was just an introduction to say what I intended to say all along and that is this - - -

Yes you can. The only reason you can't is because you won't try.

You haven't lost weight because you won't get off the couch and make the necessary life changes.
You haven't began a new career because you won't go back to school to get the training that's required.
You haven't found love with a special someone because you won't take the chance to ask him or her if they feel the same for you.
You haven't developed a spiritual connection with God because you won't admit to being reliant on anyone other than yourself.

But it's not too late to have or do or be any of those things. Let 2007 be the year to begin, not to arrive but simply to begin. Everything we long for begins with one small and single action and if you make 2007 the year of beginning your dream, then 2010 can be the year of living your dream.

If you want to lose weight, look honestly at how you've been eating and change just one thing that will reduce your intake of calories TODAY.
If you want to get in shape, get up off the couch and walk around the block or go to the gym where you own a life-time membership TODAY. (Don't worry. They'll issue you a new card at minimal cost.)
If you want to spend your life with a more fulfilling career find out what classes are being offered at the local community college and sign up for one TODAY.
If you want to find the love of life, make a list of all the virtues and characteristics you would want that special someone to possess and then use that list to begin to transform who you are TODAY. (When we grow into what we want to find in another, the other often finds us.)
If you long for a spiritual life, to know God as you are known and to love God as you are loved, bend your knees on the floor and tell say "Hello, it's me" TODAY.

When we look at the first step it takes to moving in a direction that will enrich our lives, why do we hesitate to take them? Why don't we do what we need to do to become who we most want to be, to have what we most desire, to be in relationship with who we most yearn to know?

Here's my guess. Fear. Always fear. Afraid we'll fail as we did in past attempts. Afraid we're not young enough or smart enough to learn what we need to learn. Afraid that our heart will be broken or that we'll be rejected. Afraid in needing God we'll look weak or naive or that God won't come through for us or even show up for us. Simply put, we're afraid to risk but you. are. worth. the. risk. And so is your dream. No one you admire in this world has arrived where they are without risk, without failures, without an occasional mess. A life lived without a few failures is a life that never lived to its full potential. Risk the chance.

And remember, the results don't come overnight. Instant gratification is fine for 5-minute rice but it doesn't work for the big dreams of life. Life changes come through decision built upon decision, step after step. Everything great, all that we dream for takes commitment, tendacity, discipline, hard work, and time, and they all begin with that very first step. That moment when we say yes, the instant when we nod our head to the dream and decide we will do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to move from where we are to where we want to be.

2010 will be here before any of us can imagine so this year take the first action to fulfill the dream of a lifetime. Make the commitment. Do the work. Risk the sacrifice. Put new priorities in place. Say yes. Give a nod.

Electronic Work Out

2006-12-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

Argh. Such a day. It started out brilliantly enough with a morning outing to 24-Hour Fitness for an 80 minute session on the Tread Climber. With only four machines that are sought and fought over by ardent fellow gym rats, I was thrilled to see that Santa had delivered six or seven of the premier Precor EFX576i Elliptical machines. Next to the Nautilus Tread Climber, these bad boys get my heart rate pumping and sweat glands flowing like nobody's business, so with more machines as an option to my cardio sessions, I won't have to trip old ladies and knock down old men to get to be one of the fortunate four.

Now, that was all fine and good but that is precisely when paradise ended and purgatory began because the rest of the day was spent attempting to get our home entertainment hooked up...television, cable, tivo, slingbox, universal remote and dvd recorder. Beginning after a naively calm and carefree lunch there's been a one hour in-house installation appointment with Circuit City's FireDog tech support, a return trip to Circuit City to return the tivo and the universal remote, a stop at Comcast to trade in my old cable box for a new DVR box, and five hours spent re-configuring the connections I'd just paid to have done by a trained tech from FireDog. As it turned out when he left the phone line was dead, the dvd recorder didn't record, and the slingbox had no sound; none of these being minor points in my little parcel of terra firma.

Given my limited take-no-prisoners approach to electronics I now have everything up and running, which is to say until the cat dashes behind the television, gets dangled in the mountain of cords, and pulls everything loose. Yes, all is running smoothly on all 457 channels but I wish I could say the same for myself. I haven't even one nerve left in my body let alone 457 of them, I'm as grouchy as a rain-soaked cat and I'm fairly convinced that at one point in the evening while I was lying on my back wedged behind the television with eight cords and only six jacks remaining to put them in, I invented a entirely new language. In reflection it had a rather harsh gutteral quality reminiscent of an ancient Nordic dialect calling forth visions of marauding and pillaging Vikings. No offense intended to the Nordic community.

A noteworthy detail is that Dana wasn't seen all night except when spotted silently slipping downstairs to grab her dinner plate only to dart back seconds later to the relative safety and serenity a closed (and bolted?) door. A wise decision given my temporary emotional and mental state.

Despite all that, it's great to be home from the holidays, preparing my own food, working out at my own gym, and being annoyed by my own cats. All this and 457 channels. Sweet.

[Phatgirl Note: The events of today are what are commonly known as "cadillac problems." In other words, when you have food on the table, a bed to sleep in, a roof over your head, a steady howbeit modest income, your health, and loved ones, the ordinary trials and tribs that pop up in a day are little more than annoyances at worse and opportunities to grow and learn at best. Perspective kids, it's all about perspective.]

Christmas Nighty-Nite

2006-12-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

Mom's on one couch reading. Dana's on the other napping. I'm on the Lazyboy blogging. Just the end of another Christmas Day and a fine one at that. The full stage production of a family Christmas took place on Christmas Eve with an ensemble cast of 31 siblings, nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews and an assortment of spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, significant others and a puppy named Reed. It was a wonderful, joyful, wild, noisy, and slightly chaotic clan gathering making the peace and quiet of this present moment a welcomed end to the holiday fanfare.

Christmas Day as a whole has been on the mellow side beginning this morning. I'm happy to report that Santa was able to locate Dana and I at the Embassy Suites where we're staying because this morning the Diet Coke and Rice Cake we left out for the white-bearded fellow (yes, we did) were gone and lo and behold, there was a stack of presents under the artificial Christmas tree I'd hauled over from Mom's house to our hotel room. As a side note, if you and/or the entire citizenship of Denmark ever runs short on Christmas decorations, just dial 1-800-mymomschristmasstuffisoutofcontrol. She has more than enough for you, every Dane living or dead, and then some.

After opening presents following a thoroughly scrupulous breakfast of scrambled rubber eggs and water tinted with coffee grounds ala hotel and watching the last half hour of "The Christmas Story," (the "You're-Gonna-Shoot-Your-Eye-Out" movie), we headed off with MapQuest directions in hand for Christmas Day worship at a small Lutheran church. There were about 20 people there and they couldn't have been a more hospitable crowd right down to giving Dana and I a gift bag as we departed that included a loaf of homemade banana bread. Now that's a welcome I can get behind! Then it was back to my mom's house for a lunch of turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce and a re-heated plate of everything-else-that-was-leftover-from-Christmas-Eve-dinner, so that we could waddle into the den where we pick up where this blog began.

In the world of training, I managed during the holidaze to get to the gym at dawn on December 23 but haven't done anything since that would even remotely fall under the category of an active lifestyle, let alone exercise. And yes, I miss it and am eager to get my head and hiney and all parts inbetween back to the gym tomorrow upon my return home. The food has been marginally okay. Not great, but okay. The overall quantity of food was fine but the percentage of fat and carbs were at the high end and I feel it. Isn't it weird how your eating can be off for one day and you wake up the next morning fairly convinced you gained 23 pounds overnight, that none of your clothes will fit, and small children will run in fear at your appearance? Maybe it's just me.

Whatever the case may be, that's all I've got to tell you here on Christmas Day evening. Except Merry Christmas, of course. And a very sincere one at that.

Tagged at the Holidays

2006-12-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

Jeanne tagged me and I'm not happy about it because my left foot was squarely on safe base! Seeing as it's Christmas and the time for goodwill, peace and all that there, I'm going to acquiesce and play nice. Just don't try it again o' ye who was not born to run.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Holiday or ordinary day, it's four shots of espresso over ice, four Splendas and a splash of whole milk.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? The old man had better wrap them! Unless it's a puppy. Than a bow will do just fine.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Always colored lights. And just let me add a public service announcement that I'm so over those white icicle outdoor lights, so please, by all means, lose them and go back to real single string Christmas lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. I don't require props to get the desired results.

5. When do you put your decorations up? When the guilt becomes too overwhelming.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Mom's raspberry mold jello with whipped cream. Mom gave my sister and I the recipe years ago and to date neither of us have been able to get the jello to set up properly. Apparently, our Mom is taking the actual recipe with her to the grave.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Christmas at my Grandma and Grandpa's at the dairy. A table loaded down with food, bubblelights on the tree, stacks of presents that reached to my nose, singing "Joy to the World" accompanied by organ music, and Uncle Ulphin disappearing only minutes before Santa would appear to hand out our presents.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't know what you mean and I certainly don't like what you're implying.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Only when no one is looking. As a child I had the habit of carefully peeling the scotch tape off the end of my presents whenever my parents would leave the house to see what I was getting before putting them carefully back under the tree. One year, I discovered a clear plastic bear from Avon filled with bubble bath. I got so excited about it that I poured half the bubble liquid into the bathtub, took a bath, wrapped the half-empty bear back into the box and had it hidden back under the tree before Mom and Dad returned home from eating dinner with their friends. That Christmas as the family gathered around the tree to open their presents, I opened my bubble bath bear (for the second time) and before I could even finish my great "Oh boy, this is a great present, I'm so surprised!" performance, my mom looked at me, looked at the bear, looked at me, looked at the bear, and then hooked her finger in that "get over here now little woman" way. Suffice it to say, I don't know whatever became of the bubble bath bear and the remaining liquidy soap. Christmas after Christmas I keep waiting...and hoping....

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Colored balls and a weird assortment of this and that collected over the years, along with one handpainted wooden gingerbread man my mom and I painted when I was a little girl. The colored lights have already been established (see 3) although Dana has to string the lights because I get way too frustrated with the whole process.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it. Miss it. Want it.

12. Can you ice skate? Only if I don't mind going into the holidays with a few broken limbs and a sore behind.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A little black and white color television from my grandma when I was about nine. I was in heaven.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? I'm going to have to opt for the birth of Jesus and the whole nativity, baby in a manger, angels exalting, shepherds adoring, Son of God in flesh extravaganza. That my little peeps, is the Christmas story and it doesn't get better than that, with all respect to the jolly fat man.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Mandarin oranges and dates. In childhood it was the three-tiered cookies that looked like little Christmas trees my Grandma made every year.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Going to a candlelight worship service on Christmas Eve.

17. What tops your tree? Nada. Our tree is usually so small that putting anything on the top makes it look rather Charlie Brown-esque.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving without a doubt, not that I've ever turned down a gift...

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and in traditional carols, "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful."

20. Candy canes? I avoid stripes. They make me look fat.

Merry Christmas from PhatGirlElf

2006-12-23T12:54:00.000-08:00

A Special Greeting from Me to You. Not you. YOU!
(You'll want the sound on...and then again, maybe you won't.)

Monday's Check-In Revisited

2006-12-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

D_wn pulled out the measuring tape today and I'm encouraged, particularly the loss of almost five inches around the waist. When I was measured on November 28 my Lean Body Mass had dropped to 129 from 135. which meant I was losing muscle along with the fat as a result of not having enough protein in my diet. Over the past couple weeks by increasing my protein my LBM has gone back up to 133...a good thing.

November 6

Body Fat Percentage 37.1
Fat Mass 80.13
LBM 135.86
Upper Arm 14
Forearm 10.5
Chest 43.25
Waist 43.75
Hip 49.25
Thigh 25.5
Calf 17.5

December 20

Body Fat Percentage 34
Fat Mass 68.68
LBM 133.32
Upper Arm 13.5
Forearm 10
Chest 41.5
Waist 38.9
Hip 46.75
Thigh 25.5
Calf 17

Monday Check-In

2006-12-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

December 11 Check-In
202

December 18 Check-In
203

I'm not discouraged by the one pound weight gain since I've been staying on target with both the food and exercise. Call it water weight, trading fat for muscle, or a simple prank of the scale gods, but my jeans are looser and I know I'm doing what I need to be doing so I'm not bothered by it. D_wn will be measuring me in a couple days so we have a final set of measurements for 2006 and hopefully there will be some results there.

While I remain just as diligent around my food choices I haven't been as diligent in logging it at CalorieKing but I'm committed to continuing to do that because awareness around the food is something that can grow fuzzy for me unless I take the additional step after or before eating to writing it down. I can end up forgetting a mid-afternoon snack here or something I added to my lunch there and it all adds up, one bite at a time.

Daily Caloric Intake
Tuesday, 12-12
1700 calories
Wednesday, 12-13
1465 calories
Thursday, 12-14
1395 calories
Friday, 12-15
1498 calories
Saturday, 12-16
1357 calories
Sunday, 12-17
Approximately 1500 calories (didn't use Calorie King today)
Monday, 12-18
736 calories but no dinner or night snack yet

Daily Exercise Log
Tuesday, 12-12
70 minutes on Tread Climber
Wednesday, 12-13
50 minutes with personal trainer, 60 minutes on Tread Climber
Thursday, 12-14
70 minutes on Tread Climber
Friday, 12-15
50 minutes with personal trainer, 60 minutes on Tread Climber
Saturday, 12-16
Zippity doo dah
Sunday, 12-17
Nada mas mi hermanos y hermanas
Monday, 12-18
60 minutes on the Tread Climber, 45 minutes with personal trainer, 5 minutes on Elliptical

Too Cozy for Cardio

2006-12-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

This is Day 2 in the No Gym for Phatgirl saga. Yesterday was consumed with the gingerbread house extravaganza at the church which required no less recovery time than what's recommended for runners following a marathon. If you think I exaggerate then clearly you haven't spent four hours with twenty children and a truckload of sugar. That was Day 1.

Day 2 began at church where between the children's time and the sermon the congregation surprised me with a very sweet rendition of "Happy Birthday" and flowers presented by the children. Not your typical worship service granted, but that it happened on the exact anniversary of a very painful experience in another church...well...it meant the world to me and was a God-moment if ever there was one. After church Dana took me to the Christmas Dicken's Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco as a late birthday gift and then it was home to nap. Oh sure, I could have gone to the gym tonight but that would have required changing out of my jammies that I've had on since early evening, turning off the electric blanket that I'm snuggly tucked under, and missing the season finale of Survivor. All I can tell you is it's cold out there people and I'm just not hip on going back out into it.

But the truth? Though I can't get my body to move out the door to the gym, I miss going. I can't believe I just said that with my out loud voice. Two days of no gym time since I began my committed "until my money runs out" relationship with D_wn, my personal trainer, and I miss it. I think I realized how much working out was meaning to me on Friday when I got teary-eyed during my work out. I was standing in front of the mirror lifting weights when I imagined what the 40 year old Anita would have thought to see the 50 year old Anita in the gym on her birthday feeling so good and looking so good. The 40 year old Anita would never have believed it and that's why the boo-hoo moment. And that's why I can hardly wait to go to the gym tomorrow where my Tread Climber and Personal Trainer will do everything in their combined power to whoop my butt. Ain't gonna happen!

The Hardest Work Out Yet!

2006-12-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Who needs to pay a personal trainer, when you can simply organize a gingerbread house decorating party for 20 children between the ages of 2 - 11, corral them for games, herd them for lunch, flip a couple dozen grilled cheese sandwiches, benchpress a mega-pot of chicken noodle soup, chase down adolescent boys who repeatedly confuse the altar table for a fort, clean up the mess that remains when preschoolers are given squeeze bags of frosting and a quarter ton of candy, and bada-bing-bada-boom, you've had yourself a full-body work out and the time of your life! Be afraid D_wn, be very afraid.

It was a great day, a really, really great day. A funny, delightful, silly, and adorable day. It simply does not get any better than this, and the best part of it all? I get to be the really nice lady who plays games with them and shovels heaps of candy in their direction and then happily hugs them goodbye as they head home with their parent(s), wired up like the annual Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. The adored hero to preschoolers, the troublesome instigator to parents. It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it.

So what did you do today? And if it involved a nap, I don't even want to hear about it.

There's More than 10 Years Between 40 and 50

2006-12-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Today is my birthday. I'm allowed to be reflective and sentimental. I make no apologies.

I don't remember every detail of my 40th birthday but I remember enough. I was 325+ pounds and uncomfortable in my own skin. I was living in a house that never felt like a home. I had a job that was unfulfilling. I was in a relationship that never felt like love and was doomed from the start. I was unhappy. I was miserable. I excelled in self-loathing and was in every likelihood not the best candidate for a friend. I was, and I put this mildly, a physical, emotional and spiritual car crash. A bad one.

Ten years later and another world, another life. I weigh just under 200 pounds and enjoy moving this body, pushing this body, living in this body. I live in a home that feels like a home; a safe place in the world and sometimes from the world. I have a job that's meaningful and ministry that fulfills me, and I'm blessed beyond measure to be in a relationship that feels like love because it is love; the truest of love. A love I never could have anticipated and would have never had the nerve to ask for had I even known such love was possible. I'm more than happy. I'm overjoyed by my life and grateful for even the messy days, even the knock-you-down-and-suck-the-air-out-of-your-lungs days. I'm awed God has done all this for me, been so generous with me, so thoughtful of me. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And here is a simple thing but a wonderful thing. The best moment of my 50th birthday was this. . .listening to a message on the phone from my mom singing "Happy Birthday." Her voice was raspy and weak and the tune at times a tad off pitch but it would have put the Vienna Boys Choir to shame with it's sweetness.

Sunrise Sweat

2006-12-14T08:30:00.000-08:00

I went to the gym this morning. At 5:20 a.m. Were I Catholic I'd call for a priest to perform an exorcism because clearly something is alarmingly wrong with that. Even more alarming is that I enjoyed being at the gym at 5:20 in the morning sweating on my favorite Nautilus Commercial Series Tread Climber TC916, that being the one located the furthest from the mirrored wall right next to the step climbers and conveniently located so that televisions one through fourth are within close visual range. I love my Tread Climber, and the truth be told, I'm pretty sure my Tread Climber loves me. It's just a feeling.

I wore my favorite gym teeshirt, the one I recently bought from Threadless T-Shirts in preparation for turning 50 tomorrow that reads "So far this is as old as I've ever been." I love it so much I bought two. One for the gym and one not for the gym. Of course, I've already mixed them up and so I'm not sure which is which. Kind of like a parent with their twin newborns. Okay, maybe not just like that. I'm not sure if I should tell you why it's my favorite. Maybe that would be too much information. Wait. I forgot it's you I'm talking to and these are the kinds of things we share, being blog buddies and all. Okay, my "So far..." shirt is my favorite for the gym because my sweat really shows in it and I love looking sweaty because it makes me feel so athletically hipslick'ncool. Tell me truthfully, did I cross the line by telling you that? Of course, if I did, it's not as if it would be the first time and all odds suggest it won't be the last. In other words, if you continue reading my blog, you best get accustomed to useless bits of too much information.

So here I am. An hour and a half of cardio behind me, a stop in at the local coffee shop where I just had to say "my usual please", a long hot shower, time spent sipping coffee and talking in bed with my significant other, a bowl of yogurt and fresh raspberries, and a blog entry. All before 8:30 a.m. and the entire day is still in front of me. Sweet.

The Biggest Loser and a Box of Kleenex

2006-12-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

I'm watching "The Biggest Loser" finale on Tivo at the moment and I have no problem admitting I'm teary-eyed and snotty-nosed. These are my people after all. Century people. People who were morbidly, dangerously obese and have lost a 100 or more pounds. We might not have a clubhouse or a secret handshake but we're all connected in a way that's hard to explain, but it boils down to this. We know.

We know what it's like to have looked in the mirror and not been able to see ourselves, who we knew we really were under all the flesh and fat that hid us. We know what it's like to have had the other passengers on a plane watch as we squeezed down the aisle with a look on their faces that said "I hope that huge person isn't sitting in the seat next to me." We know the humilitation of not having fit through a store turnstile or into a restaurant booth, and to have been treated in public as if we weren't there because somehow the bigger we were the more invisible we were. And most of all, we know what it was like to have wanted more than anything to just fit in, to look normal, to have tried everything and anything to lose weight only to find ourselves powerless in the end to change anything. And after trying and trying for so long we had given up. We had said that was how we were and how we would always be. Nothing had worked and nothing ever would, and so we gave up all hope and accepted that we would die fat and we would probably die young, and we only hoped when the end came they wouldn't need to bury us in a piano crate.

And then something happened; a something that was different for all of us. Maybe it was the burning desire to live long enough to accompany our newborn child into their adulthood and not miss a single minute more of their lives than was our destiny. Perhaps a doctor looked us in the eyes and suggested that the next time we wanted a donut we should consider picking up a handgun instead because it would be quicker and less painful in the end. Maybe it was growing so sick and tired of how our lives were going we couldn't bear it another day. Perhaps it was hitting the bottom of despair with a thud and having no other way to go but up and accepting that nothing we had tried on our own worked so we reached out for help and support from others, some to a 12-step recovery meeting, some to Weight Watchers and others to "The Biggest Loser."

So I'm teary-eyed and snotty-nosed because just as I know the pain and humilation they've been through in their lives, I know the joy they're experiencing now in hope restored and a the goal of a lifetime reached. I know when they look in the mirror today they see the person they knew was there all along just waiting to get out. I'm so happy for all of them, for their chance to participate in a life that up to now they've only watched from the sidelines. They've done an incredible thing; so incredible that only those of us who have "been there and done that" can really appreciate...because we know.

Just So You Know. . .

2006-12-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't forsaken the whole notion of marathon walking. Be assured there are no future plans to rename my blog PhatgirlCalorieCounting or PhatgirlGymRat. The truth is that behind the scenes I've actually been wrapping my little pea brain around getting ready for my upcoming two half-marathons in April and July and my second stab at the Portland Marathon in October. This is what I've done to prepare:

I've registered for all three events.
I've booked hotel reservations for all three events.
I've reserved a portable refrigerator (mother of all necessities) for all three hotels at all three events.

And then there's actually training for the events, she said while slapping her forehead in mock astonishment, and that's why last night I pulled out my worn torn but never forlorn copy of Marathoning for Mortals by the Most Penguin John Bingham and plotted out my training schedule for 2007. Let me just say two things. Two things for now. Later. More. Much more.

Thing Number One:

Thing Number Two: Okay, follow this little sychronistic happening. When I track my training schedule backward from the date of the marathon in October to the half-marathon in July my long distance walk for that weekend is 12 miles, and when I work forward from the April half-marathon to the July half-marathon there are just the right amount of weeks to keep to an exact training schedule. Smooth as glass baby, smoooooth as glass.

So there you go. While D_wn, my Personal Tyrant, rules my universe at the present, in the future I will return to the hills and dells and trails with hoofers pounding the pavement.

By the way, Dana told me today that I needed to blog more regularly or my fanbase would disappear. You wouldn't abandon me. Would you?

Monday Check - In

2006-12-11T22:06:00.000-08:00

November 20 Check-In
206

December 11 Check-In
202

Weekly Caloric Intake and Exercise Log
While I continue to log every calorie in (food consumed) and calorie out (toil and sweat) on www.calorieking.com, I won't bore you with the play by play day by day, but will instead dazzle you with these little stats:

Tuesday, December 4 through Monday, December 11
1400-1850 calories per day
60 minutes cardio on the Nautilus Tread Climber and 100 crunches per day

That's what I'm talkin' about! So, it looks like I'm averaging a weight loss of about 1.0 - 1.5 pounds a week and while that wouldn't keep me above the yellow line on "The Biggest Loser" I'm content with the progress. Content and hopeful in that this might be the time when Phatgirl finally sheds the surplus. And on that happy thought I'm calling it a night Boys and Girls.

Catalog Chaos

2006-12-06T16:54:00.000-08:00

Dear Land's End, Eddie Bauer, PotteryBarn, Nordstrom's, Levenger, Savannah's Candy Kitchen, Solutions, Garnet Hill, Bloomingdale's, Hammacher Schlemmer, Harry & David, Hickory Farms, Monterey Bay, Plow & Hearth, Williams Sonoma, Sony, Dell Computers, Appleseeds, Carol Wright Gifts, Abbey Press, Frontgate, Sharper Image, Red Envelope, Hallmark, Lennox, Chiasso, Crate and Barrel, Popcorn Factory, Disney Store, Hershey's, Omaha Steaks, House of Almonds, Vermont Country Store, Lane Bryant, Silhouettes, Roaman's, Sierra Trading Post, Touch of Class, Ross-Simons, Current, Museum Store Company, Barrons, Oriental Trading, Discount School Supply, Kipp Brothers, ShindigZ and Lillian Vernon,

Stop. Sending. Me. Catalogs.

Have I ever bought a single item from your catalogs? Have I ever phoned one of your operators who are always standing by, read you the customer code off the mailing label conveniently located in the pink, red, green, yellow, blue or gray box, referred you to the page number where a desired item was located and then read the 23 digit item number printed in font type so miniscule that an ant standing in the center of the 23 digit item number would need a magnifying glass to decipher it? That's right. I never have and I never will.

Stop. Sending. Me. Catalogs.

And for those of you merchandising mavens who are under the impression that a colony of individuals live in my house whose names happen to contain the same letters of the alphabet as mine but in varying order, let me assure you right now, there is no one at my home by the name of Aneeta Cadnaugh, Danita Husby, Anita Cadhusey, Anita Cadonay-Hooseby, Atecka Cadnerry-Houseby, Anna Calonua-Husbey, or whatever other deviation of my name you have slaughtered beyond the point of absurdity. Even if such a group of people existed, since we all happily share the same letters of the alphabet wouldn't you think it in our collective nature to be able to share one copy of your catalog? And by the way, as long as we're on this, I'm not Miss or Mr. and if I heard someone shout "Occupant!" or "Resident!" on the street I wouldn't turn around and say "What?!" because those are not my name.

Stop. Sending. Me. Catalogs.

I give you credit. You are relentless. Three identical catalogs sent on three different days. Did you think I wouldn't notice? Are you so naive as to think I might have regret I didn't take the opportunity with the first copy you sent to purchase something that would complete my life and so now, in your good mercy you're giving me another chance? Pay attention here. Read carefully so you miss nothing. There was nothing I wanted in your catalog the first time you sent it. I have not changed my mind.

Stop. Sending. Me. Catalogs.

Stop sending me catalogs that are exactly the same as the one you sent me a month ago except for the new cover you've slapped onto the front. YYes, I noticed and no, you're not fooling me! Stop depleting our forests with catalogs that never get further than the recycle bin that waits open-mouthed to consume them whole. Stop making me get soaked to the bone by forcing me to wrestle your mangled catalogs out of my mailbox in the pouring rain. Stop giving people the impression that the true meaning of Christmas revolves around merchandise and spending and getting. What I'm trying to say is,

Stop. Sending. Me. Catalogs.

Oh, and could you please have someone from your online store send me an electronic receipt for the item I ordered off your website yesterday? Thank you.

Sincerely,
Anita Cadonau-Huseby

Monday Check - In With a Major Detour

2006-12-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

I was there at the appointed time. D_wn, the Glutes Goddess, the Abs Administrator, the Perveyor of Pain, the Sargeant of Sweat was not. I was informed she had a fever or so the story goes. But I wonder. Could it be she has come to fear me? Let's just say that after an hour of cardio the other day, followed by 40 minutes of core training, I probably could have responded with a little less aggression when she suggested I conclude my morning with....the plank.

The plank. Who is the sick son-of-a-gun who thought this one up? I mean seriously. Either lay down or get up off the ground but make a commitment one way or the other! Oh fine, maybe the rest of you perky little runner types are all over this bad boy but for a phatgirl like me, .....the plank is nothing short of sixty seconds of misery a la elbows. I really don't think it's good to do anything that makes your glutes burn so intensely that you find yourself looking over your shoulder for a man in a flame retardant suit wielding a blowtorch. Let me offer you a piece of advice. If you're doing something that burns that badly, S-t-o-p. I-t! Besides, around forty seconds into.......the plank noises start coming out of my mouth that are disturbing at best. I suppose one could liken it to the death rattle of a lost soul tied to four stakes in the mid-day sun of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa at the very second they glimpse a ravenous cheetah approaching from the east and a wild-eyed leopard with an undenible agenda moving in from the west. Imagine the sub-human noise a person in such a predicament would produce and that's phatgirl from 40 through 60 seconds of......the plank. Grown men have been known to cower and weep uncontrollably at the sound.

And my point in all this, aside from listening to the clickity-click of my own keyboard that is, is to suggest that D_wn had no fever but that she was merely avoiding the unavoidable. That is, as long as she insists on....the plank.

While I didn't get on the gym scales today and thus have no weight stats, here's the rest of my check-in and people, it's so thrilling that if you're operating heavy-machinery while reading this, it's advised you pull over to the side of the road and turn the engine off before continuing.

Weekly Caloric Intake and Exercise Log
Monday, 11-27
1092 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber, 50 minutes cross-training

Tuesday, 11-28
1411 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber

Wednesday, 11-29
1423 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber, 45 minutes cross-training

Thursday, 11-30
1173 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber

Friday, 12-1
1475 calories, 40 minutes on Tread Climber, 50 minutes cross-training

Saturday, 12-2
1261 calories, rest day

Sunday, 12-3
1490 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber

Notes:

I need more calories. It's been recommended I consume 1485 calories for three days in a row and then 1900 on day four. Rinse. Repeat. I'm not intentionally coming in on the low side but by the time evening comes I'm not wanting to dump in calories just to dump them in. As a solution, I'm probably going to try and eat a little more than my usual yogurt and fruit breakfast, probably by adding in some grain.
The good news is that in terms of the Three Amigos (carbs, fat, and protein) I'm falling right into the recommended percentages though the protein percentage could still be a wee on the higher side.
As you might have already guessed D_wn is adorable, funny, professional, and very motivating. In other words, she's ideal as a trainer but much too Pollyanna for a blog and so I take creative license whenever the mood strikes and the mood strikes without ceasing. Maybe if she's drop.....the plank, I would be willing to negotiate a more favorable portrayal in the future. Until that time, she will remain so much blog fodder.

The Irony Of It All

2006-12-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

Later this month I'll be turning 50. No big deal, just another year. I'm looking good and feeling good. In short, I'm happy and peppy and bursting with love.

And then it happened. Today in the mail was my formal invitation to join the AARP.

And here I am, still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

75 Crunches And A 6 Pound Ball

2006-11-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

The only thing I love more than going on vacation is coming home from vacation where our couch, bathtub, and pathelogically insane kittens wait eagerly for us to return so they can systematically ignore, snub and revile us. Nothing like coming home and feeling the love.

Despite the rather chilly reception waiting for us at home, Thanksgiving in Mendocino was spectacular. Long walks along the coastal headlands in crisp fall weather, browsing through the bookstore, starring up into a cloudless night sky and counting the shooting stars, purchasing a baking soda powered submarine at the toy store, Dana spotting a 20 dollar bill o the sidewalk only to donate it a few hours later to an animal shelter (another reason to love her as if there weren't already enough), eating a leisurely Thanksgiving dinner in our favorite restaurant, long soaks in the jacuzzi tub, flannel jammies and a bedroom fireplace, and talking with Dana about everything and nothing into the wee hours of the morning.

A quality weekend and all the more so compared to last year's Thanksgiving that arrived while Dana and I were walking through a time of disappointment in people and a wider church we had loved and respected only to have been betrayed and abandoned by them. (Blog Note: If that sounds overly-dramatic, it's only because there are times in all our lives when the most critically-acclaimed soap opera has nothing on us and if you don't know what I'm talking about then count your lucky stars, throw salt over your shoulder and spit three times into the palm of your hand post haste. Exit parenthesis at this time to resume original stream of consciousness.) Looking back over the year we've come through Dana and I found ourselves expressing genuine gratitude for what God has brought us out of and where God is taking us, wherever that might be. There's a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures, words spoken by Joseph to the brothers who had once abandoned him, selling him into slavery; "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good." I thought about those words this weekend and while by no stretch of the imagination do I compare my life to that of Joseph's, I think I just might know what the my slave-turned-Egyptian-prince-of-a-brother meant when he said those words.

There was something else that awed me this weekend. The night sky. I was blown away by it. Not just by the dazzling sight of all the stars but by the idea of how humongous it all is; that there are lights in the sky from stars that don't exist, whose light has only just reached us here on this puny little planet even though the star turned to dust long ago, like the spot of light that lingers in your eyes long after the flash of the camera. And the expanse of the universe, one galaxy beyond another one beyond another one after that. God without beginning and end, space without limit or boundaries. Doesn't the whole notion of infinite and eternal just rattle your brain on occasion? I love, I mean really wildly love how little it is that we know. Who needs to read reformulated stale mysteries when we're living right in the middle of the most incredible mystery of all!

Enough ruminations.

So. While I was spending a relaxing, and apparently, mind-altering Thanksgiving weekend in Mendocino with Dana, she, and you well know to whom I'm referring, was diabolically and systematically plotting how to make me suffer until I begged for mercy. Today I came close and in doing so I learned something important about myself and it is this; my breaking point, the moment I will morph from complete composure into a drooling, whimpering mess of a human being is somewhere just after 3 sets of 25 crunches. I don't know the exact moment because I didn't reach it. I only know I was teetering precariously on its' edge.

Apples and oranges you say but I assure you that my pontifications over the universe are not as unrelated to core training as you might first imagine because there is an interconnection between them that has led to a heightened self-awareness. It is this. I prefer mystery over misery and stars over sweat. Hands down.

Monday's Check-In on Wednesday

2006-11-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

Monday, November 27 Check-In
205 Pounds (1 pound weight loss, 11 pounds total)
Chest: 41 (2 inches lost)
Waist: 43 (no change)
Hips: 48 (1 inch lost)
Thigh: 25 (no change)
BMI: 35.3 (down 1.9 points)

Weekly Caloric Intake and Exercise Log
Monday, 11-20
1469 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber, 40 minutes cross-training
Tuesday, 11-21
1301 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber
Wednesday, 11-22
1385 calories, 30 minutes on Tread Climber, 40 minutes cross-training
Thanksgiving, 11-23
2398 calories, 1 hour walk, 20 minutes core exercises
*Friday, 11-24
Undetermined calories, 1 hour walk
*Saturday, 11-25
Undetermined calories, 1 hour walk
*Sunday, 11-26
Undetermined calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber

*Away from home for the holiday weekend so unable to accurately track caloric intake due to restaurant dining.

Every Day Thanksgivings

2006-11-23T13:36:00.000-08:00

There's nothing I could offer in the way of Thanksgiving gratitudes that would be more eloquent than those offered by Rose of Hit the Ground Running fame. Do yourself a favor and take a minute in this turkey (or tofuty)-filled day to read her Thanksgiving entry. It serves as a wonderful reminder that often our greatest blessings are hidden in the mundane of everyday life.

For all things, both that which brings us ease and consolation, and that which causes us to strengthen and mature, thanks be to God forever more.

"For from God and through God and to God are all things."
(Romans 11:29)

Monday Check-In

2006-11-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

I've made a decision and there's no talking me out of it so don't even try. Every Monday, whether you want me to or not, I'm going to chart my progress in terms of weight loss as noted by my weekly check-in at 24 Hour Fitness, along with my monthly measurements. I'm also going to list my caloric intake and work-outs for the week.Why you ask? Let me give you two answers. One: Oh Heck, why not? I'm telling you everything else about my life as it is. Two: It motivates me to be accountable to others even the others are a ratty bunch of blogophites like you! And so, here is the first thrill-packed installment of calories and cardio.

Starting Check-In
October 27
216 pounds
Chest: 43 inches
Waist: 43 inches
Hips: 49 inches
Thigh: 25 inches
BMI: 37.2
November 13 Check-In
207

November 20 Check-In
206

Weekly Caloric Intake and Exercise Log
Monday, 11-13
1117 calories, 60 minutes x 2 on Tread Climber, 40 minutes cross-training
Tuesday, 11-14
1495 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber
Wednesday, 11-15
1503 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber, 40 minutes cross-training
Thursday, 11-16
1465 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber
Friday, 11-17
1481 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber, 40 minutes cross-training
Saturday, 11-18
1313 calories, 60 minutes on Tread Climber
Sunday, 11-19
1167 calories, 3 mile walk

Just a Baking Babe

2006-11-19T22:59:00.000-08:00

These days when I'm not counting my calories, sweating on the cardio equipment to Annie Lennox belting out "Missonary Man", or submitting to some new torture designed for maximum burn by D_wn, my personal ~~painmaker~~ trainer, I'm standing in the middle of my flour-coated kitchen baking the sides, roofs, and chimneys for 30, count em, 30 gingerbread houses. Wrap your head around that for a minute. Imagine 90 cups of flour, 15 cups of brown sugar, 30 eggs, 18 3/4 cups of molasses, 8 pounds of butter, and a cereal bowl of spices. It took one day to pre-measure the dry ingredients, another day to mix the dough and most of today and tomorrow to do the baking before wrapping and freezing enough gingerbread walls that if laid side by side would reach all the way to somewhere and back again. And I, Phatgirl, am having a blast!

I'm rather fond of Christmas, it being the Baby J's birthday and all.
And children. I'm totally smitten by my waist-hugging buddies.
And church. One of my favorite hang-outs. Dio's casa mi casa.

Put it all together and you end up with a Children's Christmas party that's gonna rock da' house with games, a showing of Disney's "Small One" (my favorite Christmas animated film of all time and required viewing for all children in my life), a haute cuisine luncheon of grilled cheese sandwiches sans crust and chicken oodles' of noodles soup, concluding with gingerbread houses buckling under the weight of thick blobs of royal icing festooned with obscene quantities of candy and liberal doses of child spit from finger-licking and stolen nibbles. This, my people and peeps, is the good life in a chestnutshell.

Painful Pec Prohibitions

2006-11-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

In the event you should ever find yourself burdened with pain in your pectoralis major muscle then let me share some wisdom gleaned today in my ventures through life.

Do not attempt to stir milk into your coffee. Either hire someone to do it for you, ask for the support of a friend, or drink it black.
Do not consider lifting anything weighing more than 7 ounces over your head. This includes your own arms.
Do not attempt to get dressed and if you must get dressed, avoid anything that slips over your head, or uses a zipper, snaps, ties, or buttons. This will limit you to a poncho or a garment utilizing velcro.
Crying doesn't help but it doesn't hurt either. Unless you sob. Sobbing increases the likelihood of shoulder movement. Don't do that.
Do not engage in rigorous tooth brushing. This would be a good time to invest in a Braun Oral-B Advance Power Electric Toothbrush. To limit pectorial movement when using your new Braun Oral-B, bring your chin down to your chest before attempting minimal elevation of brush to mouth.
Take a lesson from our ape ancestors and drive with your feet, keeping arms dangling limply on your lap.
While coping with painful pecs do not participate in active sports that include, but are not limited to the following: bungie jumping, hand-gliding, para sailing, deep sea diving, and alligator wrestling. Fire walking and cat lassoing should only be attempted with extreme caution.
Do not polka. Even an Irish jig could result in undue suffering.
Take aspirin and plenty of them. This advice is contingent on being able to open the aspirin container in the first place.
Learn to type with your toes. How else do you think I could have made this entry?

A Pain in the Pecs

2006-11-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

I was pretty sure it was just my imagination. A glint in the eye. A wink. A smirk. I was standing before a huge white metal freestanding cross-training contraption with pulley's and weights and levers and random bits and pieces. As I began the first series of reps she had just demonstrated for me, I could have sworn I heard her say, "You're going to feel these tomorrow in your pecks" and that's the very moment I thought I saw a glint, a wink, and a smirk. But I was sure I was mistaken. She looks too cute and seems too nice to take pleasure in the suffering of others. Besides, I didn't even know what pecs were and if I had any, and so I went ahead naively, trustingly, foolhardly and did precisely as D_wn, my personal trainer instructed me to do. And as the day wore on, I forgot all about what I thought I'd seen.

Until this morning. This morning when I went to push the covers off me I discovered I have pecs. Raw, throbbing, pounding, screaming, angry ones. It was foolishness on my part. I shouldn't have attempted something so reckless. If I had it to do all over again I would do it differently. Hinesight is always 20/20 they say and they're right. If only I had moved one blanket at a time but oh nooooo, I had to push all three off at once in my rush to get out of bed. I'll think better next time. After a session with D_wn, it's always best advised to move cautiously in the hours that follow. Speaking of which I'd write a longer blog entry but I'm beginning to feel a twitch and pull and ache in my pecs. Oh yes, I have them and I know just where they are, thank you very much.

Confession Session

2006-11-16T20:52:00.000-08:00

The gracious comments of family and friends to my initial nine-pound weight loss requires that I share a teeny-weeny detail with you. While it's true I lost nine pounds in two weeks it's equally true that following the Portland Marathon I managed to pack on sixteen pounds in one month. Impossible you say? Perhaps for an amateur such as yourself but not for a professional Phatgirl! All it required was consuming the same quantity of food while mending motionless from my injury that I was consuming when logging 20-25 miles a week during training. Here's an equation that will help you avoid the same mistake. I'll wait while you grab a pen and paper. Ready? Okay, it goes something like this:

-Calories In
+ No Calories Out
.Weight Gain

There you go. Don't ever say I never did anything for you. Anyway, the plan as it stands now is to dump the remaining seven pounds as soon as is feasibly possible so I can move on to tackling the original forty pounds. Forty pounds. That translates as a four year old child. In other words, I'm carrying around a preschooler. Let's call her Edith, shall we? Even as I blog, I see a radical new weight loss book in my future. Know your fat. Love your fat. Name your fat. Someone call Random House so they can get the presses rolling!

Nine is Fine

2006-11-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought Monday's couldn't get more brutal, D_wn, my personal ~~torturer~~ trainer decided to up the ante and designate all foreseeable Monday's in my future as check-in days.

Check-In

chek-inn

register at a hotel

Has my colleague checked in yet?

arrive for a trip

All passengers should check in at least one hour before departure.

make contact

The patrols are suppose to check in by radio at half-hour intervals.

weigh in on scales

The cruel and diabolical personal trainer made the unsuspecting phatclient climb on the scales to check in on her progress.

If you're leaning toward option four as the applicable definition then you're tonight's lucky winner and your prize will be arriving soon to a mailbox near you. Not your mailbox, but one near you so the sooner you start rummaging through your neighbor's mailboxes the sooner you'll find it. Go ahead. It will be fine. Really. Now, back to the topic at hand. Me.

The results of my first offical check in after two weeks of daily cardio, core training, and precise calorie tabulations have led to a nine pound weight loss. That's right Happy Campers, nine big ones. Step aside "Biggest Losers" because Phatgirl is nipping at your sneaker struttin' heels!

Soaking with the Snowman

2006-11-12T11:24:00.000-08:00

Phatgirl is blogging on location from Kansas City, where I've been for the last five days while attending a work-related conference and from where my flight departs for home in an hour. The conference was a conference as conferences go. Five days of workshops, films, plenary sessions, networking, nametags, exhibit booths, and hotel food. It was much better than root canal surgery but not up to par with Disneyland. It would safely fall some where between the two.

The best part, aside from meeting some radically incredible people, was the hotel gym. For five dollars a day I had full access to their workout facilities and I managed to get my money's worth and then some. Every morning by 6:15 I'd be on the elliptical for an hour with a second hour clocked every evening. My daily cardio ranged from two to three hours a day which is way outside the norm for this girl. I also used the pool and jacuzzi which I mention here because on one of my jacuzzi dips I took a soak with Frosty the Snowman. A memorable experience whether in Kansas City or Disneyland though additional details are probably needed.

It goes like this. Follow along closely. The Westin Hotel where I stayed is attached to Crown Plaza. Crown Plaza is attached to Hallmark Headquarters. Hallmark owns just about everything within shouting distance. Apparently, Hallmark has an arrangement with the Westin Hotel allowing their card-carrying-card-making employees to utilize the hotel's cardio equipment, workout room, pool and jacuzzi.

This brings us full circle back to the snowman. Please discontinue reading if to this day you believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and the statement that "One Size Fits All" and rejoin us at the start of the next paragraph. Okay then, now that those people are gone, let me explain. Frosty the Snowman is actually a 18-year African American man named Gordon. Reverse that. Every winter Gordon, hired as Hallmark's official mascot, becomes Frosty the Snowman. In the jacuzzi Gordon appeared as Gordon, a very friendly, handsome young man, and not as Frosty the Snowman, a very fat, jolly and frigid fellow. I only know Gordon's other identity as Frosty the Snowman because it came up in conversation. I thought it was important to clarify the specifics for those of you who wondered how a snow-rolled character could hold up against a slow boil in 100 degree water. Okay. Now let's move on to the next paragraph so that our delusional friends can rejoin us.

Hi. Glad you're back. So what were we talking about? Ah. My workouts. You should be impressed by my dedication. I am. In addition, I kept record of everything I ate though I didn't blog it here, as fascinating as it would have been for you to read because of our previous in-ci-dent which, by the way, has been forgiven but not forgotten, but I digress. Rightly so, but a digression all the same. Anyway, between the workouts and intentional choices with my food, I'm going home without the standard sluggish feeling that results from the usual conference inactivity and away from home dining. That feels good. Really good. Speaking of which, I have a plane to catch. And that my friends, feels even better!

Orange You Glad It's Fall

2006-11-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

I love fall. I love my crocs.

I love fall because of the crisp cool air, the crunch of fallen leaves under my feet, the colors of the season, rain storms, wearing long pants and sweatshirts after months of teeshirts and shorts, early sunsets that make for long evenings, foods that taste of pumpkin, spices, apples and the comfort of a bowl of hot soup at supper time.

I love crocs because of the wild choice in colors, the ease of putting them on, the comfort of wearing them, and that I can wash them with Windex and rinse them under the faucet so that they shine like new.

Put the two together and that is one sweet moment in life.
And Christmas is going to be pretty spectacular too! Just wait and see.

Tickled Pink by Autumn's True Colors

2006-11-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, THIS is why I love the internet! Autumn, of Autumn is More Than A Season fame found my blog entry on her finish in the Portland Marathon, and along with a host of her compadres posted a comment to my blog! How insanely cool is that?!

If you remember that particular entry, and how could you not considering the unforgettable quality of my verbiage, take a moment to digest that while I remove my tongue from my cheek, I compared the individual victories of Mike Heidt and Autumn Jones, two marathoners who crossed the finish line with times that separated them by nearly eight hours and twenty minutes. I read about Mike in the local paper the next morning and so I knew the story that brought him to the marathon and carried him across the finish line in record time. But there was no article about Autumn Jones. I'm still wondering why. Isn't the story of a solitary athlete who perseveres to the finish line after most of the crowds have gone home, the roads have been re-opened, and the aid station tables folded and stacked away just as compelling as the elite athlete who crosses the finish line to the cheers and applause of thousands? The story the newspaper failed to provide, Autumn offers in her own words. I think so.

Thank you for posting this. It was very inspirational.This was my first attempt at a marathon and I am very proud that I've completed it. I did overcome some obstacles to get to the finish line. I came down with a horrible case of bronchitis half way through my training. After the marathon I had a hip that needed some therapy and the worst blisters. I threw the towel in at mile 21 and called around for a ride home. I got to mile 22 without anyone picking me up and I decided to push forward. I will do this again next year. Thank you for writing about me. It's amazing what comes up when you google your own name.

First marathon. Bronchitis. Blisters. Painful hip. And she's going to do it again next year. Now, you tell me if that isn't the story of an athlete! And if I may be so bold, I wish at this time to extend my personal thank you to the person or persons who failed to pick up Autumn when she called for a ride out of the race at mile 21.

And you shouldn't thank me for blogging about you Autumn. I'm the one who should thank you. Thank you for helping me get out of my DNF pity party to find inspiration in your story. Thank you for encouraging me to not give up. You are a big part of why I'm trying again next year. I tell no lie.

Every story is different. Never discount yours, whatever it may be, whoever you are. Everyone overcomes something. Everyone climbs over obstacles. Everyone has a motivation and purpose that drives them to do something that at one time they never believed they could do. To finish a marathon is to finish a marathon. If you walk, if you run, if you crawl and whine like a baby every step of the way, you've done something so remarkable, and this phatgirl salutes you!

D_wn Is Whomping My Hiney

2006-11-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

I realize there's a tendency for exagerating in the blogosphere but this is not one of those times. She's trying to kill me. I'm not kidding. The woman is brutal and relentless. All 103 pounds of lean muscle mass cuteness. Cute to the point where I want to slap her but instead I cower in her svelte shadow because she has the power to add ten crunches or five squats on a whim. And so she says "Jump!" and I say "With or without a net?"

The truth is I'm loving the gym and working with a personal trainer. On the days when I can shift my work schedule around I'm getting to the gym for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Me. The gym. Twice a day. I'm motivated and sweating like a wild woman. Not a casual sweat, not the genteel glow on a dainty lady's pallid flesh, not a summer's heat perspiration. I'm talking about bare arms glistening, tributaries of salty sweat flowing freely across the facial terrain from forehead to eyes, and rain forest humidity under the hair dangling over the nape of your neck. What really pushes my sweat button is a solid hour on this bad boy, the Nautilus Tread Climber. For the uninformed by appearance the Tread Climber looks like a treadmill that's split down the middle so while one side is going up the other side is going down. Think of it as the love child of an evening interlude between a treadmill and an elliptical machine. It burns abought 17 calories per minute which is a nice click up from my usual burn rate on 100 calories per mile walking. The downside is that I can't get an arm swing going because my klutz factor has me holding onto the handlebars for my sweet life, with my full attention on my foot fall. Perhaps one day I'll get comfortable enough to release my death grip but in the meantime, my profuse amount of sweat can be attributed to equal parts cardio work out and ice-cold fear sweat.

My personal trainer also turned me onto a great online resource, CalorieKing.com. For the past four days I've logged every minute of exercise and every ounce of food. I've used other online food and exercise journals in the past but this one is by far the best and is just another extra little motivator and keeping the motivation up keeps Phatgirl moving in the right direction.

Halloween Recap

2006-11-02T22:32:00.000-08:00

I'm soon to be 50 years old and for the past month I've been driving around with a ghost strapped in the back seat of my car. There's nothing wrong with that. Is there? Seriously, it's not like I'm using a ghost to access the carpool lane in rush-hour traffic. I know how ridiculously wrong that would be. It's just that I get so lonely out there on the open road and Casper is a perfect passenger. No back seat driving. No whining for an ice cream cone every time we pass a Dairy Queen. No unplanned potty spots. No spilled soda or fingerprints on the back window. No Blue's Clues on the car CD player. Just a quiet and agreeable poltergeist to keep me company. I only hope I can find an elf to take his place soon.

Halloween. I was always a hobo; hobo being a socially acceptable word in the 60's. It wasn't that dressing as a princess or a Musketeer or a hippie wasn't more desireable but nothing could replace the ease of preparation in being a hobo. Dirty play clothes, a light coating of ashes from the fireplace, a pillow case tied to the end of a stick to haul the evenings sugar-booty, and you were good to go.

3.2 seconds after sunset and every door in our neighborhood swung open to release hordes of marauding children on the yearly candy pilgrimage. Call it Heaven. Call it Nirvana. Whatever your faith tradition, it was one entire evening of unrestrained bliss. Oh sure, it wasn't without it's downside. There was for example, the house two doors down and on the opposite side of the street that in one year went from handing out sticky, gooey, yummy homemade caramel apples rolled in peanuts to dispensing single shiny nickels the next and every year after. One nickel per child. What were they thinking? On all the Halloween nights after as we turned our backs to their front door we'd flick our buffed nickels in our bags and reminisce fondly about "the good old days."

But aside from that, these were the pre-snacksize days when a candy bar was a candy bar. Today's snack-size candy bars are barely big enough to fit in the molar cavities our full size, multiple bit candy bars produced. Caravelle. Nestles Crunch. Look. Big Hunk. Regular size bags of M&M's. Boxes of Jujubees that were so big you gripped them with your entire hand. We laughed at penny candy. Don't bother us with such empty offerings. Bring on the real stuff. Hand over the boxes of MilkDuds and Good & Plenty. Rustle up a herd of Black Cow suckers. Light up our candy cigarettes. Adorn us in candy necklaces, bee-stung beautiful red wax lips and black wax moustaches. We loved sour before sour was cool. It was the decade that gave birth to Lemonheads, SweeTarts, and Starbursts. It was sour enough to pucker your face but not to erode brain cells like their contemporary counterparts.

When the last house porch went dark, weighted under the burden of pillow cases ripping at the seams, we headed back to survey our sugar swag and begin the arduous process of negotiating trades. I was a shrewd sugar trader. I'd give up five non-chocolate items for a single coveted cherry cream filled Mountain Bar, my personal Kilimanjaro, but only after the acting performance of a lifetime.

"Trade my Jolly Ranchers?! No way! There's no way I'm letting go of my grape and watermelon Jolly Ranchers for. . .what? That one Mountain Bar? It's not even a bar. It looks like dog poo! I can't believe you'd even. . .sigh. Okay. Here's the deal I'm offering but listen close because I'm not going to say it again. I will give you 1, no 2 grape Jolly Ranchers and 3 watermelon Jolly Ranchers for that ugly chocolate mound thingy but you have to throw in a Tootsie Roll. That's the deal. You want it?"

I consumed a lifetime of parleyed cherry-cream filled Mountain Bars before I retired from the trick-or-treat circuit. I knew my stuff.

Last Halloween Dana and I bought a bag of snack-size Snickers. No children came thus salvaging my humiliation at having succumbed to purchasing snack-size anything. It was a low moment in my Halloween career and so this year we went all out and bought seven nylon mesh bags, each one holding 5 foil-wrapped bloodshot eyeballs and 4 dismembered foil-wrapped fingers that makes a shiny new nickel look like the chumb change it is. And so as the sun set we waited and waited to dispense the gory sugar booty but no children came. It was only when I was in the middle of putting on my jammies that I heard the nostalgic sound of children arriving on their candy quest. From where I stood listening at the top of the stairs I overheard the following interaction:

Dana: Hello!
Very Small People: Trick or treat! Trick or treat! Gigglegigglegiggle.
Dana: Trick or treat huh? Well, I think I have something here for you. Here's something for each of you.
Very Small People: Oh Boy! Wow! Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Assorted exclamations of delight and overwhelming happiness.
Dana: You're welcome Kids. Bye!
Very Small People: Bye! Faces and hands buried in their bags as they walk away.

The bag of foil-wrapped chocolate eyeballs and fingers were given in loving tribute to the people two houses down and on the other side of the street. Kind strangers who once went to all the trouble to unwrap hundreds of Kraft caramels, melt them down into a sticky mess, plunge sweet apples on sticks into the sugary goo, and roll them in crushed peanuts before setting them onto individual wax-paper circles just to make a bunch of sugar-greedy little children squeal with happiness. They gave me more than a caramel apple. They gave me a perfect memory and for that reason, I'll forgive them for the shiny nickels. I'm sure they meant well.

She's Back!

2006-11-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

Well then, I don't know about you but an hour at the gym and I feel all better. Shall we proceed?

After the disappointment of being a certified DNF princess at the Portland Marathon in October, followed by a full month of physical therapy and no training that left me withering like stale human vegetation on the vine, Phatgirl was feeling like Blahgirl. But no more! Phatgirl has her groove back and wishes to thank the following for contributing to her revitalization:

Jeanne, and her incredible, glorious, hysterical, and at times stomach-churning marathon report of her adventures at the Marine Corps Marathon. Marvelously-made indeed!
The new issue of Running Times and it's listing of 259, count them, 259 marathons in 2007. Bliss.
An online preview of Land of the Gods: The Legend of the Marathon, a full-length documentary on five people training for the Chicago Marathon that's soon to be released.
D_wn, my very own I'm-going-to-make-you-sweat-and-hurt-and-ache-all-over-and-you're-going-to-thank-me-for-it personal trainer.

It's all good my little fleet-footed friends!

It's dinner time so I better get into the kitchen and finish preparing the . . .oh wait. That's right. That's classified information reserved for those rare intelligent and refined individuals who appreciate the details of life and apparently that doesn't include any of you. I bet you're sorry now.

Are You Paying For This?

2006-11-02T15:46:00.000-08:00

It seems you aren't interested in the thrills and chills of my daily dining. Okay. Fine, you bunch of elitist blogifites. I've removed my menu entries and won't ever again impose them upon you. But just be aware. Someday you're going to be gathered around a table with friends celebrating a special occasion, let's say your birthday or perhaps National Bunion Day, and as you lift a forkful of calves' liver with melted onions in marsala sauce to your rosebud lips you're going to ponder to yourself or exclaim to the entire company of guests gathered round about you, "I wonder what that sharply-witty and deeply-insightful Phatgirl is eating right now." And. you. will. not. know. Why? I'll tell you. Because when given the chance to enjoy, to relish, to, shall I say, savor, the magnificent distillation of my thrice daily fantastical consumptions, you considered it as verbal fodder to be cast aside. Therefore, no more, no matter how much you plead with me for another chance. Begging will get you nothing but sore knees.

I'm leaving now for the gym and while I'm gone I'd encourage you to use the time to take a long, hard look at yourself so that this kind of situation will not be repeated in the future.

Dana's Birthday Mystery Tour

2006-10-29T20:16:00.000-08:00

Click for Photos

For the grand conclusion to Dana's annual month-long birthday extravangza, we spent the weekend outside the small town of Murphy's at the spectacular, blow-your-mind-one-of-a-kind Querencia Bed and Breakfast. I first learned about Querencia through a recent article in Sunset Magazine when they devoted a section to autumn in Gold Country, one of the nearby wine regions Dana and I had yet to explore, and while you all know that Phatgirl is no Winegirl, this seemed a perfect getaway for my little Master Sommelier. The website for Querencia was included in the article and all it took was a five second glance at the photo of a jacuzzi tub with a breath-taking view of Blue Mountain to get me to call in for reservations. I believe that's called an "easy sell."

As a side note, I told Dana over two months ago that I had a weekend planned for her birthday but under no circumstances was I going to tell her anything about it. It was going to be a surprise and nothing she could say would get me to reveal the details. My proclamation was met with total cynicism followed up with a side helping of mocking, teasing, and taunting. For some reason of which I know not, Dana seems to be of the opinion that I lack the emotional fortitude to keep a secret, and the numerous examples she offers up of when I've cracked under the least bit of pressure, notwithstanding, I meant it this time! For days, and I'm talking more than one or two here people, I held strong despite her coy little Dana-ways to coax it out of me. I gave nothing. No clues. No hints. Nada. That is, not until the evening of my uncompleted attempted at the Portland Marathon, when desperate to exchange my present suffering for a future joy, I spilled every last bean in the proverbial pot. I'm just going to say this once. She may mock me all she wants but there's no way I'm telling her what I'm getting her for Christmas. Not a chance. No way. Nope. Even though it's really really awesome and she's going to love it so much and it's something that . . . nevermind.

Anyway, suffice it to say that our stay in Murphys or Querencia was one of the most delightful weekend getaways for two girls who are perfectly content to stay at home 365-24-7. The hospitality and graciousness of Mike and Mary Jo, the innkeepers really made us feel like we were at home and the view from the tub....even better than the photo!

And for the curious among you, the word Querencia has several different meanings; one of them alluding to an unspecified location in a bull ring where the bull will instinctively be drawn to, imagining it to be a safe place where nothing can harm it as long as it remains there. Querencia is a place in life where one feels most safe and serene, whether that place be in a particular location or in the arms of a particular someone. It's about coming home.

お祝い Marathoners!

2006-10-29T18:47:00.000-08:00

Once again, thank you to BabelFish for allowing this English-speaking only Phatgirl to offer congratulations in Japanese to Jeanne, Beth, and all the rest of you incredible, amazing, feet to the streets Marine Corps Marathon finishers! How sweet it must be!

Kabbalah and Soup

2006-10-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

The older I get the more I appreciate the simple pleasure of a good bowl of soup, and when it's shared with a generous helping of good people on the side it's even better. Last night Dana and I had a few peeps from our church over for a soup dinner before heading out to the local independent bookstore to hear an author's reading. Before the book reading, I present the soup recipe which I lifted from Williams-Sonoma SOUP cookbook and altered enough that I feel comfortable calling it my own, unless of course, a legal representative from Simon and Schuster, publisher's of Williams-Sonoma SOUP cookbook calls and then I'll disavow all knowledge of the recipe, this blog and beans in general.

Anita's Too Many Beans for One Pot Soup

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained
1 (15 oz) can pinto beans, drained
3 (15 oz) cans white beans, drained
1 (15 oz) can cannelloni beans, drained
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 yellow onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and yes, go ahead and finely chop away
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes with juice
8 cups (64 oz) low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
1 pound cooked ham, cubed (optional for you vegetarian-types)
1/4 cup Italian flat-leaf parsley, and more of that fine chopping
3 gloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf

In a soup pot over medium high heat combine olive oil and chopped onions, occasionally stirring until onion has softened slightly. Three minutes should do. Add the carrots and celery to the pot and keep things cooking for three more minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients except for the ham (or bacon or turkey or tofu) and the drained cannelloni beans. Cover and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 1 hour to soften the beans and combine the flavors. Remove from heat. Search out that bay leaf and get it outta there!

Remove half the soup from the pot, puree it in a blender and add it back into the pot. Add the can of cannelloni beans and the ham. Season with salt and white pepper to taste. Serve immediately or transfer to a crockpot for a few hours until dinner.

When serving the soup here are a couple little added treats that can kick it up over the top. Add the zest of one lemon into a container of sour cream and stir. Drop a big dollop of it right onto the top of the soup. And if that's not enough and you're pulling out all stops to impress, add the zest of one lemon and 2 minced garlic gloves to a handful of finely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley. This little mixture is called Gremolata in Italian. Toss a sprinkling of it over each serving. As a side note, lemon compliments the earthly flavor of the beans. "Oh Beanie, you're such a hearty and nutritious little fella." "Why thank you for noticing my little citric acid chum!"

Recipe feeds eight normal people or five Phatgirls.

Okay, here's a little bonus I'm going to share just because I like you. The next day heat up your now thick as chili soup leftovers and serve over a shredded bed of lettuce that has a light drizzle of low-fat ranch dressing. Trust me people, this is so good you'll slap your momma. Just be sure it's your momma, not mine.

So after filling up on copyright enfringement soup, rosemary potato bread, and cookies, we headed down the road to hear Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, not to be confused with Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" even though Rabbi Kushner, Lawrence not Harold, said he'd more than happily sign any books by the other Rabbi Kushner as well as his own. Rabbi Kushner, Lawrence not Harold, was reading from his first novel, Kabbalah: A Love Story. He told a few wonderfully engaging stories from his life, read some short selections and concluded with time for Q&A. I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation and when he autographed my copy of his book I couldn't help but notice his incredibly elaborate and unique signature. I made a comment about it and Rabbi Kushner, Lawrence not Harold, looked at me, smiled and said, "One day you'll need to sign your name many times as well so you should come up with a really fun signature you enjoy writing. Start practicing."

And so, if you would like an autographed copy of my plagerized soup recipe, please send a five dollar bill and a photocopy of the recipe along with your request in a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Phatgirl, #38530128445
California Correctional Institute for Crockpot Criminals
California, USA

Back in the Game

2006-10-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

My half-hearted commitment to being a grown-up, a highly over-rate aspiration in my opinion, has kept me away from the blogosphere to attend to the affairs of my employment. I hate it when work interferes with my internet life. Such an annoyance!

I engaged in a tadbit of walking on Monday with not so grand results. Only two miles at a window-browsing pace had my left ankle and leg rebelling. Not to be vanquished by select members of my anatomy, I headed to 24 Hour Fitness yesterday for 30 minutes on the Eliptical, 1000 mm on the rowing machine, and a whopping 1 mile on the threadmill. It was a minimal workout at best but it was something and the something felt darn good! Before I headed out the gym door I mistakenly walked into the managers office and before I knew it I had signed up for 28 sessions with a personal trainer. To protect the anonymity of my soon to wonder if she's in the right profession physical trainer I will simply identify her from this point forward as D_wn. Choose your vowel wisely and the mystery shall be opened onto you.

So, let's review.
Anita-Personal Trainer
Anita-Personal Trainer
Oil -Water
Mystery-Reason
Open Flame-Explosives
Gay-Republican
Contrasting oddities of life.

Tomorrow morning is my first session with ~~Dawn~~ D_wn when we get into that whole weigh, measure, fold, mutilate, and spindle brewahah. Golly, I'm as excited as a preschooler the night before Disneyland . . . or is it a teenager the night before four impacted wisdom teeth are ripped out of their mouth without benefit of anesthetic? Six of one, half dozen of another. Either way, if you're the caring soul I've come to believe that you are, pray for D_wn as she confronts the task of gathering weight and measurement stats on Phatgirl. She goes where few people have gone before.

Amen.

Inspired by Cheese

2006-10-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more splendid than the lowly cheese sandwich like the one I just had for lunch. Nothing more than 2 slices of sharp cheddar cheese cushioned between fresh sprouted bread with a schmear of Best Foods to adhere it snuggly to the bread. Grilled cheese sandwiches are a culinary marvel on to themselves; all buttery in its melted goo-ness, but ode to the simple wonder of a plain, unadored cheese sandwich.

Inspired by milk solids aged to tangy perfection and the earthy crunch of sprouted wheatberries, I now offer 50 Phatgirl Facts.

I'm passionate about everything and lack an opinion on nothing.
I consider roasted brussel sprouts the vegetable of the gods.
I once laughed so hard while I was eating gummy bears that one of the little gelatinous cubs came out my nose. I was able to replicate this feat one other time. On purpose. Don't ask.
I slept in a sleeping bag for an entire year in high school because it was easier than making my bed. Dana refuses to consider it as optional bedding.
I'm like my dad in that I'm affectionate, generous, and stubborn. I'm like my mom in that I'm thoughtful, independent, and stubborn. A double-whammy I prefer to reframe as tenacious and determined.
Were I in charge of the world, individuals who are dismissive of children and disrespectful to the elderly would be spanked.
I don't recycle consistently and I'm embarrassed by that admission.
I whine. Often.
I can sing every word of Carole King's Tapestry album by memory. I haven't heard it in years but it's embedded in every cell of my brain.
The changing colors of autumn are so glorious that watching fire-red leaves fall to the ground like splashes of paint makes me cry.
I look ridiculous in hats of any kind and yet I own a full-body Tigger costume and wear it any time an opportunity presents itself.
You'd have to sedate me with heavy narcotics to make me listen to opera music.
Babies love me. I love babies. It's a good thing.
I use to have a trained pony named Buttermilk who would teeter-totter with me, but no amount of cajoling would get him to try swinging on the monkey bars.
I eat my breakfast every morning with a minature butter knife. Breakfast consists of a bowl of yogurt with raspberries. You figure it out.
I miss my dad every day since he's been gone.
I'm given to certifiable bouts of obsessive-compulsive behavior.
When I was a little girl I wanted to grow up and be a nun even though I wasn't Catholic because I wanted to be married to God and wear a robe with big pockets.
I've been meaning to close my AOL account for four years. Maybe tomorrow.
My favorite outfit is a comfy white sweatshirt with loose-fit jeans and sneakers. Bra optional.
I love my cats so much my heart could nearly explode when they curl up beside me.
I went to three music concerts during my high school years; John Denver, David Gates from Bread, and Captain and Tenille. During the same time period I destroyed my sister's Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers and Janis Joplin's Pearl albums because I thought they were evil.
My biggest fear is that something would happen to Dana.
I don't need a whole circle of friends, just two or three close and trusted ones.
On the Myers-Briggs Personality Test I score INFJ (introverted, intuitive, feelings, judging) with feelings distinctively expressed and the rest moderately so.
My clothes closet is stuffed with Life is Good teeshirts because I love them and because it is. Good, I mean.
I smile everytime the phone rings and it's Dana telling me she's on her way home.
As a child when it was a starry night I thought the stars were holes in heaven's floor. It's still nice to imagine that's true sometimes as an adult.
My older siblings would tease me that I was adopted and could be given back anytime. There have been times in my life when that being true would have helped to explain things.
I've been to Israel six times and know just enough conversational Hebrew to ask where the number four bus is and to tell my mom I'll answer the phone.
I love cardboard boxes, paper bags with handles and the Container Store.
I have a tattoo on my left shoulder of a butterfly taking flight from a heart, symbolizing the transforming power of God's love in my life.
I'm a high maintenance wife but a low maintenance friend.
I make lists for everything. It's all about the details.
The teacher comment on my third grade report card read "Anita needs to work on not being so bossy." I'm still working on it Miss Jensen.
I'm a great baker and a sensational cook but to this day have never been able to successfully make my mom's raspberry jello mold which has led me to believe she's continually altering the recipe just to mess with my head.
I drive too fast and follow too close.
The glass is usually half-full. It's the fingerprint smudges around the rim that trouble me.
My favorite time of the day can happen at any moment.
I try hard to do my best and give my all to whatever I do. It can be exhausting sometimes.
I'm always surprised and delighted by the ways in which God shows up in life.
For the past few years every time I drive away from my parent's home I honk three times to say "I love you."
My favorite color is Dana-blue.
I go to therapy weekly as a gift to everyone in my life.
I wish people would be more kind to each other. In general.
My current shoe collection consists of four pairs of Ascis running shoes, one pair of Brooks running shoes, six pairs of multi-colored Crocs, and one pair of Birkenstock sandals.
I'm a procrastinator and a multi-tasker. The two are not unrelated.
If I could spend five minutes with three people no longer living they would be the prophet Jeremiah, Queen Esther, and my dad.
I value authenticity, integrity, and justice in people and institutions.
If I could only eat one food for a year, it would be the humble and divine cheese sandwich.

45 Reasons

2006-10-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Dana's 45th birthday. Five years ago I purchased ad space in the local paper to wish her a happy 40th birthday and to declare my love. What ultimately appeared in the paper had enough typos to render it indecipherable. Now I have a blog. Free and with the potential for no typos given sufficient proof-reading on my part.

And so with her presents already wrapped and hidden away and a half dozen plus birthday cards signed and sealed (no one card says it all), I now offer 45 things I love about Dana. If you gag at over-the-top sentimental but heartfelt mush I would suggest you high-tail-it out of here because this will no doubt send you into some type of emotional seizure.

I love her sense of humor and that most days she seems to get mine.
I love her Dana-blue eyes especially when they're looking at me.
I love her passion for learning new things.
I love that no matter how many times I tell her the same story she always listens like she's never heard any of it before.
I love her quiet, deep love for God and that she's never lost faith.
I love her courage to return to graduate school to pursue her passion.
I love the softness of her skin.
I love how she tells me she's proud of me for stepping up to the starting line and comforts me when the finish line proves out of reach.
I love her kiss that sends me out into my day and welcomes me home at night.
I love her genuineness. Dana is always Dana.
I love her spirit.
I love her stability and consistency.
I love her integrity. Her word is gold.
I love how she takes care of me when I'm sick or hurt.
I love how she never says "I told you so " even though she rightfully could on a regular basis.
I love that she said "yes" when I asked her to marry me. I'll always be indebted.
I love it when she pretends she's Speed Racer.
I love watching her putz and futz around the house in the morning.
I love the sound of her voice on the other end of the phone.
I love coming home to her or when she comes home to me.
I love her patience, her compassion, and her tenderness.
I love that she nearly always asks if I want anything when she goes into the kitchen.
I love, absolutely love her feet.
I love her delight in pumpkin season.
I love her tenacity.
I love how she interacts with other people.
I love when she prays out loud.
I love the warmth of her hands.
I love that most of the time she lets me be in charge of the TV remote.
I love that she brings out the best in me and puts up with the worst in me.
I love her name.
I love when she folds down my side of the bed.
I love how she says "thank you" for ordinary things I do.
I love her silly ways and that she's not too old to play.
I love that she's always, without exception, in my corner.
I love her vulnerability and her strength.
I love her commitment to her own spiritual and emotional growth.
I love her work ethic.
I love her little thoughtful ways that put something special in every day.
I love the respect and admiration she naturally elicits from other people.
I love her insightfulness, wisdom and intelligence.
I love the questions she asks and how she thinks.
I love her beauty, visible with the eye and with the heart.
I love her faithfulness and devotion to our relationship.
I love Dana for being Dana which is the most amazingly wonderful person to be.

Happy birthday kiddo.

Post Birthday Wrap-Up

It was a grand and glorious success, so reports the birthday girl. We both took an unpaid day off from work to celebrate though Dana remains mystified as to why no national holiday has yet to be instituted. It is a head-scratcher, isn't it?

Brain Clutter

2006-10-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

When I went to Costco for the first time I saw a man standing in a check-out line behind one of the big industrial-sized orange flat carts. On the bed of the cart rested four all-weather, all-terrain truck tires and a jumbo case of tampons. I think they were unscented.

This memory is more than a dozen years old and it still makes me smile. Life just cracks me up sometimes.

Follow the Leaders

2006-10-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

We had no sooner boarded the bus that would be taking 50 of us on a tour of the next day's marathon route than we began a conversation with two gray-haired women one row up and on the other side of the narrow aisle. This was going to be their first marathon and to say they were excited would be like saying Grey's Anatomy is just a TV show. File that under the category of "Understatement."

As the bus rolled along the volunteer seated behind Dave the bus driver, would call out each mile and point out sights of the city along the marathon route intermixed with details for the coming race that seemed to anticipate every question a bus filled with marathon eve athletes might ask. Deep questions. Thought provoking questions. "How many aid stations did you say will have portapotties? Are there Snickers or just gummy bears? I ordered a large finisher's shirt but I've gained 10 pounds from excessive carbo-loading so can I change to an ex-large?" Throughout the course tour the two women, let's call them Madge and Lenore for no other reason than I'm partial to those names for I-am-woman-hear-me-roar-gray-haired women, would ask repeatedly to no one in particular, "Is this where we'll turn during the marathon? Will there be signs here telling us which way to go? Will it be clearly marked?" The volunteer would chime in, assuring them that yes, we were following the actual marathon route and yes, in addition to posted mile markers there would be aid stations and volunteers covering the entire course so they didn't need to worry about finding their way. After a few more minutes and a few more nervous queries, the volunteer looking back toward Madge and Lenore, smiled and said "You know, there's going to be more than 9000 people on the course tomorrow so if you just follow the people in front of you you won't have any trouble finding your way."

Before the bang of the starting gun you already know where the marathon course leads because you've spent time acquainting yourself with the route map. You know where the finish line is and you know it will take a mere 26.2 miles to get there. You don't have to worry that in the middle of the race you'll be faced with a unexpected detour. No one's going to move the finish line and then make you go search for it.

Not so in life. Life presents us with a mélange of intersections, junctions, and forks in the road. Your birthing cry is the starting gun but where your life leads and how you'll get to the finish line is mystery, despite your best plans, or perhaps inspite of them. The distance isn't measured, the course isn't set, the destination is yet to be determined. Imagine registering for a marathon that provided no Race Day Info. You'd never do it. Yet here we are in life, running the most earth-shattering fantastical race of all and at times feeling incredibly clueless as to how to live out our time to the finish line.

The journey of life I'm traveling is all new to me. Though I've been on the course for a long while, the past miles aren't a guarantee of what lies ahead, because no sooner do I think I have the course figured out than I hit another unexpected turn, an unwanted hill, or an abrupt curb that sends me sprawled across the pavement. What offers me hope, what gives me some sense of comfort is recognizing that every inch of the road I travel is already littered with the discarded water cups of others who have gone before me.

"...if you just follow the people in front of you you won't have any trouble finding your way."

So here's what I do on my best days. I keep my eyes straight ahead, looking toward those who have already traveled the course and run well the race of life. Dorothy Day. Oscar Romero. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Mother Theresa. My grandparents and my dad. I'm never going to attain their level of goodness and grace anymore than I'm going to sprout wings and make Jeff Galloway tremble in fear but that doesn't mean I won't do my best to follow them; to look closely at how they ran their race and learn from them and be inspired by them. If I do, I won't get lost. And maybe, just maybe, I'll reach the finish line having done my best because I paid attention to their best and allowed it to teach me.

Autumn is More than a Season

2006-10-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

I returned home a week ago today from the Portland Marathon. I didn't finish the race so there wasn't any technical fabric, micro-vent knit, pill-resistant finisher's shirt or flashy medal to unpack from my suitcase. Just dirty socks and a wrinkled race bib which to the best of my knowledge is also pill-resistant.

While my suitcase is already emptied and back in its usual space in the cluttered abyss of our two car garage that's a tight fit for our little Subaru Outback, I'm still unpacking what I brought home from the marathon in terms of life lessons. Here's one of them.

There was a three mile loop early on in the course. As my sister and I reached mid-point into mile 2 the first wave of frontrunners approached us from the opposite direction somewhere between mile 5 and 6. We were, to say the least, overwhelmed, amazed, antonished and in general awe of these elite runners rocketing past us. All around us walkers were breaking into cheers and applause and a woman next to my sister said "I can't imagine ever doing that!" Without barely a pause my sister countered, "There are people in bed right now who are saying the same thing about us."

Mike Heidt.
Autumn Jones.

Mike Heidt runs more than 100 miles a week. He recently graduated from Washington State with a degree in biology where he was a member of the track team for three years. He ran his first half-marathon a little over a month ago. The Portland Marathon was his debut marathon and he crossed the finish line in 1st place with a time of 2:21:54, the fourth fastest time for men 20-24 in the race's 35 year history. An Olympic qualifying time. I know all this about Mike Heidt because The Oregonian ran a long article on him the day after the marathon, complete with a photo suitable for framing.

Autumn Jones crossed the finish line in 7705th place in 10:41:22. She was the last person to finish. That's all I know about her because The Oregonian didn't do a write up on her. Their mistake.

One crossed the finish line first. One crossed the finish line last. One ran. One walked. There's a big difference in the racing world between 2:21:54 and 10:41:22 but in my corner of world their achievements are equal because both gave it their all and did their best.

No one will ever convince me that the joy of Autumn Jones at the finish line was any less than that of Mike Heidt. Who knows. Perhaps it was more. Maybe she overcame more to finish the race. Maybe she faced more obstacles getting to the starting line in the first place. I don't know. I only know that whether in a marathon or in life, the thing that most matters is that we bring who we are to it and give our best. We step up to the starting line and we try.

And even if we fall short in what we hope to achieve in our lives, isn't it still better than laying in bed with a head full of dreams and a heart full of desires while we mutter from under the covers "I could never do that!"?

Marathon Mistakes

2006-10-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

I registered. Bib number 130. Portland Marathon 2007.

I was naive when I said I'd never train for another marathon.

When I said it, I hadn't yet known the xhilarating thrill of standing at the starting line with 10,000 other athletes, and yes, I said other athletes. I am an athlete, and if you doubt, I offer this as Exhibit A.

Told you so.

Neither had I watched in amazement as a field of elite runners zoomed past me in a course loop and had the incredible awareness that we were in the same race. Had I already felt the emotional rush of escorting a friend as he crushed every challenge life threw at him to cross the finish line with courage and grace I would have never said never again. Yes, I was naive.

For the next few weeks, I've been forbidden from walking by dictate of my physical therapist so until the prohbition is lifted I'm going to haul my phatgirl self to 24 Hour Fitness and do some cross-training in the pool and on the machines. I'm also going to take the lessons I've learned and apply them liberally to my next round of marathon training. Lessons learned from my mistakes. As always.

Mistake One: I overtrained.

I started into a marathon training program after less than a month of making the leap from couch to street, and nearly every mile I walked I pushed and pushed hard. My LSD walks were done at the same pace as my tempo walks. Case in point, in planning to walk a marathon pace of 15:30-16:00 mpm I should have technically averaged 16:30-17:00 on my LSD walks. Instead, my paces were 16 miles (14:43), 18 miles (14:21), 20 miles (14:41), and 19 miles (14:48), and the training sessions between 3 and 10 miles averaged between 13:12 - 14:31 mpm. The reason wasn't because I underestimated my speed but because I was always going anaerobic.

In "Marathoning for Mortals,"John Bingham gives clues to what it looks like to be in the anaerobic zone. "Your sentences get short. You can hear yourself breath. You work up a sweat. You get red in the face. You're worn out at the end of the workout. You suck air." I sucked air. I sucked air all the time. I could never understand why it was that people would turn around and look at me when I was still ten feet behind them. I couldn't figure out how they always knew I was approaching until I walked one day without my Ipod. I was sucking air like a guppy that had ventured out of its fishbowl. [Side note: Since I was seldom in the slow fat-burning aerobic zone that could have also played a part in the lack of weight loss, though time will tell on that one.]

Lesson: I will prepare to begin training for a marathon now that I have a base of activity and am in relatively fit condition, and I will strap on my Garmin heart monitor and walk tempos at tempo and heed the SLOW in LSD.

Mistake Two: I didn't listen to my body.

My ankle began whispering discontent when I walked my 14 mile LSD. My shoelaces were too tight. It casually mentioned discomfort at 16 miles and at 18 miles it throbbed in misery. I just need to walk it out. When it came time for my first 20 miler the ache in my ankle got a case of serious ugly (nod to Laura from Project Runway) and toward the end of my second 20 miler it screamed bloody murder. Anyone's feet would feel like this after 20 miles! I didn't listen all those times just like I did my best to ignore it's continual nagging in the two weeks prior to the marathon, but on the day of the marathon it would be ignored no longer and slapped me upside the head and made me whimper like a puppy.

Lesson: I will listen to my body. When it says "ouch" I will pay attention. I will slow down and warm up rather than hurry to work it out. At the end of a session I will consistently rather than sporadically take time to do my stretches.

Mistake Three: I didn't choose a training program that was a right match.

There was nothing wrong with the training program I followed for someone who had actually moved before beginning it, but considering my state of full-throttle sedentary non-motion, it wasn't the plan for me. I shouldn't have done two 20 milers and I shouldn't have done the last one two weeks before the marathon. Too much, too close together, too soon before the marathon.

Lesson: I will follow the half-marathon and marathon training programs designed for walkers in Bingham's book that include only one 20-miler three weeks before the marathon.

Klarissa and Amy

2006-10-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

The shortest distance between Point A and Point B is a straight line but I'm not in any hurry so there's going to be a few side roads and detours before I get to where I'm going. If you have a problem with that, I believe there are approximately three skillion other blogs and chances most of them are significantly lighter in verbage. Stick around or go. You hold the power.

For more than 15 years I was a children's pastor (Christian Education Director) in a large congregation in Oregon. Every Sunday morning the classrooms vibrated and reverberated from the alternative environmentally-friendly energy source that occurs when 500 preschool and kindergarten children inhabit one space. All of the children called me "Teacher Anita" and most days as my memory allowed I called them Adam, Maddy, David, Joshua, Stephanie, Emily, Stacy, Attila, Jacob, Caleb, Susanna, Brittany. When my memory failed it was Honey, Sweetie, Punkinhead, Buddyboy, and Doll.

They loved me and I loved every one of them. I couldn't help but love them. Adorable, sweet, charming punkinheads and muppet babies, one and all. Tender and silly memories. I have a million of them.

The kindergarten boy who noticed I never wore shoes on Sunday morning and pressed a dime and a nickel into the palm of my hand one morning because he wanted me to be able to have some shoes to wear.
The little boy who having just been promoted from the four year old class in the basement to the kindergarten class on the third floor, exclaimed in delighted surprise as I greeted him by the door "Oh! I didn't know there was a Teacher Anita up here too!"
The two year olds who called one of our male teachers "Jesus" because he had gentle eyes and a beard.
Jeremy who gave me the note I have to this day "Teacher Anita, I like having you with me my whole life. Love, Jeremy."
The time in an attempt to teach the children how we are all different but loved equally by God, I asked them to name the differences between a short fair-skinned red-haired girl and a tall African-American boy that stood in the front of the class. A little boy, raised in a family that apparently valued honest disclosure with their children, replied "The boy has a penis. The girl doesn't have a penis. She has a vagina. Girls have vaginas. Boys have penises." The lesson concluded and we moved into snack time.
The Easter when I told the story of the empty tomb to a Easter-Morning-Standing-Room-Only crowd of five year olds and upon saying "And the tomb was empty, Jesus was alive" heard the soft sound of one little set of hands clapping for joy from the back of the room.

My kids. I was part of their life and they were part of mine. I told them what I knew about God and they taught me how to love God by letting me love them. They're part of my life still.

Three years ago I received an email that began, "Anita, I don't know if you remember me..." I did. It was Klarissa. One of my kids. I remembered her because I never forgot her. And for these past three years every time I've gone up to Portland to spend time with my Mom, Klarissa and I meet at Peets for coffee and long conversations about our lives and our faith questions, about our memories of the past and our hopes for the future. Those times have been so special to me; to reconnect with my past, to see a little girl I adored grow into a young woman I admire. The last time we met for coffee was only weeks before Klarissa headed off to Nashville with her husband to begin her graduate studies. Did I mention she's brilliant?

Last night there was another email from Klarissa. Attached was this photo.

Klarissa is on the right and Amy, another one of my kids (I'm so possessive and proud) is on the left. Klarissa had returned to Portland for the weekend for a family event and she and Amy had decided to surprise me at the Portland Marathon, so they made a sign, drove to a distance 12.4 miles into the race and waited for me on the side of the road. According to my Garmin, I pulled out of the marathon at 12.28 miles. If I had gone less than two more blocks I would have reached 12.4 miles where the girls were waiting for me. As it was I never saw them.

I've been misty-eyed since Klarissa's email arrived, not because I'm disappointed I quit before I saw them, but blown out with gratitude that they would even think of doing such a thing for me. As children, Klarissa and Amy, like all the others, taught me so much while spoiling me with love. As my peers nothing has changed.

Thank you Amy.
Thank you Klarissa.

Photographic Evidence

2006-10-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

I might not have been in the marathon long, but I was there! This is around the 5K marker. How do I know? I'm still smiling.

Before I Say Anything Else

2006-10-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

Thank you. I mean that genuinely.

I had originally considered removing the comment feature on my last entry because I didn't want anyone to try and say something to make me feel better. That's because I didn't want to feel better. I wanted to be inconsolable, to wallow in my misery, to throw a full blown pity party with crepe streamers and mylar balloons. I deserved it dog-gone-it! If I couldn't have my moment at the finish line then I was not about to be cheated from my moment of high-octane defeatism.

But you, and you know who you are, ruined it for me. You went ahead and took time out of your day to not only read my depressing diatribe but to post a comment that was understanding of my disappointment and sympathetic to my need to wallow, whine and wig out.

I didn't think words could help, but they did. And I owe you. Thank you.

And Dana thanks you too. More than you will ever know.

Now, on to Plan B. . .

DNF

2006-10-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

Did Not Finish. I believe that's the technical term that's used by those who race. QUIT would be mine. This is not going to be a pretty entry so unless you're of the ilk who slow to gawk at car wrecks, turn away now. Now. I'm serious.

The start of the marathon was unbelieveable. Thousands and thousands of people giddy with excitement and nervousness. You had to wiggle like a snake to get through them. It took my sister and I five minutes to find each other by cell phone even though we were only standing five feet away from each other. Literally. Insanely wild but awesome.

The starting gun and two minutes later walkers in the back third of the herd where we were positioned began to move and we officially crossed the starting line 4 minutes after the gun. There were crowds of spectators and live entertainment every other block: marching bands, jazz and blues bands, a woman harpist in an empty gas station parking lot playing something much too serene for mile 3, Christian rock, ear-exploding hard rock, and a Chinese dragon or two past the main entrance to ChinaTown. There were an unbelieveable number of volunteers who were top notch, nearly 4500 in number. Very impressive and appreciated. If you've never done the Portland Marathon before you have to. Have to.

My sister and I started out strong but stayed to the 15-16 minute mile range in keeping with my strategy, that would be my failed strategy. I warned you.

Almost immediately I felt my ankle. By mile 2 it had begun to stiffen. By mile 3 it was uncomfortable. At mile 5 the ankle was swollen against my shoe laces and the bottom of my foot was cold and numb. At mile 7 I was developing a gait in some starry-eyed hope that doing so would relieve the pain. By mile 9 I was hoping it wouldn't get any worse and that I could just grin and bear it like a brave soldier. At mile 10 it was worse and I told the evil voice inside my head urging me to give up to shut up, pack up and go away. At mile 11 I realized I could never make the finish but I was absolutely not going to pull off until the half-marathon distance. At that point I sent my sister on ahead (Barb ultimately finished with an amazing time of 6:12, which I consider suitable for framing and fireworks!) and 200 yards later even 13.1 became out of reach. I pulled off the course at 12.28 miles. I have walked 12 miles and beyond ten times in training. My Evil Twins were silent and cooperative. My back was loose and comfy. Every little ache and pain that has pestered me over my nine months of training were in total compliance except for my stupid-pain-in-the-butt-break-my-heart-and-pierce-it-through-with-stilettos left ankle. The right ankle cooperated.

I rode back to the hotel, tossed off the shorts with all my hard fought for pockets, snapped the timing chip off my shoe so that I could return it in shame to the staging area, took a shower, cried, kicked myself, cried some more, watched the first half of "Snakes on A Plane" which is the only thing more painful to see than phatgirl quitting a marathon, and then went down to the finishing line to watch my sister finish and to cheer on strangers.

Finishing shirts. There is no more gut-wrenching sight to someone who DNF. So I cried some more, tried in earnest to say "Congratulations" and mean it to a few sweaty euphoric marathoners walking around wrapped in space blankets, and then cried some more while muttering self-defacing comments to myself seasoned with words Dana has forbad me from saying and that I assume extends to writing as well. Once again I remind you that you hold the option in your hand to turn away from this accident of self-pity run amok.

After a hearty dose of caffeine, the cure to all evil in the world, Dana and I went down past the finishing line to cheer on the last waves of walkers beyond the 7 hour mark. It was a pleasure to do so. God love them each and everyone. Just try standing for 7 hours let alone moving forward for seven hours. Yes, it completely boggles my mind that you who run actually run those distances or large portions of it. I am in full-blown awe of you. But the pay off is while walkers are still at miles 15-18 you're on your way back to the car with a medal around your neck and ice cold water in your hands. 7 hours. 8 hours. 9 hours. Even 10 hours. Walking warriors every one. At the 7th hour while the finishing line stayed open, the cross roads had to be opened up again for traffic and even though those still walking had been diverted onto the sidewalks, they kept coming and we kept cheering. There was one mentally-challenged young woman who was grinning from ear to ear with every step, her arms held high in the air and when I said "You are amazing. You've done the most incredible thing so be proud of yourself" she responded by stopping in mid-step and saying with the most tender and joyous voice "Oh thank you so much" that I melted three feet into the pavement. Her tenacity and joy would have ripped your heart out and made you cry. If not, then you aren't human and you have jet oil for blood.

The greatest moment for me, one that would have only been second to finishing myself, was waiting for and then watching BayCityWalker finish the marathon! If you've ever read Steve's blog you'll know why I still tear up a few hours later just thinking about his victory. Two weeks ago he was in ICU and today he walked 26.2 miles (plus an extra mile this morning from his hotel to the starting line!) and He. Crossed. The. Finish. Line. Steve, BayCity Walker is a bon afide one of a kind marathon man. As you can tell, I've been in awe of Steve since I met him last Spring as I continue to be to this day. Scrappy. Tenacious. Determination. Self-Will. Courageous. All in abundance. I am insanely over the top proud of him.

Dana doesn't think I should be blogging so soon with my disappointment so fresh. She's been saying all the right things. Give it some time Honey. I'm so sorry. I'm so proud of you. It's a big deal to even stand at the starting line. You tried. You went further than you probably should have on that ankle. I love her to pieces. I know she means it all and I adore her for saying it; for trying so hard to make me stop hurting. I just don't believe any of it right now. I couldn't be less proud of myself. I feel like a soldier who ran from the battle lines, like a gawky teenage boy who gets his pants pulled down in front of the girls, like a woman walking through a four star restaurant with the back of her dress stuck in the top band of her pantyhose. I could go on. Believe me Kids, this is only the surface of the abyss of my pouting.

I've wanted nothing else for the past nine months but completing this marathon. Nothing. Perhaps my world is too small and I shouldn't have pinned so much emotion and effort on one thing. It's just that this hasn't been the greatest year. I had another lifelong goal around my lifes calling. I had it for a few brief years and then I had it taken from me overnight. That's when I turned to walking and walking gave me another goal to focus my energy and heart on. This marathon was to be my redemption. My overcomers dance.

This is not a good day for me. And for that much, for anyone who is within the sound of my whiny voice and the sight of my pitiful face. That would be Dana. Send good thoughts her way. I'm just being honest here. Right now I can't turn this into comedic entertainment and please be very very clear about this, I'm not blogging for sympathy or kind encouragement, and if a swift kick to the rear is what you think I need, I assure you that a "Snap out of it and pull yourself together" would in every likelihood have me searching out your home address on the internet.

Sigh. So this is the other side of victory. Actually, I take that back. This is the extremely horrendously dark side of victory. Others would handle it better, with grace and calm acceptance. They would say things like "I'm disappointed but I did my best and there's always next year." And when they said it, they'd actually mean it. Unfortunately, right now I'm a little further down the food chain. It's been said by more than one, that I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Sometimes that's really a good and admirable thing, but sometimes, like now, it's just a bad fashion statement. So seriously, if you've read all this, I apologize. I'm sorry for the self-pity. Were you not to complete a marathon I would never say or think so harshly of you. I'd tell you, "You set a goal and you went for it. You didn't just wish for something like so many other people do, but you made the incredible effort to reach for it. You learned from this effort and you'll be stronger the next time. Your dedication is inspiring. Congratulations!" That's what I'd say and I'd mean it with every cell of my being.

Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to say that to myself. I better because really, self-pity is exhausting and rather unattractive. For today though, I'm just a '68 Pinto and a '72 Chevy Nova on a collision course. Keep your eyes on the road and your foot on the gas. I tell you this for your sake and because I care.

Now excuse me for leaving but I have the second half of "Snakes on A Plane" to salve my damaged soul.

Marathon Eve

2006-09-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

Today is what I like to refer to as my-gut-is-a-ball-of-knotted-anxiety-and-I-think-I-need-to-puke-day. I believe others call it pre-race day. Six of one, half dozen of another.

There was a generous amount of milling around today. Multiple trips to Starbucks, strolling town, a final walk through the Expo, and meeting up with walking peeps from the internet. Dana and I met up for a few minutes this morning with BayCityWalker before meeting Sarah from The Walking Site message forum for lunch. And only minutes ago I waddled out of our hotel room to a room two doors down to meet Jennifer from the same forum. In my jammies no less...so much for first impressions.

The big event of the day was taking a marathon course bus tour with 47 others including Dana, Steve, my sister Barb and brother-in-law John, Jeanine, a high school classmate, and Jeanine's friend whose name has slipped my mind momentarily but only because it's too cluttered with obsessive night before the race insanity. The course is beautifully flat for blissfully long stretches with only a couple easy slow inclines with the exception of what I like to affectionately refer to as Hell Hill, the 1/2 mile incline leading up to the St. John's Bridge that greets us between mile 16-17. Brutal. Scary. Not nice. The bus barely made it up the hills so what does that say about my chances?

My overall assessment of the course route is it's LONG. 26.2 miles is, for the uninformed, a really really long way to run, walk, or as I shall no doubt personally experience, crawl. I was sort of hoping there was a chance of talking the marathon volunteer who led the tour into giving me my finishing shirt at the end of the bus ride given that I had technically completed the marathon route. No chance. Apparently they're sticklers around here on the infinitesimal details. La-dee-dah.

And now, after a Whole Foods dinner in the hotel room, an hour spent filling my pockets and spreading out my clothes, I'm now down to little else to do but complete a final ice session on my ankle before going to bed.

Someone told me today that the goal of any first-time marathoner should be to finish the marathon on the same day it started. There's a chance.

I hope.

Marathon Mojo

2006-09-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

Okay campers, this is the REAL deal! We have got a marathon happening here in downtown Portland! After picking up Dana at the airport we went to lunch it up on 23rd Street, and by the way, if you have never been but are planning to come to Portland, 23rd is a must-do. That and the Pearl and Hawthorne and Sellwood and all the other cool, eclectic, steller Portland neighborhoods that go on ad infinitum. Grew up here, moved away from here, but love it love it love it here.

With lunch rapidly consumed we headed to the Hilton Executive Towers to get settled into our room (17th floor and oh, what a view!) before heading over to the Hilton Hotel kitty corner where the Expo is being held. The official goodies and ventor freebies are sweeeet. Participants get a high quality nylon clinch bag in dark blue with the Portland Marathon Logo, plus really nice 11x17 color posters, a full-color souvenir program filled with personal stories, race details and a really thorough mileage breakdown of what to expect throughout the race. In addition, the bag was filled with all the usual stuff and by the time I finished making my round of the Expo it was splitting at the seams.

Handfuls of Listerine Breath Strips - So we don't offend any of the spectators with our obscene GU breath?
Packets of Extra-Strength BenGay Pain Patches - Do they know something I don't know?
Snickers Energy Bars - Can you honestly say that without a smirk on your face? It gives me a major flashback everytime to the old Paula Poundstone routine, "When it comes about oh, two p.m. and you'e got that nagging hunger pokin' at ya, pokin' at ya..."
Foil packets of powdered hydration drinks, sun block lotion, and anti-chafing creme
One packet of raw brown sugar - Is this the Pillsbury Bake-Off or a marathon?
Sample copies of half a dozen magazines from Walk About to Prevention, and enough paper and cardboard advertisments to line the entire 26.2 mile course end to end four times.

In other words, I'm in marathon-junk heaven! In addition I've already managed to lay down about 50 bills on a set of 2006 Marathon pins, a stack of "Walker Girl" bumperstickers, and a sleeveless black tee shirt with the "Quitting Is Not An Option: Portland Marathon" logo. For the uninformed and unexperienced among you, walking ain't cheap, but it sure is fun!

By the way, one of my favorite sights at the Expo? Watching a bunch of folks standing around an energy bar sample table, tasting teeny-tiny bits of flavored bars pierced through with toothpicks. They were listening to the "Energy Bar Specialist" with such serious intention, and the toothpicks with nutty-chewy-fruity microscopic tidbits were held motionless inches from their lips in eager anticipation. It all seemed so familiar, so deja vu-ish and then I made the mental connection. Last week's wine tasting adventure. Swirl, sniff, taste. There was something a little pretentious about that whole wine class by the Bay experience. Today's energy bar taste-off in a hotel basement was just downright funny.

Almost as funny as Phatgirl registering for the Clydesdale / Bonnydale division. Those would be the divisions for the slightly rotund, men / women. That I'm in the top weight division (women 180+) comes as no shocking revelation and while it's a little goofy I reasoned I stand a good chance of placing in my division since I can't imagine there are going to be hordes of Phatgirls out there, and placing, my little running and walking babies, is placing. Details are unimportant.

Oh, and by the way, you can spot who is in Portland to be in the marathon a mile away. First clue. Their universal marathon apparel. Running shorts, sports cap, running shoes, and a finishing tee-shirt from some other marathon, triathalon, ultra-marathon, 10K race, or 5K fun run representing every corner of the country and beyond. Second clue. A water bottle. Third clue. Freak-ishly healthy, svelte-like-a-model women and muscular, lean-as-the-other-white-meat men. I'd hate them if I didn't admire them. Jealously consumes me. But why talk about being thin when you can talk about dinner?

Dana and I ended the evening with a really wonderful one up at the Chart House Restaurant, formerly known as Hillvilla to us long-time Portlandians. The restaurant has a suck-the-air-out-of-your-lungs view overlooking the city with the Williamette River in the foreground, evergreen trees covering every speck of land not taken up by the city scape, and Mt. St. Helens and Mount Hood in the background against a blue sky that faded to pink as the sun set. Stunning as always. The third most breathtaking sight of the evening, after Dana and the scenic view just described was my dinner. I ordered something called a Crab, Mango, and Alvocado Stack and that's what it was, exactly. A perfectly cylindrical pile with chunks of alvocado on the bottom, mango salsa in the middle, and an overly generous (if there could be such a thing which there can't!) portion of fresh crab on the top, surrounded by a thin pool of olive oil flecked with bits of fresh basil. They didn't muddy up the flavors with a lot of seasonings or goo but allowed each layer to express it's true self simply and deliciously. The combination was fresh, light and about as yummy as anything I've ever eaten, a virtual love fest on a plate.

Back to the marathon. The half-marathon I participated in this summer from Napa to Sonoma had a field limited to 2000, but at the Portland Marathon there are 2500 registered W-A-L-K-E-R-S alone. Total there are 7000 runners and walkers with an additional 4500 volunteers. I can't imagine what the start is going to be like apart of claustrophobically crowded, but one thing I know is that the mojo is going to be thick and I'm gonna grab all I can and hope it carries me to the finish!

11:20 p.m. I'm taking the ice off my foot, the hot laptop off my lap and heading to bed where a cozy comforter and my favorite pillow from home await me. But first, another episode of Grey's Anatomy...

Three Days and Counting

2006-09-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

I feel upbeat. Relieved. Hopeful. I have a strategy that I think might take me to the finish line. Follow along.

The 350 miles I've logged onto my Garmin since the middle of April show an overall average pace of 14:30 per mile. Not bad for a little ol' walkin' phatgirl and I hope to shave another minute off my average over the next year. With my current average pace in mind I had been aiming for a marathon pace range of 14:30-15:00 and the two 20 milers gave me confidence that I could pull that off, with the caveat of confronting the unknown miles between 21 and 26.

Add in the new development with my foot or more specifically the major muscle group running from toe to knee. When I walk at my current average pace I put added stress on the muscles because my foot fall tends to strike the ground more forcefully. I'm not a dainty walker. A few miles of that the other day and as reported earlier, my injuries were aggravated and the pain at a level I don't think I could have managed through 26 miles.

Over the past couple days I've noticed that when I walk around the house, to the car, from car to coffee shop, from coffee shop to newspaper stand, my foot feels fine. When I intentionally walk faster to evaluate how it's doing it's the big ouch. And so my thought is this, that if I keep my pace to a 16 minute mile pace my foot fall will remain gentle, my foot won't be jarred, and my odds of reaching the finish line will be increased.

A 16 minute mile was my average pace when I began training in January and it's been a real kick to shave off 2 minutes or more off over the months. So granted, it's a little disappointing emotionally and mentally to go back to my starting pace for the marathon but when I weigh going my current average pace and hoping I can walk through the pain versus going my average starting pace and increasing the possibility of not only finishing but finishing without being miserable, I'm going with Door Number Two, Monty.

AND I still have 2 full days to ice, elevate, massage, medicate and after visiting Portland friends earlier this afternoon I now have Traumeel, a homeopathic ointment to add to my regime. I don't know if the ointment can actually help with the inflamation but if you told me spitting in the wind while spinning a plate on my head would help, I'd be spitting and spinning.

I've been working on hydrating the past couple days and because my diet tends to be fairly low carb, I've been minimally increasing my carbs each evening with a baked potato or brown rice. I'm not intending a pre-race carbo-load since my natural inclination is to overdo and I don't want to be waddling excessively at the starting signal.

For those of you with no life and a cell phone you can track my progress in the marathon. The Portland Marathon will have chip mats located at the start, 10K, half-marathon, 20 mile and finish markers. By going to www.portlandmarathon.org you can set up your cell phone to receive text updates each time I cross a mat. You just need to know my name (Anita Cadonau-Huseby) and my bib number (225). If I walk a 16 minute pace that means I'll cross each at the following times:

Start - 7:00 a.m.
10 K - 8:40 a.m.
Half-marathon - 10:30 a.m.
20 miler - 12:20 p.m.
Finish - 2:00 p.m.

Here's hoping!

Four and Counting...

2006-09-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

That's right. Four and no more.

Today has been a thrilling, non-stop, rock your world, action-packed day what with icing my ankle, popping Alleve, and watching nearly nine hours of Grey's Anatomy. The upshot is that while my brain has turned to toast, my ankle seems to be improving. This is a good thing.

Seriously, that's all I've done all day. Nearly 12 hours on the couch and so unless you crave a written narration of two seasons worth of character development on Grey's then I've got nothing more to add and so I sign off and bid you good night. My blue scrub wearing peeps await.

A Wasted Life in Pixels

2006-09-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

As if my life isn't already consumed with enough boobtube time, I've now fallen head first into Grey's Anatomy. I've been following Run, Momma, Run and have been equally mystified that not only does the woman not have TIVO and no doubt still listens to The Best of Chicago on 8-Track, but intrigued by her obsession with yet another handsome-male-doctor-sassy-female-resident series. On a lark, a whim, an off-chance, I popped over to Itunes and downloaded Season 1 and 2 onto my Video Ipod. Over the past two nights I've spent nearly nine hours glued to a 2x2.5 inch color screen squinting my brains out as Derek and Meredith flash pure adorability in each other's direction and even now I'm salivating as I think of the remaining 27 episodes of Season 2 that are waiting for me.

Darn that momma! I do not need this. Why?

Shows on Phatgirl's Viewing Screen

60 Minutes
20/20
48 Hours Mystery
Dateline NBC
Top Chef
Project Runway
Queer Eye
Little People, Big World
Miami Ink
Law and Order
Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Law and Order: SVU
Antique Roadshow
POV
Food Network Challenge and Specials
Road Tasted
Ace of Cakes
The Next Food Network Star
Iron Chef and Iron Chef America
Everyday Italian
Unwrapped
Throwdown with Bobby Flay
A Cook's Tour
The Office
Survivor: Cook Island
Amazing Race 10
Inside the Actor's Studio
Workout
Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List
The Biggest Loser
Intervention
Kidnapped
Real World
Property Ladder
Flip That House
Million Dollar Listing
Celebrity Poker Showdown (I watch for the comic genuis of Dave Foley!)

Channels Phatgirl Closely Monitors

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC)
Bravo
TLC
A & E
Sundance
The Food Network
History Channel
HGTV

Wow. Having it all written out like that makes it look like I have no life beyond television.

Oh well. Too bad. So sad. I can't sit around here moaning about it all night when Season 2 awaits.

Five and Counting

2006-09-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

This is the view from where I sit with my desperately-needy-for-attention leg being presently pampered with compression socks, two bags of ice and a side dish of anti-inflammatory medication coursing through my system. This is Tuesday. The marathon is on Sunday. Last check, that leaves me five days to mend. Here's the two minute cliff-notes on what led to this little predicament.

Friday. September 15. My second 20 mile walk. At mile 10 the beginnings of a blister began on my left foot. In an attempt to cushion the blister I compensated by developing an unnatural foot strike that strained the major muscle group that begins under the big toe, moves up the center point of the top of the foot and then takes a curve left toward the outer calf and up the leg. Go to Mapquest.com if you need more precise directions. At mile 14 the discomfort set in and by mile 18 I wanted my mommy or strong mind-altering drugs that would prevent me from caring about what was happening at ankle level. Mommy or drugs. Whatever I can get my hands on first. These are my two default choices when pain, emotional or physical, is acutely present.

In the nine days that followed my LSD (which is anything but S when accompanied by my sister who wouldn't know S if it hobbled up and wacked her on the behind) I didn't go on any training walks at all. Instead my left foot was iced and simmered, electrically shocked, topically cortisoned, massaged and stretched by the physical therapist. Hurray, improvement! The swelling reduced, the soreness eased, and the stiffness loosened.

Yesterday I went to the physical therapist for a final visit before heading up to Portland in the evening. Following the appointment I went on a four mile walk. At mile 2 (13:50 mpm) the ankle began to tigthen. At mile 3 (14:05 mpm) it felt like it was being gripped by a vise. After waddling through mile 4 at a snail-burning pace of 18:00 mpm, I was back to the physical therapist for an unplanned appointment and an equally unplanned lecture.

I've worked with two separate physical therapists in the office, Maria and Derek. Casual, easy-going, well-trained and qualified. Good people aside from their 'no-whining' rule which they'll eventually relinquish once I wear them down. In addition, there's someone else in the office, an older refinely-dressed gentleman who apparently thinks he knows everything just because there's a Dr. in front of his name. Whatever. So Maria, whom only minutes before I really really liked before she decided to rally the forces, called Dr. Mr. Smartypants over for a consultation, at which time he made the suggestion that I reconsider walking in the marathon.

Reflecting back, I believe that's pretty much the same moment when I noticed a swarm of pigs flying by outside the office window. I didn't mention the pigs to Dr. Mr. Smartypants nor the loud "Are you out of your Hippocrates-loving mind?!" imploding in my cerebral cortex but instead I smiled warmly (or was it patronizingly?) and using words limited to two syllables so as to heighten the odds of comprehension said "That's. Not. An. Op-tion." He countered back with a continuation of the original Mighty Dr. to Lowly Patient lecture but by that time all I could hear was "Blah-blah-blah. Blah. Blah-blah-blah-blah."

Insert disclaimer here. I'm not actually so cynical or disrespectul concerning medical professionals. In reality everyone at the physical therapy office, from the receptionist to the aforementioned Dr. Mr. Smartypants are professional, warm, and really wonderful. My quips are solely about increasing blogger-tainment value for if I'm not amusing, how can I keep you from abandoning me?

So, these are the facts which have me bouncing back and forth between being upbeat or downcast, optimistic or pessimistic, half-full or half-empty, ying or yang, salt or peppa'.

Yes, I'm concerned that this crazy foot thing is going to keep me from my singularly-focused goal of the past nine months, a goal that I've worked toward and obsessed about nearly every day. I'm anxious about how my foot is doing at every particular moment and how it will be on Sunday morning? Will I be able to finish the marathon? Will I have to concede somewhere on the road and if so, where? How far can I go? I'm frustrated this is getting in the way of those last leisurely tapering walks I fanticized about nearly as much as I did the actual race, and of taking a little away from the full-throttle fun and excitement of race week. And I'm worried that if things don't get better this is never going to happen for me because I have no intention of dedicating the same amount of time and energy in the future to train for another full marathon. Half, yes. Full, nevah. In the eloquent rhetoric of contemporary culture, this sucks!

But given all that, there's no need to hide sharp implements or position trampolines under the windows of every tall building because the concern, anxiety, frustration and worry are way in the background of my overactive mind. What has the bigger part of my emotional energy is the Doris Day serenity that 'what will be will be.' I'm going to do the very best I can do to nurse my foot back to good health and on Sunday morning whatever I have is what I have and that's what I'll worth with. I'm grateful that this is the biggest problem I have to deal with today in a world filled with uncertainties about things that are far more life-threatening and dream-shattering than possibly not being able to finish a long walk on a Sunday morning. I'm excited about meeting online walking friends for the first time and cheering them on to reach their goal and of participating in all the pre-marathon hubbub. I'm so appreciative of all the support and encouragement that's been lavished on me over these months leading up to Sunday, and I'm proud of what I've achieved in even getting to this place in the first place.

My intention and plan is to finish every single step of the marathon but if I have to say "uncle" somewhere out on the road, I'll be content knowing that I did everything I could do. How can you give more than your best?

In other words, I embrace my inner Polly Anna while releasing my inner Eeyore. Besides, the photo above is a very real view from where I sit but so is the photo to follow...so really, how can a girl complain too much when something this stunning is right outside the window?

I Don't Speak Mandarin

2006-09-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in an earlier entry I took my walking shorts to the nearby dry cleaners to have an additional five mesh pocket panel sewn onto the front waistband, a panel of pockets that I removed from another pair of so-tight-I-would-pass-out-wearing-them-and-look-like-a-doofus-in-the-process shorts. The seamstress who had sewn the other panel of pockets perfectly on the back of the waistband wasn't there so I attempted to communicate my wishes in English to another employee who speaks English minimally. Despite my initial impression that she wasn't really grasping what I was requesting be done, she continued to nod and say enthusiastically, "Oh yes," and so I left my shorts and pockets confidently in her care. Yesterday I went to the dry cleaners to pick up my shorts. The pockets were sewn on just where I wanted them. There was just one small problem, perhaps so insignificant that I shouldn't even mention it but it seems the pockets, all five of them, were sewn onto the front of my shorts...shut.

Wine Whining

2006-09-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

My taste runs along the line of Diet Coke and iced espresso. I don't like wine. Red or white, it makes no different. Simply put, it's icky. Two buck Chuck from Trader Joes or a thirty dollar bottle of Chardonnay from Napa Valley all taste the same to me; a taste somewhere between apple vinegar and cat pee. Cat pee, by the way, is an actual descriptive used by some wine experts for Riesling. A master sommelier will look at you with a straight face, describe the underlying fragrance of an expensive German Riesling as being reminiscent of cat pee, and then sell you a bottle of it for 25 dollars. Oh yeh, by all means, charge it to my account Jacques.

Be it noted, my Dana enjoys wine. She not only likes to drink wine on rare occasions but is completely fascinated by the wine-making process from vineyard to bottle. She reads books about wine. She browses through the wine section of the grocery store and wine shops like a kid in a candy store. Okay, like me in a candy store but that's not the point. She knows the variety of grapes that go into a particular wine and the regions where those grapes are grown. In other words, she's a smarty pants about the fermented juice of the crushed grape and while I. DON'T. GET. IT. I'm more than glad to cheer her on in her interests as she does with mine, those including my collection of Pez Candy Dispensers (over 300 at last count) and training for a marathon.

What this means is that I do winey things with Dana and try not to whine while doing them. I'm more successful sometimes than I am at other times. By winey things I'm talking day trips to Napa Valley to visit local wineries and attending a Wine Festival in Mendocino County where I played the role of official purse carrier while she engaged in conversations with vineyardians or whatever you call those people in terminology that sailed right over my pretty little head. We even trekked to Sears recently to purchase a small wine refrigerator that now hums contentedly full at the end of our garage which I fear will accidently be mounted on the front of my bumper one day when I pull the car in too quickly or too wearily. But rather than dwelling on a future calamity, let's refocus on the big wine happening of last night that saw me accompanying my beloved to an evening class at the Ferry Building in San Francisco entitled "Wine Tasting Technique Deconstructed."

Let it be noted for the record that I was allowed to attend but only on the condition that when sipping the wine I didn't scrunch up my face after each sip, mimic the motion of vomiting followed by exaggerated and forced gulping sounds as though it were poison (or cat pee) being introduced into my system, and conclude the performance by muttering in loud disgust "Yuck, it takes just like vinegar!" I have apparently done this. Often. In public. For reasons that are beyond me, Dana doesn't find this type of behavior charming, and all the while I thought I was a real cutiepie doing the mock gag routine. Next thing I'm going to find out is that baby talk is a real turn-off and then what will I have left with which to woo her?

Seriously, it was a truly delightful evening, and I would say that even if Dana didn't read my blog regularly. That a good report will contribute to sustaining domestic harmony within our household is not influencing me in any way whatsoever.

Okay, now I'm serious. Last night was a beautiful and comfortably warm evening and the class was held in a rather elegant conference room on the second floor of the Ferry Building with an entire wall of full length windows overlooking the Bay Bridge, Treasure Island and all the standard yet spectacular sights that make San Francisco the stunning city on the bay that it is. The master sommelier who led the class was an interesting guy and despite finding the whole spitting into a bucket thing nauseatingly gross, he was entertaining and quite funny. Funny in an intentional way, not in a "we're all laughing at you but you don't get the joke" kind of way.

We learned how to identify and describe the various components of wine from acidity to tannin, from woody to fruity, and ironically I received some of the most genuine praise of the evening from said master sommelier when I described the fragrance of Chateau Gravas Sauternes, Bordeaux 2003 as being like that of fresh Tupperware. Obviously I have a nack at this whole booze biz. So what if I don't drink, don't like to drink, don't wanna drink.

And so we swirled and stiffed and sipped, and I'm happy to report that wine that smells like cat pee doesn't necessarily taste like cat pee. I still found it's taste to be inarguably icky but at least I wasn't looking under the table for a nearby litter box. Okay, but here's the funny thing and I'm sorry but this is so funny to me that I have to dwell on it a little longer. There's an entire room of upscale people who have paid handsomely to attend this wine offering. They've traveled into the city from the 'burbs to make a night of it, probably with plans to go to a fancy-schmanzy dinner afterwards as their attire would have indicated, not that Dana and I felt underdressed in our blue jeans and teeshirts, mind you. So here you have it, a roomful of people held captive as a master sommelier instructs them to all lift each glass in progression, swirl it and sniff it while they thoughtfully explore and articulate the fragrance of the wine. "This one has a citrus undertone...a hint of black currant...a delicate floral bouquet...the ever-so distant suggestion of dark chocolate." I'm fine with these. Truly I am. But the other smells that were brought to mind with each whif of the wine and noted verbally were, and I could not make this up if I tried, cat pee, the thick scent of petroleum, the plastic coating on disposable diapers, fingernail polish remover, musty rot, wet earth, and yes, I'm proud to say, fresh Tupperware. They identify these fragrances as wafting up from their wine glasses, they articulate it as such and then, they drink it.

Does anyone else find it uproariously bizarre that the very thing one would describe as smelling like gasoline or damp dirt in one minute is sipped the next minute followed by a contented sigh of decadent delight? Maybe it's just me but I kept thinking of how someone will gulp or eat something horrible, tell you it's the worse thing they've ever tasted in their entire life and then holding it in front of your face say "Here, taste it." Obviously I'm lacking in culture since I'm simply not all that interested in taking a sip of cat pee scented wine anymore than I am of taking a big old sip of milk 2 weeks after it's expiration date. Call me crazy.

I conclude by offering you a few photos that are evocative of what I've already articulated so eloquently.

The three photos below, in order, are as follows:

My wine tasting glasses at the start of the evening.
My wine tasting glasses at the conclusion of the evening. (The empty glass on the far right being that of the one that tasted like liquid vanilla sugar)
Dana's wine tasting glasses at the conclusion of the evening.

I will allow the evidence to speak for itself.

T'was the Week Before the Marathon...

2006-09-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

I'm taking taper time to a whole new level and I gotta tell you, it's pretty sweet! In fact, I'm thinking tapering is nearly as rewarding after months of increasingly long training walks as is crossing the finish line on race day. Okay, that's not true. Nothing will be as sweet as crossing the finish line. I was just trying to make a point. Point made but at the cost of a narrative digression. Reverse engines.

I was actually headed in this direction, that being that I haven't done any training walks since my final LSD last Friday because I'm still dealing with Triple S (swelling, soreness, stiffness) in my ankle. I'm usually a quick healer, a compliment medical personnel have often given to me as though I have anything to do with my recuperative tendencies, so I'm surprised by the little progress that's going on here. Regardless, I'm going to plow through a measely 4 miler tomorrow because I can't stand the thought of a total week's mileage of 0. Ouch! My ego just whined in agony. I'm going to follow that up with a final physical therapy appointment on Monday morning and then it's off to Portland for a week where I plan to put in 2-3 miles every day up until THE day. THE day. My stomach just dropped. Excitement. Nervousness. Anticipation. Anxiety. This Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. I'll be able to say "Next week at this time I'll have crossed the finish line." Consider my mind officially blown. You were here when it happened.

It's true that I'm not particularly thrilled that I'm going into marathon week with a widgey ankle but I'm not discouraged or too concerned about it either since it's not going to prevent me from walking across the starting line or the finish line. It just means the journey between the two might be a little less comfortable than I would prefer but hey, the good news is that if my ankle is sore enough I'll hardly notice my aching back, my sore calves, my swollen hands, my thirst, my full bladder, my stiff knees, the heat, the hills, and the fact that my sister will no doubt be fresh as a daisy going into mile 23 while I'm whining, limping, and auditioning for the lead role in "The Anguished Phatgirl." I invite anyone standing on the sidelines to slap her if they notice her dancing to her Ipod at any point in the marathon. It's SO annoying and if I didn't love her so much I'd despise her!

That's why I'm attempting to even the playing field. I know I can't get as fast as my sister by next Sunday so I've taken action to slow her down with random shipments of cookies, chocolates, and other phat-producing foods yet to be delivered to said sister's front door. Seriously, I read an article just today in the new issue of Runner's World Magazine. It seems the experts are now recommending sugar-stuffing and fat-filling in addition to carbo-loading. It makes for a more well-rounded athlete. Seriously Sis. I'm not kidding. Eat. You'll go faster. Trust me.

Loose Ends

2006-09-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

Perfect Phatgirl Shorts

I heard about these great compression shorts from RaceReady that had a strip of five mesh pockets sewn just under the back waist band. Five pockets! How could I not order them and yet imagine my surprise when the men's XXL fit me about as generously as would a pair of hot pants from Malibu Barbie's Island Summer collection. Not to be defeated I purchased a pair of big bike shorts from Aerotech Designs, removed the strip of pockets from the size baby butt shorts and had them sewn onto the back of the size rotund rump shorts and presto-chango, a perfect pair of phatgirl pants with plenty o' pockets! I took them on a test run on my last 20 minus 1 miler training walk and they were awesome! The pockets held several Cyromax Energy Gels, a small pack of Kleenex, a Larabar, and my cell phone.

Just imagine how beyond perfect they're going to be after I sew yet another strip of the pockets onto the front of them! Even as I type they are in the care and keeping of the local dry cleaners. Just enough additional pockets for my digital camera, earphones for my Ipod Nano, several wads of hydration chewing gum, and my emergency kit including blister pads, safety pins, and a couple tablets of Alleve. A plethora of pockets! Oh joy oh bliss!

Cytomax Energy Gel versus Clif Bar Shot Bloks

After a fair amount of experimentation, I'm leaning toward Clif Shot Bloks for the marathon instead of the Cytomax Energy Gel I've been using through most of my training.

The Cytomax Energy Gel is limited to two flavors (orange and vanilla) but both are pleasant tasting enough and the orange has the bonus of a caffeine jolt. Not much variety to speak of but when I'm dragging at mile 18 I don't even have the mental capacity to choose between Wild Berry Blast with French Toffee Cream and Chocolate Fudge Chocolate Chip Mint Crunch. I'm in a marathon people, not standing in line at Ben and Jerry's! The other downside to the Energy Gel is the same as it is with every brand, namely I'm a messy eater and I'd feel like a major goof ball licking my sticky fingers in front of the ~~throngs of spectators~~ six or seven random souls that remain on the sidelines.

When it comes to the Shot Bloks there's a lot to be desired in the firm gelatin texture and the flavors have a bit of a medicinal aftertaste to them. In other words, visions of Bill Cosby holding a J-E-L-L-O box don't dance through your head. In their favor there are more flavor options and two of them, orange and black cherry contain caffeine. I would imagine in warm or hot weather they'd get a little sticky themselves but in cool weather they're easy to handle. Three bloks equals one energy gel and takes up about the same space in my precious pockets so I'm going with Clif Shot Bloks.

With all the free advertising in this entry for RaceReady, Aerotech Design, Clif Shot Bloks, and Cytomax Energy Gel I'd think I'd be offered at least one endorsement contract. DId I happen to mention I'm wearing a Nike Dri-Fit teeshirt and Brooks running shoes...

Oh Happy Day!

2006-09-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

This morning began with a physical therapy appointment. It seems my inflamed tendons and swollen stiff ankle is nothing more than the by-product of a 1/4-inch blister on the bottom of my foot. At mile 10 I began to feel the blister coming on and apparently to cushion it, I nconsciously held back my foot drop, creating an unnatural strain to the major muscle group running from the toe up the leg. In an attempt to avoid a minor discomfort, a more significant problem developed. There's a metaphorical life lesson somewhere in there but I'm simply too superficial today to foray into deep thoughts so let's hold on to it for another day, another dollar.

Back to my foot. After an hour of massage, alternating hot and cold water plunges (swirling hot water good, ice water bad), topical cortisone treatment, and electrial circuits, my ankle remains swollen yet sufficiently pampered. The good news is that it will be fine in time for the marathon in less than two weeks. The better news is that on order of my physical therapist I'm to limit myself to shorter walks until that time. "Oh heck, no more long walks? Oh well, doctor knows best" said phatgirl beaming from ear to ear.

I think I'm a marathon-related hypochondriac. In the weeks prior to my first half-marathon this summer I went through a series of back to back health issues including a miserable cold with accompanying tuberular-sounding cough, a strained back that grounded me for nearly a week, and a particular brutal battle with the Evil Twins. In recent weeks it's been a strained acheilles tendon, a recurring bladder infection, ongoing back aches and now the inflammed tendon on the upper foot. I get so anxious in the weeks prior to the event that something will happen to keep me from participating that I might very well be psyching myself into the aches and pains. I shudder to think that phatgirl is a wooseypants worrier but admitting the problem is the first step so there you go. Admission made.

With less time spent walking there's more time for binge shopping at REI and the local runner store. My booty for the day includes Second Skin Blister Pads in varying sizes, double-layer running socks (can you really ever have too many?), Orange-flavored Shot Blocks, a water bottle with an ergonomically-correct hand strap, and sundry other items that I could well live without but that somehow made me feel more sporty simply by virtue of buying them. I'm broke but I'm sporty. Whatever works.

Unbelieveable!

2006-09-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

8:32 p.m.
I'm in shock. With only 13 days remaining until the Portland Marathon, I received an email minutes ago from my sister asking if I was interested in registering for the Long Beach "Run the Beach" Marathon or Half-Marathon taking place on October 15. That would be October 15 of 2006. If you don't have a calendar readily available, that's t-h-i-s year, or more precisely 27 days from today or exactly 14 days after the Portland Marathon. Only days ago she said something about being relieved that the Portland Marathon would be over soon because she was done with the long training walks. Done. Finito. Over and out.

I never saw my sister's side into insanity coming and I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do. Do I call 9-1-1? Do I call Mom? Is this the kind of thing that requires an intervention with a trained facilitator? Was I wrong to respond in email that I thought she was a crazy wacko?

8:49 p.m.
I just checked my email again. Another note from my sister. This time she's asking if not the Long Beach Marathon, how about the Seattle Marathon at the end of the year. 26.2 miles in northwest winter weather on Thanksgiving weekend. On one hand it makes sense; justification for carbo-loading at Thanksgiving dinner. And yet that seems an extreme measure even for my sister. No. There remains no doubt. My beloved sister has snapped. I will always cherish the memories I shared with her when she was in her right mind. Or perhaps she never was.

I'm calling Mom.

9:15 p.m.
Whew. I'm relieved to report my sister hasn't lost her loose bag of marbles after all. In her third installment the truth has come out. She had a pavement burning 11:53 minute mile today. In her words, that is her "PB" and she's psyched about it. PB. She even knows the lingo. Okay. I'm impressed. I'll admit it. And proud. Yeh, that too. Okay, and jealous. There. I said it.

Oh. I just had a thought. While Barb was here this last weekend we watched the DVD "Running on the Sun," a documentary on the Badwater Ultramarathon, 135 miles through Death Valley in July.

You don't think.....she wouldn't consider.....nah.....

One Mile Short but Close Enough...

2006-09-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

The absence of phatgirl blog entries this week was due to life. Contrary to what you might have been led to believe I actually have one, a life that is, complete with a relationship, commitments, household chores, and a career and this week they all converged in rapid succession to curtail my loquacious blogtifications. But on a lazy Saturday afternoon I've carved out a chunk of time for blogging and I return as sassy as ever!

On Monday I logged up four miles on the dreadmill in a cycle of 120 seconds at 4.3 mph, 60 seconds at 4.6 mph, 60 seconds at 5.00 mph, 120 seconds at 4.3 mph, 60 seconds at 4.6 mph, 60 seconds at 5.00 mph, 120 seconds at 4.3 mph, 60 seconds at 4.6 mph, 60 seconds at 5.00 mph, 120 seconds at 4.3...wash, rinse, repeat. Mostly walking, some jogging, lots of sweating. It felt good despite the lack of nature and the overabundance of recirculated air.

Tuesday was work, more work, and then some work to cap off the day. No training, unless walking to the office from the car and from the office to the corner coffee shop counts for interval work. No? Oh well.

Wednesday morning had Dana and I scurrying through housecleaning chores in preparation for my sister Barb and bother-in-law John's arrival that afternoon so Barb and I could do our last 20 mile training walk together before D-Day. That would be "Done Day" as in we are so done with walking so much for so long! If you've never done long-distance training, let me explain how things break down. Walking one hour is a stroll in the park, walking two hours is a solid work out, walking three hours is a major accomplishment, walking four hours is exhaustingly rewarding, but walking five hours is just insane. My no like it.

Not only that but my sister and I have arrived at the collective realization that between marathon registrations, multiple pairs of racing shoes, assorted walking clothes, Garmins, Ipod Nanos, Gu, Glide, and travel expenses, this walking is no bargain-basement priced activity! If you'd like to make a financial donation to support Phatgirl and Sister, operators are standing by now to accept your call.

After a Thursday dinner involving carbo-loading, an activity for which my sister and I have been preparing since childhood, we headed out Friday morning at 6:30 for our 20-miler. After an hour commute by car and rapid transit, we arrived in San Francisco on an absolutely perfect day! Clear skies, calm wind, cool temperatures. Our course was essentially a big loop beginning at the Ferry Building, taking us across the Golden Gate Bridge and back again, with a few side excursions along the way. A highlight of the walk was being met at mile 14 by Steve of BayCityWalker fame who had graciously waited for more than an hour to join us for the last part of the walk. We realized as we were getting close to our finish point at the Ferry Building that we were one mile short of our 20 mile walk but after nearly five hours of walking with only two GUs in our bellies, lunch sounded far more compelling than wandering in circles until our Garmins pronounced 20 miles, so 19 miles and the FINAL long walk before the marathon was done! Over and out!

In terms of how my body held up I'm happy, grateful, and relieved to report my lower back did better than ever (I stopped regularly for quick preventative stretches) and the Evil Twins were on their best behavior since I made the shift into double-digit mileage walks. This is all good news!

The not good news is that with the old and familiar aches and pains in check, my left foot rebelled on two fronts. The first was a tenderness on the bottom pad between my big toe and its next door neighbor that developed by the end of the day into a small squishy blister, possibly the result of breaking in my new Brooks on their first long walk. So said Steve and who am I to argue with "the man"?

The other problem was a growing soreness and stiffness on the front of my ankle, just above where my shoelaces tie together. Both these problems combined made the last four miles downright physically miserable though I still enjoyed the pleasure of the company of Sis and Steve. The blister is just a blister and ergo no big deal. The other problem is a little more concerning since today the area is swollen with some redness and remains sore and stiff. I'm sure it's going to be fine but it's still a bit disconcerting all the same and so it's ice until Monday morning when I get in touch with my physical therapist. Worse case scenario is that my over all marathon time will be slower than anticipated, I'll be walking with the added support of one of my nordic poles, and my sister will be forced to endure an entirely new level of whining unprecedented to date.

And speaking of my sister, let it be noted that she looks as fresh and strong at mile 18 as she looks at mile 1 and could no doubt maintain a ridiculously brisk pace for the entire distance. All of this makes for a rather combustable combination of admiration and irritation in my gut. I love her dearly and yet in a deep, dark, shadowy corner of my inner being I want to slip glue in her Gu.

In the next two weeks that remain, I'm going to tamper down a little more than my original training schedule outlined, keeping my walks to 3 and 4 miles at a time, doing more stretches, and eliminating the final 12 mile tempo walk altogether so that everything that needs to heal has time to heal. That's my plan Stan.

On the Road Again

2006-09-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today was the first honest-to-goodness training walk in a week. 9 miles at a 14:19 pace accomplished in 3 laps around the hilly reservoir on a surprisingly cold day which maketh me thinketh my favorite season of the year is gloriously around the corner. I adore fall, or pum'kin season as we call it in our household. Shorter days, cold mornings, leaves in autumn colors, and sweatshirts. As much as I love teeshirts and cargo shorts, I'm ready to snuggle myself up in jeans and sweatshirts. And flannel jammies at bedtime naturally.

As I'm reading the painfully mundane content above that mysteriously detoured from my training report to autumn to my preferred bedwear, I can't help but reflect with amusement at Dana's question of the other day, "After the marathon is over, what are you going to write about on your blog?" As if I would ever be at a loss for words. Silly girl. Adorable but oh so naive when it comes to the limitless bounds of my banality. Need proof? Follow along with me if you're brave enough...

Tonight I grilled up sliced eggplant, onions, and hamburger patties that I'd stuffed with a little salami and a touch of cheddar cheese, thus negating any benefits I might have reaped from the extra super lean beef I had purchased at top dollar. It's Friday. That's my excuse for indulging in salami and I'm sticking by it, but if I may offer a ray of hope on my nutritional commitments, I used two slices of the dry grilled eggplant in favorite of bread. No refined flour. No mayo. In a just world refraining from overly-processed grain and Best Foods should cancel out the salami and cheese. This is not a just world.

For dessert, I binged on my favorite blog sites and I savored every bite! I totally love your blogs, reports on your training, stories about your family or lives, and yes, even your useless but entertaining and on occasion hysterically funny entries, but I do have one teeny-weeny issue I need to share with you. I must speak my truth, not only for my personal growth but because honesty is essential for our ongoing relationship. Though the truth is sometimes painful, I know you would want it no other way. I, on the other hand, do indeed want it another way so if I annoy you or have said something to step on your adorable little sport toes, please, for the sake of our ever-deepening relationship, keep it to yourself. I don't wanna hear it. I'll take it personally and then that will ruin everything!

Okay, now back to you. It can't always be about me, most of the time is understandable, but not all of the time. So what's with the music videos that start up automatically on your blog? I mean, hey, it's your blog and you have a right to do anything you want to do. Set your hair on fire, jump from the nearest rooftop into a children's wading pool filled with anchor worms, or wear pink taffeta with tiffany lace and I'll defend your right to do so. All I'm asking is that you would make playing the music video on your site an option for visitors (particularly loyal ones like myself) rather than forcing us to listen to your ~~horrendous~~ distinctive taste in current musical trends and exposing innocent wanderers to images of people shaking parts of their body that physiologically shouldn't be able to shake in that way. Please receive this information in the spirit in which it is given. It's all about the love.

So, how's that for proof of truly inconsequential verbosity? I told you so.

Pockets At Last!

2006-09-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

After nearly a week of motionless existence, I finally got my rumpus out of the house yesterday to put in 3 quick miles and some rather brutal but brief hill work on the dreadmill at the local 24-Hour Fitness. I thought a little hill work was in order given the .53 mile 150 foot ascent that leads up to the St. John's Bridge at mile 17 in the Portland Marathon. That should be so fun, particularly given the timely insertion of the dreadhill right before mile 18 when I'll no doubt be in peak physical condition...for a door knob maybe.

Notify Runner's World Magazine, my marathon apparel has finally come together. I've decided to double up on the shorts, with compression cycling shorts under loose fit Nike training shorts. The goal here is two-fold. Follow my logical if you will. Were I to wear the loose fit Nike Training shorts alone I'd have the benefit of the two ample pockets and the breezy comfort of dri-fit fabric but would fall victim to the malady of inner thigh creep up, and if I wear the tight cycling shorts with the longer inseam alone I avoid fabric bunch up at the crotch but am left with no pockets to hold my essentials. Ergo, double up. The upside is that I've gained two pockets and freedom from the humiliation of ITCU. The downside are the extra seconds added to my time at every portapotty. The gain in pockets and salvaged pride is worth giving up my chance to shatter the marathon course record. Ahhh...and I could'a been a contender.

The best news of all is that my endless quest to find a cycling jersey with the coveted three pockets has ended! For weeks I've had nil to nada good fortune in finding a jersey that fit my plentiful phatgirl frame. While I normally wear a large in a man's tee-shirt, these cycling jerseys are a different breed altogether with their tight elastic waist and slinky fabric, but I finally found a company called Aerotech Designs that makes great cycling jerseys for the queen-size princess that I am. Because it's a man style jersey the shoulder span is too wide (though perfect should I ever make the change from walking to body building) and it's a little too long, but finally a company that says loose fit actually means loose fit, and what that means is I have pockets! Five yummy gloriously wonderful spacious pockets! Commence the happy dance!

Now we must confront the new dilemma before us, and you know what it is. What am I going to put in all those pockets?!

Sugar-Free, Guilt-Free

2006-09-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

This is my insanely lazy cat Tweety. She and I are just alike. At the present hour I'm just a lazy bumpkin laying on the couch with my laptop, my fifth appendage, heating up my belly. Since my 20 miler last Thursday I have literally done nothing in terms of training apart from a slow three mile stroll with Dana on Monday around the reservoir, which really had nothing to do with training and everything to do with enjoying a beautiful day outside with my wife. That I even mention the three mile stroll bespeaks of my desperate attempt to name any physical activity at all. Next I'll be counting bending down to unlace my shoes as a set of leg squats. Whatever relieves my guilt...

Between January and March of this year I recorded walking 107 miles on loose scraps of paper stuck into a folder. Since mid-April when I upscaled technologically to my prized Garmin 305, I've logged just over 288 miles in 70 hours at an average pace of 14:28 mpm. Let it be noted, this doesn't include dreadmill mileage or those few training walks when I left my Garmin at home in a futile attempt to not obsess over pace. Everything in me wants to estimate those unrecorded walks since January at 100 miles but that would no doubt be an exaggeration right out of the pit so give me credit for 50 unrecorded miles as a compromise and we'll call it even. Added to that, between now and the Portland Marathon on October 1, I have 90 more miles of training walks to tag on to the grand total, bringing the grand total of accumulated training miles since January until marathon day to 535 miles. 535 miles to complete a marathon of 26.2 miles.

Even as I'm amazed by the numbers, I'm more than aware that compared to most runners, joggers, racewalkers, and walkers who've been completing for years, my accumulation of miles are a relative drop in the bucket to their training and my pace a snail crawl to the way they tear up the course. As of today my walking hero Steve has chalked up 832 miles this year and there are racewalking folks over at thewalkingsite.com message boards who can smoke the roads at paces of 10-12 mpm.

But here's the thing, I don't compare my accomplishments to others, at least most days since that's an emotional mudslide waiting to suck me under. Instead, I compare my accomplishments to Phatgirl, Version 2005, and let me assure you that last year's Phatgirl model never walked further or faster than she had to to get where she needed to as soon as she had to. So when I see 535 miles and an average of 14:28 for 288 of those miles, I am certifiably thrilled and proud. And maybe I won't ever walk as far as Steve or as fast as my message board pals but there's a really good chance that the 2007 Phatgirl Model will leave my stats in the dust and if she does I'll be the first one to admit she's a better woman that I.

So maybe I'm not such a lazy bumpkin after all. I'll put on my sneakers and walking shorts again tomorrow but tonight I'm just going to lay here on the couch, watch some mindless tv, blogtificate, and eat a sugar-free popsicle without a shred of guilt.

A Can Full of Feathers

2006-09-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

This morning's scripture passage (Mark 7) recounts a time when the super-religious called Jesus on the behavior of his disciples because they'd been seen eating without performing the required ritual of washing their hands. The purpose of the ritual wasn't for the sake of hygiene but holiness and they wanted Jesus to admit his disciples had flubbed up. Instead, Jesus jumps at the chance to point out that God cares little about whether a person performs external rituals and traditions but instead God places value on what flows from a person's heart. If the heart isn't centered on God, then it doesn't matter how well a person goes through the external motions of religion.

During the children's lesson I presented the kids with a shiny aluminum can with the label removed. We spent some time wondering what might be inside the label-less can until I pulled the original label from a bag and placed it around the can. Pineapple rings. The outside of the can tells us what's inside the can. Or does it?

That's when I pulled off the can's poptop lid to reveal the contents but instead of pineapple rings the can was filled with brightly-colored bird feathers! I might not be able to impress the masses but I know how to dazzle five year olds! I went on to tell the children that God doesn't care if we say all the right words in church, or if we sing the songs on tune or if we put money in the offering basket. That's just the stuff we do on the outside. Instead, God cares about our hearts. Is there love in our heart? Kindness? Goodness? Forgiveness? Compassion? It's the inside of who we are that God values and that we are to value in each other and not the outside. That's what I told them anyway, but I suspect they didn't hear a word because their full and undivided attention was focused on red, blue, yellow and green feathers.

That was my God application this morning and this afternoon brings us to my phatgirlwalking analogy.

There's nothing about me that looks like an athlete. I'm a middle-aged, chubby woman without a visible muscle anywhere on my person. I don't dress in sporty athletic wear. I can't run. I detest jogging. I don't own a gym bag and at this particular minute am clueless as to the location of my gym membership card.

But open me up and there's a pile of feathers! I'm competitive, motivated and passionate about my goal of walking a marathon. I get a high when I walk further than I've ever walked before. Even when my back is throbbing I'm thrilled with the sense of accomplishment in achieving the next goal on the journey. I tend my blisters with pride rather than annoyance. I daydream about the start of the race and the finish and smile to myself like a cheshire cat. I'm hungry.

Outside I may look like a phatgirlnapping but inside I'm pure athlete. So are you Darlin', so are you! Don't doubt it!

It's Dana's Fault

2006-09-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

Dana and I share in household chores. Dana vacuums. I polish the wood and shine the glass. Dana cleans the cat box. I scrub the toilets. Dana takes out the garbage. I keep the patio clean and the plants watered. Dana keeps us supplied with medications, toiletries and grooming products. I buy the groceries and organize the kitchen. Dana makes the coffee. I drink the coffee.

While there are those rare occasions when I'll take out the garbage or Dana will scrub the toilets, there is one set of tasks that we never exchange. I do the cooking. Dana does the laundry. I'm the chef. She's the laundress. It's a system that works for us.
Don't mess with what works.

That's why I'm returning home tomorrow with a pink bra. I didn't pack a pink bra when I packed my suitcase for my trip to Portland. I packed a white one, and it was a white bra that went into the washing machine with my red walking shirt but it was a wet pink bra I found plastered on the washing machine drum twenty minutes later.

It's not my fault and I want that on the public record. Dana alone is responsible. The reason is because she's instituted a hard-line rule that whenever I come to Portland to visit my mom I'm to return home with clean clothes. She knows I don't do laundry, that I shouldn't do laundry and yet she doesn't want to open my suitcase and find dirty clothes mingling with clean ones. Therefore, knowing what she knows about me and about my limitations she's setting me up for failure.

It's not that I'm careless when it comes to laundry. I just think...well, I think differently. I know it's more common to think in terms of washing whites with whites and colors with colors but that's so uncreative. It also edges on political incorrectness as far as I'm concerned. And so I've developed my own system for determining what clothing to wash together. It's a simple system and I share this laundry tip soundbyte with you.

"Wear together. Wash together."

Write it down. Remember it. Use it. Especially if you like pink. And if you don't like pink...blame Dana.

The Morning After the Day Before

2006-09-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

This entry is for the thousands upon thousands of you in the blogosphere who are this very morning plagued with worry over how I'm feeling after my 20 miler yesterday.

It's 8:30 a.m. and I just woke up. I haven't slept in this late, without benefit of medication, for as long as I can remember, and certainly for as long as I've had two cats who believe in the entire household rising before dawn to greet the day.

It appears however, that while I slept someone entered my mom's home where I'm staying, crept up the stairs, managed to unlock the guest bedroom where I lay peacefully sleeping, and proceeded to wallop the living daylights out of my legs and feet with something akin to a Fred Flintstone caveman stick.

After a shower and breakfast, I'm out the door to REI to check into a bike shirt with all those nifty pockets on the back and to the Running Store to discuss "the situation" hithertoknown as my aching feet.

Mid-Afternoon Update

This afternoon I'm definitely feeling like a ph(f)atgirl. Two bicyle shops and not a bike jersey that came close to fitting the contours of my generous hips, which leads me to the timeless question, is it really necessary to have a full-length mirror in the dressing room? It's enough to make you want to eat cake.

But not to be defeated I came home, plunked my chubby cheeks onto the chair in front of computer and was able to locate some loose-fit XXL bike jerseys at some specialty store...something like "Bart's Big Bottom Bike Shirts." Anywhooo, I ordered several from XXL to XXXL and will see what happens when UPS knocks on my door. Just in case, hide Sara Lee and her cake.

On the shoe front, I've sadly forsaken my three beloved pairs of Asics Gel DS Trainers XI for a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 6 running shoes. I'm hoping with a little more padding between my tender piddy pats and the pavement and more side support my feet and back will rejoice rather than recoil. I originally went with the running flats when I was planning to incorporate racewalking and needed full flexibility for the foot roll but as it turns out, racewalking is on hold for later in my training. It's all about getting through the marathon and then refocusing on shorter distances and training that incorporates more speed over endurance work.

And I'm just kidding about the cake. Now donuts....