i may or may not have mentioned this here, but i've started jogging/running on the treadmill at the gym. for the last few weeks i have half walked half ran a 5k every day but saturday. those of you who know me know that i have always hated the jogging and the running. it is thumpy and floppy and not very pleasant when you are over 200 pounds. so this 5k-every-day is a act of all out war against my stubborn body. going to the gym and lifting weights and biking to work and ellipticalling and walking and doing all of this several times a week has not had any impact on my body. to add insult to injury, i was on a birth control pill that somehow made me gain fifteen or so pounds while going to the gym six days a week. my patience is about up so i'm tossing all hormonal birth control, locking down the diet, and waging a no-holds-barred assault on my own body.  here is how the battles are going:

1) diet is fine. despite my never having been a member of weight watchers, i like their "points" system for several reasons. for one, it makes eating into a math game. who doesn't love equations? two, it is flexible enough to work in real life. three, it means i need only remember one single number throughout the day because fat and calories are meshed into one mathematical entity.

2) for  the first week, my goal was to run for at least 5.5 minutes at a time. i randomly decided that i would do this three times within my 5k. for week two, we are at 6 minutes a t a time (x3). i also try to fit in an extra minute or two near the end for good measure. the treadmill feeds my math-game habits by tracking my average speed at any given time, my total time, my current pace, and my distance. i am currently completing my daily 5k in around 37 minutes.

3) some days are ridiculously hard. for example, after an eight hour day at the museum, i can barely get myself to do my daily minimums. some days, though, i can run 8 or 10 minutes without stopping (that's only about a kilometer at a time) before i need to walk again. since i up the ante every week, this will quickly change.

4) i am not lifting as much weights. i should be more aggressive about doing a few sets of various things each day pre-treadmill.

5) after my 5k treadmill, i usually cool down with a 5k on the exercise bike.  if i am not in a hurry i will do a 10k. that is about the distance i bike to work (one-way) when the weather is nice. on real streets, though, it takes me about fifty per cent longer because of traffic and stopping at lights and the very obvious difference that i can't just pedal 20mph with no stopping in the real world.

6) i have not lost a single pound. fine, fine, yes, i know i am adding muscle and muscle weighs more than fat but this is not funny anymore. either inches need to start peeling off of my waist or pounds need to be coming off of the scale. i will be perfectly satisfied with either (though i would personally prefer the former over the latter for clothing shopping reasons)

7) running does occasionally bring out the aches and pains- a small blister her, a twinge there. yesterday, however, my toe started to hurt. why? that stupid rock i stubbed my whole foot on a whole year ago! i didn't hit my toe on anything to aggravate it, it has just started to ache in the exact same place in my foot as when i first injured myself. as i predicted at the time, i can now speak about "my old sports injury" and sound completely legitimate (unless i mention that i was playing an ad hoc game of frisbee on madeline island and simply ran into a rock that we all knew was there, then there is not so much pride).

8) when i breathe really hard, there is a small twinge under my ribs. there was a time years ago when i somehow thought that i had pulled a muscle under my ribs (and it took about a week or two before i could laugh at my own jokes or sing in the car or yawn without screaming pain). this tiny twinge is in the same place. z suggested that this might not have been a pulled muscle at all but a hernia. i think that he is right. the symptoms fit.