Couch Potato Training--Part 1

I am now in the middle of week 5 of Cool Running's Couch Potato to 5K training program.  This morning I am supposed to 

• Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
• Walk 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
• Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)

(after a "brisk" 5 minute warm-up walk). Two days ago, (W5D1 in "C25K" circles), I jogged for 5 minutes, walked for 3, jogged for 5, walked for 3, and jogged for 5. By Sunday evening, I should have completed the week's assigned workouts, including what seems to me at this point the incredible 20-minute jog, "no walking." Week 5 is a pretty steep ramp. The longest jogs in Week 4 were 5 minutes, with three resting walks of varying lengths in between. And way back then--a distant four days ago--I was amazed that I was completing those.

My daughter, whose first triathlon last fall "inspired" this attempt to resurrect my running self, objects to calling this activity "couch potato training."  (Though I could probably benefit from that goal, too.  See Couch Potato Training--Part 2 tomorrow...)  And honestly, I am coming to feel, if not to express, some respect for the undertaking, and for my progress so far.  

For my first "outing" (which in the frigid Midwest in January took place on an indoor track), I jokingly told my family and friends that my goal was not to die.  After fifteen years of only intermittent exercise "jags," a little part of me was serious about that goal.  I really doubted my ability to take on Week 1's 20 minutes of alternating 60 second jogs and 90 second walks.  Completing that first workout was exhilarating.  

Somewhere in the middle of this morning's session at the gym, I will have reached the halfway mark of this 9-week plan.  I am trying to "stay in the moment," as my meditation group would advise me.  I have actually enjoyed some of the feelings, physical and emotional, that have been part of this journey, like the sense of freedom and lightness as I complete my laps on an oval overlooking the basketball courts.  The music I've been relying on for distraction, companionship, and motivation has begun to cue a positive anticipation.  (I won't go into the surprisingly occasional muscle soreness that has also been a feature of these last few weeks.)

It feels good to be "putting to bed" my long-postponed intentions to get back to exercising, and to a more physically active identity.  And I'm working at not minding the runners who lap me.  I mark the growth from four weeks ago, when a woman who appeared to be my elder by about a decade passed me walking during my first "jog."  


P.S.  Found this nearly two-year-old blog devoted to one person's Couch Potato to 5K experience. The blog stops abruptly at the end of Week 2, amid much jubilance. I imagine there are millions of bloggers writing on the subject, of which I am humbly happy to be just one. Hopefully, the program has been/will be a turning point for at least some of us. I hope to be just one of those.

Has Anyone Seen My Head?

It’s funny, the words and phrases that stick in our heads.  Like my grandmother’s depiction of her own Irish grandfather who spent much of his last years “sarchin’” for things in various rooms and realms of the house she grew up in.  I have often thought that his preoccupation with things missing or lost is in my bones, a hereditary affliction.

I have spent way too much of my life “sarchin’” for things.  And we’re not talking some lofty spiritual quest here, as in my adopted religion’s 4th principle, which "affirm[s] and promote[s]…[a] free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”  No, my concern is rooted firmly in the mundane and worldly hunt for misplaced possessions.  I don’t want to say I’m a loser, but I have to admit that waayyyy too many of the allotted hours of my life have been taken up in tossing my environs, desperately seeking stuff. 

Yesterday, I listed on a post-it all the things I was currently trying to find.  The list included my iPod, needed to distract myself from the discomfort of 5K training; the tax-relevant receipt for the piano we purchased last year from a school; my warm winter hat, which matches the scarf I found a couple of weeks ago at Goodwill; my son’s wallet (perhaps he, too, has inherited the loser gene); a meditation audiobook, now overdue at the library; my poetry notebook; and our favorite Charlie Brown Christmas CD.  And those were just the things I could remember. 

Before the day was out, I had located both my iPod and the overdue audiobook.  I’m not sure if that was coincidental to having written them down earlier.  I’m thinking maybe the act of making a discrete list was in some way akin to issuing an All Points Bulletin in my consciousness.  In both cases, the articles were found in likely locations that I had neglected to check in my earlier reconnaissance efforts.  It remains to be seen whether the other items on my list will turn up.

I don’t know that this problem of misplacing things is getting worse as I age.  I remember in fifth grade being made to write an essay about what would happen to the world if everyone lost and forgot things like I did.  Library books were, even then, my bugaboo.  I recall stretching to apply the lesson to firefighters—what if they misplaced their hose?  their axes?—and doctors, like my father—what if they couldn’t find their stethoscopes?  their tongue depressors?  or, God forbid, their hypodermic needles?  I remember, too, at around that time and earlier, struggling to locate disappearing homework that I really had completed—no dogs involved.  So apparently I started down this road at a fairly young age.

Now that I think about it, though, I was never entirely sure if my grandmother was describing a disorganized man, like so many others in my family, or one who was increasingly “lost” himself.  I cling to the reality that, at this stage anyway, I am missing actual objects--as though that is any kind of distinction.   Even if my constant rummaging is focused on physical items that truly exist, rather than the arguably worse situation of mental disorientation, it is taking time and energy that could probably be better spent.  But what to do about it? 

As a student of Buddhism, I could disavow the attachment to material items and their uses, and mute at least the emotion that accompanies these dislocations.  Less stressing would be good.  


As a not-so-stellar student of organization, I could go the “everything in its place” route--if I could just figure out the places for all these things that keep finding their way into my life.  Where exactly does one keep the mounds of receipts spawned by daily transactions, mostly not needed at all—unless they are suddenly, unexpectedly and desperately necessary?  Or the ill-fitting cover to the battery compartment of the temporarily AWOL remote?  Or the business cards for the business I sort of started last year and may want to revive?

It seems at least part of my difficulty is having too much stuff.  Here, I guess, is where Throw Out 50 Things should come in.  I did learn some things from reading the book a week or so ago, but not as much as I could learn by actually trying to apply its approach.  So the thing to do, clearly, is to get cracking and start discarding.  Now if I can just find the book and see where to start.

I think I’ll try offering a bounty.  It’s worked before.

Procrastinating 101: What Type Are You?

As a late-life student of Buddhism, I have continually encountered the almost reflexive reliance on numbers to order our understanding.  thezensite's Buddhism by Numbers provides a chart which identifies "approximately" 215 taxonomies, ranging from the "2 attachments, " to the "4 noble truths," to the "32 marks of perfection" of the Buddha.  


I am willing to accept the author's assertion that this use of numbering 

throughout Buddhist literature reflect[s] the cultural propensities of India, Tibet, China, Japan and the other countries where Buddhism took root and developed. 

But I have seen this practice elsewhere.  In academia, in women's magazines, and yes, in the blogosphere, we are surrounded by "7 ways of knowing" (multiple intelligences); "12 ways to ward off diabetes;" "50 ways to leave your lover."  And as much as I love numbers--and I do, really, which I know makes me weird--the agnostic in me recoils from the finite nature of these ubiquitous lists.  I am especially bothered when the listers/typologizers use the definite article "the" in front of such pronouncements.


So, of course, I had to pick up Dr. Linda Sapadin's book, It's About Time:  The 6 Styles of Procrastination and How to Overcome Them.  Having read the introductory chapter, in which she identifies "the 6 styles," I suspect that getting hung up about the number thing may, in fact, be a symptom of my tendency to procrastinate.  So, putting aside my quarrel with the set-in-concrete quality of the approach, I am reading sympathetically and trying to learn what I can.


Dr. Sapadin posits these 6 styles which she says characterize the chronic procrastinator:  the Perfectionist; the Dreamer; the Worrier; the Defier; the Crisis-Maker; and the Overdoer.  For those of us who have fallen into the pit of putting things off, it is not enough, she says, to just work on "getting organized."  Rather, it is important to understand how and why we procrastinate in order to change this behavioral habit.  


The styles are not discrete, but can coexist in an individual.  The first chapter concludes with six self-assessments to be used in identifying the reader's "major and minor styles."  And although I have thus far avoided the popular Facebook quizzes which would tell me what rock star I most resemble, what Greek god I am, and which 80s song describes me, I knew I needed to do these.  


My "results?"  First of all, I have five major styles, with scores of 10 or more:  Perfectionist (no surprise); Dreamer; Worrier; Crisis-Maker; and Overdoer.  Most surprising to me was that my two highest scores were, respectively, in the Overdoer category (17) and the Dreamer category (15).  Perfectionist and Crisis-Maker were tied with 11 each.  Worrier just made it into the major styles column with 10.  


Overall, I guess I have a fairly entrenched penchant to procrastinate.  Unfortunately, my profile means that I am going to have to read closely most of the rest of the book to figure out what to do about it.  At least, according to this source.  One, merely, of the 39 sources in our library system on the subject.


If you're interested in your own procrastination fingerprint, and "can't get around to" reading the book, you can take a mini-quiz online.

Done for the Week: More Time Outside My Comfort Zone

In looking over my progress for the last few weeks, I see that I am beginning to attempt more and more things that I have avoided doing for a long time.  It's like the process of nudging myself to get on with some nagging task or project is feeding on itself.  The feeling is alternately exhilarating and anxiety-provoking.    Here is my list of things I completed this week, that would probably not have gotten done in "my previous life."  Feel free to make your own determinations of which items represent big ugly frogs, which old nemeses, which pure terror.

1. Completed Week 4 of Couch Potato to 5K Training
2. Finished Throw Out 50 Things, by Gail Blanke; The Shanghai Moon, by S. J. Rozan; Eat that Frog!, by Brian Tracy
3. Walked my grateful dog daily (except for Monday, when I was too bloody tired, and Friday, when it was too bloody cold)
4. Took my blood pressure daily--I now live consistently in the prehypertensive zone, brought to us by the same folks who lowered the bar for high cholesterol
5. Met with the personal trainer provided free with my new gym membership
6. Started new blog (I may have created a monster...)
7. Got called off waiting list to read at Poetry marathon, freaked out, then got it together and did it!
8. Found missing poems for same (see new blog)
9. Attended 2 meetings, and set up 2 more
10. Succeeded in napping two-and-a-half-year-old:  3 for 3!
11. Published 5 blog posts
12. Meditated 3 times
13. Finally turned in "Guest at Your Table" holiday season donation at church
14. Saw Avatar with my husband
15. Covered for sick son's dog-walking job for most of the week
16. Agreed to new website gig
17. Attended multi-sport expo with daughter; bought new racing swimsuit
18. Mailed Heart Association solicitation to neighbors

I have also noticed that my lists seem to be getting longer.  I think it's safe to say, however, that "Went skydiving" and "Sailed solo around the world" are not going to appear anytime soon.  Speaking of the latter, I am taking challenge and inspiration from 16-year-old dyslexic Jessica Watson's blog, chronicling her attempt to be the youngest ever to complete such a journey.  And trying not to feel paltry by comparison...