A Taste for Suffering

London Mileage Check: 268.05 (Wow, I've got to pick up the pace.)

Classes started this week and as if I weren't busy enough with a kid, college and volunteering, I signed up with a group to train for a 5k. 

What kind of a masochist am I, you ask?


Well, I just started a Bio class so when I find the family, genus or species I'll be sure to pass it on.


The (s)training begins Sept 8 and culminates with the Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving Day.  Which, if you think about it, really opens up the floodgates for feasting after the race.  At least I will have earned the traditional sloth and gluttony so warmly associated with the holiday.

Plus I'm told I should remind myself that it's for a good cause.  In this case, it's the Rescue Mission which works to feed and shelter the homeless.  So, yeah yeah... karma schmarma, it really is a good cause.

They gave me a schedule which details the week by week training regimen.  Yesterday I thought I'd give the first week a sneak peek.  We newbies are instructed to run 1 minute and walk for 2 until we reach one mile.  Sounds, easy enough, right?

Ha.  Before the first 45 seconds of my first minute had elapsed I realized what a disasterous mistake I'd made in signing up for this shiz. 

I freakin hate running.  No effin bones about it. As soon as I start shuffling my pudgy little ankles my chest begins to tighten and my vision begins to blur.  I begin to think it's my body's warning system.

"The self-destruct sequence has been intitiated. Please abandon all fitness efforts immediately and seek medical and/or psychological care as soon as possible."

Usually, I do as I'm instructed at this point.  This time I said to myself: "Screw it, if you die then you die.  Keep running."

Cold bitch.

I kept on and tried to refocus.  Kinda like at the dentist's office when they've been kind enough to install that one ceiling tile with the blue sky and heavenly white clouds.  I can never tell if that's supposed to instill a sense of serenity or to make you realize that there are worse things than going to the dentist.  Death, for example.

As I attempted to shift my focus from the pain in my chest, I noticed that a spider had built a web and an enormous egg sack right outside the window in front of my treadmill (it's a sunroom).  No big deal.  I don't mind spiders as much as a I used to and I try not to knock down their webs as long as they are outside and especially when they are in the window corners.

See, the thing is, I have a deep, unreasonable fear of bugs.  If I see one in my bedroom before I go to bed, I won't sleep well at all.  I will wake up throughout the night with the gnawing feeling that I'm being watched by some nasty little bug eyes.

Even as I type this, I'm covered in goose-pimples and checking for any creepy-crawlies on my legs and in my ears. 

Anyway, the point is, bugs like to get in at the cracks around the windows and doors. So if a spider wants to assume a sentry position, I ain't stoppin' her. Eat up, girl, that's what I say.

So when I noticed my girl and her brood-to-be (along side of dead daddy/dinner), she noticed me too and moved quickly to guard her young 'uns.  She poised herself on top of the sack and faced me.  She waited there the whole 45 minutes I exercised.  

She probably couldn't figure out how the hell I kept walking and walking toward her without reaching her. I hope I didn't blow her mind.

If I get home from school tomorrow and she's woven REDRUM into her web, I'm moving.  

If I get home from school and she's woven SOME PIG - she's meat.