My friends know me far too well and this is not a good thing. Whenever one of them wants to do something that they can’t convince any of their other friends to do, they inevitably come to me knowing that I will think it is a great idea — well, at least until I realize what I have agreed to do.
A perfect example is a friend that asked me to run a half marathon. I, in my completely unfathomable logic, thought that this would somehow be a good idea (don’t even ask why — I have been asking myself that countless times and still can’t come up with anything short of temporary insanity). In fact, I thought it was a good idea for several days until I decided I better go for a run to start getting in shape for it.
A funny thing happened when I went running — mainly, I realised quite quickly that committing to run a half marathon was most definitely not a good idea. Usually your brain would be the one telling you this, but in my case it was much worse. It was literally my entire body screaming at me asking me what the hell I had done?
OK, I admit that the first few steps I was feeling pretty confident. I would say that at about step 6 is when the reality began to sink in. By the time I had gotten a mile into the run, I was ready to cough up a lung and I still hadn’t reach the hills. Suffice to say, it only got worse from there. While I did make it to the top of the hill, I was a pretty sad sight:
Me: (On a bench slumped to one side wondering if I was having a heart attack or simply that out of shape)
Woman: “Hey, are you OK?”
Me: (Looks at woman and grunts because anything else would have taken more energy than I had left)
Woman: “You don’t look so good. Would you like some water?”
Me: “Do you have a gun?”
Woman: What? (Completely confused by my question)
Me: “A gun. Do you have a gun?”
Woman: (Shakes her head “no” still obviously confused by my question) “Why?”
Me: “Because at this point, shooting myself is the only way I am ever going to feel better. You don’t even have to take my body down the hill. Just shoot me here, bury me and put me out of my misery.”
Unfortunately, nobody was willing to have mercy on me and put me out of my misery, so I actually had to make it down the hill as well. By the time I made it back home, I could barely move and every muscle in my body ached.
Now, you are probably wondering what this has to do with eating well on $1 a day. Absolutely nothing except that I was so exhausted after the run that even if I had wanted to make myself some dinner, there was absolutely no way I could have actually gathered up the strength to get out of the chair, let alone make it to the kitchen. I think tomorrow is definitely going to be a rest day.
Blackberry Yellow Cherry Plum Smoothie
The day started off so well with a blackberry and yellow plum cherry combo morning smoothie. That was the last of my blackberries (I still have quite a few yellow cherry plums to use), so another stop to forage on my morning walk is in order (assuming that I will ever be able to walk again which at this point looks to be a pretty big assumption)
Tomato Cucumber Pasta Salad
I needed to use up the last of the whole wheat pasta and since I had leftovers of tomato cucumber salad I made, combining them made perfect sense:
Because I was in no shape to do much of anything once I came back from my run, I ended up snacking on random things I still had left around. I finished off the carrots I had, made myself a peanut butter sandwich and had a bowl of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. Not a very good way to eat at night, but at that point my body wasn’t very happy with me and wasn’t going to let me do anything except the simplest of meal making tasks
This is the current list of food I still have
This is the current list of what I have purchased:
Goal: 100 days eating on $1 a day
Current Money Spent: $76.11
Money Left to Spend: $23.89 ($0.85 must be spent at CVS)
Retail Value of Everything Purchased: $1473.94
The Beginning ::: Day 100: The Final Day
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DUDE. You need the “Couch to 5K” program (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml). They start you out small, by interspersing like five minutes of brisk walking with one minute of running, four or five times in a row, the first week, and move you up gradually.
Do NOT just jump into it like that!
But: Best of luck however you approach it.
Here’s a different one: http://www.marathontraining.com/faq/faq_br.html
My body would’ve jumped up and kicked my butt at step 3!
Oh gosh, I am picturing how the woman’s face must have looked when you asked to be put out of your misery.
HAR HAR GUFFAW!!!
I admire your courage for starting the run, instead of just chickening out. And I admire your ability to get anywhere near as far as you have.
Let us know how it works out?
I was going to suggest the couch to 5k as well, I’m doing (a version of) it right now and am doing pretty good. I hit 40 min for a 5k this morning.
I did Hal Higdon’s 5k training program and it was great!
Stop making me laugh out loud when I’m at work!
Oh my goodness!!!! I was in a similar situation last year – except my friends didn’t talk me into doing a half-marathon, I talked MYSELF into it.
However, you CAN do it – IF you get yourself a decent training program and enough time to train. If a woman who was 20 pounds overweight and never walked further than 3 miles (and that very seldom), can get trained AND COMPLETE a half-marathon in less than six months, MOST people can!