Wednesday Fast Walk

Alright local ladies, we're on a real Chub Club roll now!

Thanks to the persistence of Kate, we now have an official Chubby Mommy Fast Walking Club. We've met twice, and will meet again this Wednesday at 6:30 a.m., near Sawyer Park in Bend, so we can walk around the river.

Here's the link for the meetup place: Click here for a map

Turn north on 1st street from Portland and drive until you see a place to park (no cross street, it dead-ends.) If you switch to satellite view you can see the trail.

We are going early because it's still so very, very hot at lunch time. But we can have evening options if people are interested.

Any of you non-locals who need help getting a Chubby Mommy Running Club started in your area, email me, and I'll lead you to some great online tools to get you started.

Or, just grab some friends and tell them "we're walking with our virtual friends today!" We can all Twitter while we walk and post pictures. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

And yes, of course, it's okay to run, and you don't have to be chubby to participate. And you don't have to walk fast, we'll team up by desired speeds.

T-shirts coming soon!

Almost, not quite

Pages and pages of words, typed into the computer then taped onto her bedroom wall. Stories and characters made up to help her understand what it means to grow up, and how to live outside the garden of her childhood.

Sweet, young, flowing words.

Scared of Kate

Turns out that Fawn the runner, and all of her "Let's train for a half marathon!" exuberance is not half as scary as Kate.

Turns out Kate's a fast walker.

Kate is now the first official member of the Chubby Mommy Running-Walking Club. She drove to my house and walked my hilly run-route with me after work. After she rode her bike to work, and rode her bike home.

After I ate my Trader Joe's Fettuccine Alfredo and stir fry veggies (yum!)
Kate walks about as fast as I run. So she made me walk that fast too. She was being nice; I think she slowed down for me a little. I know she did.

I made excuses about being sick and not sleeping last night (which is true, but always sounds lame) and she pretended, with me, that I was usually in much better shape, and my huffy puffy breathing was a fluke, and maybe, although unspoken, allergy related. Which isn't true, but it's always nice to have it as a back up excuse.

Kate has a cool walker/runner's watch, by Polar, I think, which measures her heart rate and stuff. Super technical. I think Kate likes information, since she's a librarian. Never underestimate librarians.

Kate said the watch said she burned 357 calories in the 42 miles we walked (oops, I mean minutes, 42 minutes.) It measured this for her. I'm hoping I burned more, since I'm much chubbier than her. It'd be that, not the opposite way, right? I was way more out of breath than her, so I must have used more calories, right?

I need one of those watches, so I'll know exactly how much Fettuccine Alfredo I can eat before Kate comes over next time. And how many martinis I can drink afterwards.

Kate also told me about Traineo which is pretty cool, so I have my own little club set up there at. Tell me if you join, so I can check it. I sign up for any free thing out there. I have an entire book filled with passwords. It's silly, but true. But I don't always check stuff, except Twitter and this blog.

So now Kate is my hero for today, and I will do whatever it takes to walk as fast as I usually run, while pretending, badly, that I'm in half as good shape as Kate.

The next round of walking or running with Chubby Mommy Running-Walking Club is Wednesday, June 25, at 12:15 in the parking lot near the COCC campus library in Bend. Email me for more specifics directions if you need them.

Come one, come all, especially if you are fun, accepting, and friendly. We can have many groups, so fast-ish walking Kate-types can lead one pack. Fawn and other runner types can sprint ahead, and regular people, like me, can hang back and chat about cupcakes and babies and how our throats are sore and we might be allergic to the grass.

For the record, we all know I could sprint with Fawn or fast-walk with Kate, but since I'll be in hostess mode, and you'll be my guests, I'll walk slower than I usually walk, or run. I wouldn't want anyone to feel left out. Just so you know.

So, who's in?

Knees

Once again, miracle of all miracles, I went running today. And walking. Because I'm so very chubby now that my knees have instructed me to be careful out there on those hills. And my lungs have chimed in their requests too.

Seems my body parts are willing to cooperate with my brain's instructions to run up the hills, so long as I'm careful and don't push them too much.

Funny body. Weird how it's changing. Weirder yet that I'm starting to recognize it as the fat-ish body again. Dang it. It was so cute and hot for a couple years there, between the babies and pre-menopause. I even have pictures to prove it.

Now it's back to it's recognizable chubby self.

"But it doesn't have to be this way," says the brain. "Remember all those athletes you saw this weekend? The ones at that party, who were eating and drinking as if time and distance didn't matter? Those little waif women who filled their plates twice and ate Hans' cake after dinner?"

Oh yes. I say. I remember them. I stood and watched them. And talked to them. And, if I recall, listened to them sigh as they said they weren't looking forward to their 9 mile run tomorrow after all this yummy fun.

9 miles. Nine.

That's 3 times more than I usually run.

When I run.

If I run.

But I bet if I ran 9 miles on a Saturday, I could eat and drink lovely things like homemade cake from Hans, the amazing retired baker of Hans' restaurant in Bend. I bet I could eat all the good things I want and not worry so much about the chubs coming to take over my knees and lungs and good looks.

Alas. I'll need to lose some chub before my body will even entertain the 9 mile idea. My best distance is 6 miles I think.

It's a physics thing, I hear. Something about every 5 pounds of fat stressing your joints as much as an elephant standing on the head of a pin. Or something.

It's so complicated. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Guess I'll go to bed and try again tomorrow.

Finally Summer

It's funny how we're so programmed by the school year. I feel like a weight has been lifted off me now that school's out.

I haven't gone to school in years, and keeping the kids entertained while mom and dad are both working at home should have caused an alarm bell to ring in my head shortly after the final school bell beeped.

Instead, I feel a sudden lightness and carefree laziness called summer creeping into my work day. Now I moise into my office around 8:00, instead of checking my email at 6:30 a.m. And I think about going to lunch with friends instead of what time it is on the east coast where several of my clients live.

We drink coffee on the porch in the morning and wine on the porch in the evening now. It feels like work is something that happens between coffee and wine.

Is it the children's excitement of sleeping in and playing in the sprinkler and realizing they're tall enough to climb a bigger tree this year that's done it? Or am I finally calming down and learning to relax?

Or maybe something darker and scarier has happened. Maybe I'm finally realizing I will die eventually, and I won't miss conference calls and emails (except the funny ones!) but I will miss the puppies and the children and my coffee man and wine friends.

But, but? Maybe not so scary. Maybe not so dark. Maybe sunshine and light are just winning over for the moment.

Finally summer. Summer, finally.

Running for Milk

It's Saturday. I get up at 5:40 a.m. with Pierre the puppy, like usual. By 6:30, I'm ready for coffee, but husband is still sleeping and I like to drink coffee with him. I think about running, but read the paper instead, and get pigs ears for the dogs so they'll stop chasing each other and waking up the kids.

By 7:00 I'm ready for cereal, but alas, no milk. At 7:20 I start bugging husband to get up and join the day. He's so sleepy. I'm so mean. I know I should let him sleep in. Plus, still no milk. We can't have coffee without milk anyway.

So I decide to run to the store to get milk.

Distance wise, it's about what I usually run. Or walk. And the running down to the store is easy. Running home with a jug of milk uphill is hard. So I don't, I walk instead.

I walk through the woods since it seems more natural. I feel sort of like Ma Ingalls walking home from town, minus the sun bonnet. Except Ma had a cow at home, so she wouldn't have had to run down the hill for milk on Saturday morning, or walk back up.

But they had to eat that poor cow during the long winter, which was so sad. Pierre's just too little to eat. He'd barely make a bowl of soup.

I'm so lucky, really, to be able to run and walk for milk on a Saturday morning. And even luckier that I don't have to eat my pets when the weather turns harsh. So many things to be thankful for today...

I think I'll go drink my coffee now.

So Sorry for the Delay...

Had some writer's block there for a while. Dumb excuse, but true.

Thanks to my loyal fans who kept checking in and bothering me with demanding emails to post more.

I've been twittering a lot, which shows up on my blog, but it's not the same as silly little stories, I know.

So here are some things I've been thinking about:

1. School's out. What the heck do we do with these kids all day now?
2. Potty Training. We've taken to keeping the puppy on a leash all day to help in potty training. He's with one of us, to lessen the guilt, but I fear he'll get a neck ache, eventually.
3. Cupcakes. I've been thinking about cupcakes a lot. I've enjoyed getting to know a new cupcake shop in town, Le Cakery. Yum, yum, and yum. It's on Galveston next to the sports equipment shop, across the street from Dilusso's. Tell them Chubby Mommy sent you.
4. The Power of Now my friend Patty turned me on to this book. I'm trying to stay in the now, but my mind always spins to future possibilities all day long. Still, I'm trying.
5. Meditation my friend Lisa taught me a mantra: "Breathing in I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile." It sort of works. Especially at 2:00 a.m. I don't want to get out of bed, or the puppy needs his outside-potty-eat some chow routine. Which I don't want to do at 2:00 a.m. So this mantra helps me get back to sleep.
6. Running. Okay, I lied here. I haven't thought about this in ages. I've been walking occasionally, but can't even remember the last time I ran. I need to start again. The weather's nice, the kids don't need me in the morning now, and I really don't need to get on my computer at 6:00 a.m., so I should start running again. I mean I will. I wonder if I need new shoes again?

Comments, please. Help me, dear friends. I need you.