tomato plants

My little seedlings went outside for the very first time this year. They were spindly and starving for sun.

I skipped run club (again!) and jogged with my husband and dog for an hour, about 6.5 miles. A bit of fatigue/pressure/rawness is still there, but much less than yesterday.

Then I used the new weights for the first time. This has been the highlight of my week. We bought more dumbbells on our way back, this time handles and plates. More weight! Adjustable! I am pumped in multiple ways. My favourite part of lifting weights is approaching pain. (This isn't bad pain). Discomfort trudges boringly for a bit and then it gives way to a deeper, more insistent edge: no more please, just STOP. But that's when the magic starts happening. That's when it gets really exciting; the pain melts into joy and becomes glorious. And then, a few reps later, impending shakes and exhaustion. I don't go to failure: the thought of involuntarily dropping something on my foot stops me well before then. Maybe I'm nowhere near that point. Maybe there are more levels to strain through.

Sometimes on the last set, I keep adding reps until I hit a properly thrilling level of effort. one more, not yet, one more, not yet, one more, and there it is.

I contemplate tearing through a bunch of little myosin and actin fibers while at rest now; at the time, it's simpler. I don't think about anything. Maybe one word echoes, a single syllable like "go" or "yes". The mental chatter pauses. That's a big release. I pick up some weights and the mental ones are lifted too.

But I am still so weak. The gut issues have taken a toll over the past 15+? years. I used to do weights regularly about ten years ago (and was ALWAYS hungry), but before that, I was simply young and strong. I left for university with a bag and a trunk. I carried the trunk down the stairs and down the street and lifted it into the car. Then I carried it through the train station and lifted it onto a scale. The VIA guy told me I had to pay fifty bucks because it weighed just over 80 or 85 pounds. I scoffed and picked it up and held it at chest level and told him that the scale must be off. Look, it's easy! I didn't have to pay. Unfortunately, the change of diet in university rez didn't agree with me and I lost about thirty pounds during the first term, very little of which was fat.

It is my goal to get that strength back.

The new weights smell industrial. It's the coating more than the metal itself, I think. Not the most pleasant smell but it's got that curiously reassuring sweaty gym atmos: stuff is going to get done!

As for running...this will be a forty-mile week. Not 50. A break before three harder weeks (hopefully).