Bye, bye, 2013.

Part one: run: 30 minute jog with the dog.  We walked a bit too.  My energy was pretty low this morning.  I'm taking supplements but don't seem to be absorbing much of what I eat. 

Part two: reflections: 2013 has been an odd year.  It was, quite simply, a retrenchment.  A slow beginning (sick and homeless, but just temporarily), and a blah sluggy end, and overall blandness, but with some unexpected highlights.  I didn't expect to run my first official ultra this year.

Part three: hopes for 2014.  Eh...well, here are the athletic ones.

1.  use our new pull up bar for an actual real pullup.  I'm going to start doing 'negatives' once I get my energy levels back up.  Starting point is 1/2 a pullup.  Yeah!  I'm also going to renew my 1-armed pushup pursuit.  I did one this year, but on a slight slope.  That was enough for me in 2013, but not in 2014.  This might help.

2.  run.  Race?  I don't know. 

3.   get through the summer without melting as much.

4.  start doing yoga regularly, just a short bit in the morning, and then whatever yin poses I need in the evening.   I still have to decide on a morning routine.

5.  keep up the ab work, and get back to the weights.

6.  BE THAT PERSON.  I have to be more assertive when it comes to possible gluten contamination.  I have to accept that I just can't eat anything prepared in certain restaurants or kitchens.  If they have a cloud of flour back there, anything coming out will get me sick.  I think I got sick this time off of some home baking that was in itself GF, but prepared in a non-GF kitchen.

I have been struggling with this for the past couple of years or so because I feel bad when people feel bad about excluding me.  I simply have to do a better job of convincing them that I simply don't have to eat at times.  The flipside has been enlightening: our recent visitors have (indirectly) reminded me that they are more susceptible to hypoglycemia and thus have to eat more often.  Though I graze at home and look forward to snack breaks at work, and sometimes eat a shocking disgusting amount at a single sitting, I often don't think about eating when I'm out.  I could go for hours with just water.  I don't eat much in the way of refined carbs except when I'm exercising, and so I'm not dealing with those persistent sugar cravings.  I salivate in front of the butcher case or chip aisle, and sometimes I remain starving no matter how much I eat, but I'm not dealing with surges of cravings.  However, other people don't understand this absence, and so they offer me food options which assuage their sense of obligation, and they often expend a fair deal of effort in trying to offer me GF food.  Unfortunately, like Yoda says, there is no try.  It's absolute.  My intestinal epithelium isn't protected by good intentions.  That's that.  I gotta be that weird person who doesn't eat sometimes.

 In 2014 (and beyond), I will not guilt eat or polite eat.

Meanwhile, to sum up in music: 

2013  Maybe...ok, I just picked one of my favourite music videos.
2014