Rejected!

To those who read my old Yahoo 360 blog, this is very similar to a post that I wrote on Yahoo 360 about being a "fitness program reject."

It's that time of year again. I'm not referring to it being ski season or time to bring out the ice spikes. Every February the Healthy Lifestyle Challenge takes place on base. But, alas, I won't be participating in it. The reason I'll be on the sidelines while others on base are collecting points and accolades for their participation in the program is because I'm a fitness program reject. Why am I a fitness program reject? I'm too fit.

The Healthy Lifestyle Challenge was not the first fitness program that turned me down. The US government has a civilian fitness program for its employees. If you're accepted into it, you can take off from work one hour early three days a week. At the time I applied to participate in the Hohenfels civilian fitness program (1997-98 time frame),  one of my major goals was to run a 10K race in under 50 minutes. I had come tantalizingly close several times, but never seemed to be able to crack the 50-minute barrier. I finally did it in 2004, but that's another story. I heard about the civilian fitness program at the gym, got an application, and filled it out. There were several goals listed on the application: lose weight, quit smoking, quit drinking alcohol, lower blood pressure, improve aerobic fitness, improve diet, and other. I checked the "other" block, wrote, "Improve my 10K and marathon times," and gave it to my supervisor to sign. My supervisor signed it because he knew that I could get my work done even if I took off three hours a week to train. But his supervisor rejected my application and said that improving my 10K and marathon times was not printed on the form. Therefore, they were not valid reasons for participating in the program. He also said that this program is a short-term program for people who are unfit to get them started on what will hopefully become a permanent fitness routine. Being a long distance runner made me too fit for the program. If I was an obese alcoholic with high blood pressure who smoked, then I would have been readily accepted.

When I got the rejection from my supervisor's boss, I tried the "glory through sports" angle. Hey, it worked for the Soviet Union and the former East Bloc countries. It's a real unit pride thing in the military, and among civilian organizations working for the military, to do well in on-base and inter-base sporting events. Softball and volleyball tournaments as well as running races are great ways for units to get accolades. I told the big boss that improving my race times and placing high in on-base and local races would bring glory, or at least good publicity, to our division. But he didn't budge from his position. If it wasn't printed on the form, it was a no-go. He knew that I didn't smoke, didn't drink much, and didn't need to lose weight. My blood pressure was good, as was my aerobic fitness. I could have checked the block about improving my diet. But ice cream and chocolate really should be their own food groups. Fitness Program Rejection Number One.

During my first winter in Garmisch, I saw fliers at the gym for the Healthy Lifestyle Challenge. It sounded interesting, so I thought that I'd try to do it. When I talked to one of the gym employees about it, he told me, "You're not the kind of person we want for this program. You're too fit." He explained that the program, like the year-round civilian fitness program, was designed to help the unfit learn more about exercise and diet and to (hopefully) permanently incorporate what they learned. Fitness Program Rejection Number Two.

I think it's great that the government is encouraging unfit people to get into the gym and take those first steps toward a healthier lifestyle. But  I think that those who are already fit should also be encouraged to participate in its programs. Even those of us who are physically fit still have goals like being able to lift more weight, becoming more flexible, or running faster. It would be nice if the existing fitness programs had goals that accomodate both fit and unfit people. But until that day comes, I will live with the honor of being a two-time fitness program reject.

A Little Running

It has been a while since I actually wrote something about running. I've been focusing more on the "and life" side of things. The main reason is there hasn't been anything remarkable about my running lately.

After three weeks in the States, where I only ran three times and did the elliptical trainer twice, I put on some weight. Much as I would have liked to, I couldn't blame it on drying my pants in the dryer instead of on a clothesline or female hormonal cycles. When I went back to work a couple of weeks ago, my work uniform was tight. Since the uniform company does the laundering, I couldn't be in denial any longer. Nope, it was from eating too much good (and not so good for you) food and a decreased activity level.

My running was already at a fairly low level due to hamstring problems that I've had for the past year. After my half-marathon last October, I should have taken some time off to rest it. But I didn't. I trained through it for my half-marathon last June, then decided to really take it easy. I had a 10K race in mind in Wolfratshausen (about halfway between Garmisch and Munich) in October, but realized after coming back from the States that it wasn't realistic to do it. Now I'm taking things easier and really enjoying my runs instead of viewing them as training for my next race.

The one good thing about my long break is that it allowed my hamstring problems to improve. While the muscles haven't healed 100%, they are much better than they were before my trip. It used to be that I would feel soreness in the butt crease on my right side that would radiate down my hamstring. I would run through it because I was so used to it. Now I just feel a slight soreness in the butt crease that gets better each time I run. There is no more soreness radiating down my leg. I've been keeping my runs in the 5-6 km range, though I'm starting to increase my longer runs to about 7 or 8 km.

I can tell that I'm losing the weight that I gained in the States. My clothing isn't so tight anymore. I'm also getting my speed back. When I first came back, I was very slow and sluggish. Part of that was because of warm weather, but it was also due to carrying a couple of extra kilograms. With the cooler weather and losing my "States weight," I'm feeling faster again. I still wouldn't call myself a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm quickly getting back to where I was.

There are several choices of races to do next year. If I'm feeling 100% healthy with no muscle issues, I may try for the Munich Marathon in October 2012. If I don't do the marathon, I can do my usual City Run half-marathon in June, the half-marathon that accompanies the marathon in October, the Wolfratshausen 10K, or the Eibsee Run in October. I could also do a combination of any of those races. I'll see how I'm doing after ski season.

Azeri Entertainment at the Gym

On Sunday it was pouring rain, so I had to run on the treadmill at the gym. When I use the treadmill, I watch one of the TVs while listening to the music on my iPod. Most of the time I watch whatever is on the TV in front of my treadmill. But that TV was showing what I call "lame CNN," or the Stateside version of CNN. I prefer CNN International because it has a more worldwide focus. Stateside CNN is very US-centric and sensationalistic, like any other American newscast.

The TV next to the one with "lame CNN" was on a Ukrainian channel that was showing a news report. When the news ended, a show called, "Catastrophe" came on. "Catastrophe" shows various disasters like plane crashes, train derailments, building collapses, etc. But it seems to focus on how people miraculously survived those particular disasters, at least that's what I got from watching without sound. As I was watching "Catastrophe," a man started using a treadmill to my right and decided to change the channel. I was a little miffed because he didn't ask if he could change the channel. He probably figured that I was watching the TV with CNN, which was directly in front of my treadmill. But I was starting to get into "Catastrophe" and also getting some practice reading Cyrillic characters (I have been slacking off on my Russian studies lately, and  I know that Ukrainian is a different language than Russian. But they both use the Cyrillic alphabet.). I couldn't really complain since I was just watching the pictures on the TV and listening to music.

My fellow treadmill user changed the channel to Lider TV, which is a channel from Azerbaijan. For those who don't know where Azerbaijan is, it's located on the west side of the Caspian Sea near Armenia and Georgia. Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic with the world's nicest people. I think that Azerbaijan means, "Land of the World's Friendliest People" in the Azeri language because the Azeri students I work with are very open and friendly.

The program on Lider TV that the other person on the treadmill wanted to watch was a very bad movie. It was the most low-budget movie that I've seen in a long time. It was sepia-toned, like a silent movie from 100 years ago. There seemed to be one camera angle. It was like the director never advanced beyond old silent movie filming techniques. The main characters in this film were members of a tribe in a jungle. All of the men in the movie had bad wigs with black shoulder-length hair. Their beards and mustaches were obvious fakes. Most of the men in the movie wore what looked like grass skirts, though there were a few who wore leopard print skirts. The few women of the tribe wore leopard print tops with their grass skirts. The chief wore a crown and the other men wore Viking helmets with horns, though several men wore headbands with Viking horns (they must have run out of money to buy helmets for all of the actors). But the best part of all was the tribesmen's teeth. They were supposed to look like fangs but ended up looking just like the plastic novelty teeth that my son gave out as party favors at his 10th birthday party.

There wasn't much action in this movie. The men did a lot of dancing around a fire and talking with each other. Sometimes they danced with spears and sometimes without them. At one point in the movie there was a dragon, which was really two people in a dragon costume. The tribespeople saw the dragon coming and fled as quickly as they could from it. What made that scene so comical was that the people in the dragon costume seemed to be moving out of synch with each other and extremely slowly. The tribe could have casually sauntered away from the dragon and still escaped from it. This movie really held my attention because it was so bad. I'm sure that if I could have heard and understood the dialogue, it would have been just as awful as the costumes. Sometimes it's best to just watch the action and listen to music. When I'm on the treadmill, it seems like I check the timer every 5 seconds because it gets pretty boring running in one place, even with music and silent TV. But I really got caught up in the hokeyness of that movie and actually kept my eyes on it instead of the treadmill timer. Maybe I just need to watch bad, low-budget foreign movies to keep indoor workouts halfway entertaining.

Another thing that I noticed about watching Azeri TV is the number of Western products that were advertised during the commercial breaks. I saw ads for: Nivea lotion, Dreft laundry liquid, Coca-Cola, and Pampers disposable diapers. It seems like as soon as Azerbaijan became independent from the Soviet Union, Western companies started selling their products there.

I'm hoping for some good weather so that I can run outdoors. But if I end up using the treadmill in the gym, I'll have to check out Lider TV's Low Budget Cinema to help pass the time.

Total Exercise for 2010

In 2010 I actually kept an exercise log. To make it a little more interesting, I did my log as a fantasy run on the route of  the Trans-Siberian Railroad. I started in Vladivostock, on the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and ended up somewhere between the cities of Mogocha and Chita. I'll continue along this route until I reach Moscow. This fantasy run made me realize just how big a country Russia really is. I'm still in Siberia, east of Lake Baikal. Here are my totals for running, skiing, cycling, and walking in 2010:

Running: 1249.1 km
Skiing: 513.5 km
Cycling: 343.2 km
Walking: 82 km
Total km: 2187.8


Races run in 2010:
Munich City Run Half-Marathon, June 2010: 1:55:52
Munich Half-Marathon, October 2010: 1:53:45

The totals for cycling and walking are lower than the actual number of kilometers that I cycled and walked. I only counted bike rides of over 2 kilometers. If I went someplace in town that was less than 1 km from my house, I didn't count those rides. The same went for walking. I only counted walks over 2 km. There were also a lot of walks over 2 km that I simply forgot to enter on my spreadsheet. My husband and I would often take walks that were about 3 km. Most of the time I forgot to log them. I'll have to be more diligent about that in 2011. The skiing total is fairly accurate because of the new website which records the information on my ski pass. Whenever I go through a turnstile to get onto a lift or gondola, that information is recorded. When I log onto the website, I can get the number of vertical meters and kilometers that I skied. My running total is also accurate, though it seems a little bit low for having run two half-marathons this year. From January to March I skied a lot and didn't run as much, which could account for that figure.

Almost 2200 kilometers is a good amount of exercise. It's certainly a lot better than spending that time sitting on the couch. I plan to keep on being active in 2011.