Last Place Runner

Yesterday, after talking to my friend Lauren about how we’re doing on dietbet (me: fatter; her: skinnier), my husband took me out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Where I ate basically three small loaves of bread in olive oil dipping sauce and half a stromboli.

On the way home, I told my husband, “It’s not that I feel bad, I just don’t feel good.” And sure enough, I was awake before three this morning paying for my dinner. If you know what I mean. I was exhausted, but I survived it, so I took a sick day. I just took a shower around 11:30, and I’ve taken out the trash and gotten the mail, but otherwise I’m convalescing today.

Yesterday wasn’t all a wash, though. My local running group opened registration for this year’s 5K training program. So I signed up immediately! I’d been going back through the training at the gym, mostly to try to gain some speed. I’d been doing so much HIIT with the trainer that I started to worry I couldn’t run a mile any more! And considering how unbelievably good the program was for me last year, and how many people I met that I wouldn’t have known otherwise, I was already considering redoing the training.

Last year we started in October to prepare for a 5K in December. But this year we start toward the end of August. So it is going to be really hot, sometimes maybe even dangerously so. But that’s one of the benefits of the group: Training with coaches who know what they’re doing and who know how to help you make the fewest mistakes. Plus, when I told Lauren about it, she told me she would volunteer again, which is how we met anyway! She stuck with me while I learned to run! Then she asked me to be on relay team for the half marathon.

Today, for the first time in more than a year, I’m not wearing a fitness tracker. I like my new Vivofit, mainly because I can see a countdown to my step goal. That’s really fun. But Vivofit is also really lonely after being with Fitbit for so long. My husband said he likes that I haven’t been using the Fitbit because now he always beats me in the daily steps. But today I did what I should’ve done instead of ordering that Vivofit two weeks ago. I upgraded my Fitbit.

Today is Prime Day on Amazon and, as a long-time Prime member, I was able to get a Fitbit Charge HR and a $25 Amazon credit. I can’t explain, though, why the Charge in the small size was $5 more than the large. The Charge has an adjustable wristband like a watch (not like the wristband on the Flex with the awkward metal bauble), so I measured my wrist and decided I could wear the large on its last notch. (WHY can’t I say the same for my belts? I mean, other than I don’t wear a belt because I’d rather eat three loaves of bread and a stromboli with as little inference as possible.)

So now I’ve got to decide what to do with my old Fitbit and my old, but very new, Vivofit. I asked my mom if she and my dad would use them, and she gave me her standard answer: Maybe! Because they are going to totally, totally start using their local rec center!

And, of course, I got my Kindle edition of “Go Set a Watchman” yesterday. After 20 years of pining for a first-edition Harper Lee, it never even occurred to me to actually order the real, live book. Until yesterday when I was trying to sync my old school Kindle and I thought, “There’s got to be a better way!” And I just realized I’ll have something from Amazon on the doorstep every single day this week.

Don’t ask.

Well, OK.

Fitbit, arriving Friday

Go Set a Watchman, arriving Thursday

Toddy Brewing System, arrived Wednesday

Body Back Buddy, arrived Tuesday