ApfelStrudi

I have my bike. It’s not the end of the world. It took me ten minutes from my parents house to my apartment. I’m crazy sweaty but I think that’s mostly the weather. It was actually quicker with the bike than with a car. I’m gonna practice my brave face. Ankles are still insanely stiff so no running. Just gonna have to figure out a new normal. thanks guys.

Not a good week and not getting better. I didn’t find a car. I have to give mine up tomorrow. This might sound like the silliest thing to a vast majority of people since cars are a privilege and a luxury but mine is my comfort zone. It’s what allows me to go places because I can’t do public transport. I can’t even ride in the passenger seat. And tomorrow I’ll have to ride in someone’s passenger seat for an hour on the way back from giving up my car. I won’t have a way to get to the forest or the gym or even shopping and I hurt my leg so bad running on Monday that for the first time in weeks, I didn’t leave my apartment for the past two days. It’s not my week. Once I’ve survived tomorrow, I’ll come up with a solution but this week just feels like a very long panic attack.

Will tally up points later but it remained at 2/3 gym sessions because adventuring through the forest was once again not good for my knee. Running is more important to me than gym at the moment so I didn’t want to jeopardise it and did gentle movement instead of gym session. But 6 insta posts and no takeout and of course 3/3 runs so I count it as a successful week because listening to my body is more important to me at this stage than forcing myself to the gym.

3/3 runs done! And 2/3 gym so I’ve got the weekend to get my third session in. It is still hot as balls and my trail is now temporarily closed after I called city hall to notify them of the mole because I was scared someone would get hurt. Got properly lost in the woods but made it back after all.

The heat is making everything miserable. Also the tracking! It’s much too hot to use the proper running track. I did the forest track on Monday but it’s worse every time I go. Just super uneven and with holes, so after the running drills I ran deeper into the forest. But then the tracking seemed off. so today I went back to the forest track and stayed on it until the end so I could count. It’s off by a whole lap! I ran 4.5-4.7 km (depending on how far it is to my car, I didn’t count that, but it’s 100-200 metres each way). It counted 4.06. I know it’s not worth getting worked up about and it makes sense that GPS in the forest isn’t the most reliable but it’s a bit disheartening either way. Absolutely failed at recreating a Pinterest picture of jumping over the camera and then THERE WAS A MOLE. It was digging a tunnel that was getting longer each time I passed it. Scared me half to death when suddenly the ground in front of me was moving and of course it didn’t dig just across the path but right along in the middle of it. I guess that explains all the holes in the trail. Bit sad because just running forest paths is really not great for my joints. i pulled something above my hip during RDLs yesterday. I really need to make an appointment for my next training session because I need more weight than the kettlebell for it so I used dumbbells but my form feels off during it, which is probably why I hurt myself. There was a guy in the room with me, both of us wearing headphones, only he kept talking to himself during his sets and I guess it really doesn’t matter if I do kettlebell cleans if someone next to me is hissing at himself and then boxing at the mirror in between sets. There was also a very sweaty, very stinky dude who didn’t put down his towels on the machines he used so I washed my hands a bunch of times and then immediately showered when I got home 😬 Please enjoy this wonderful jumping fail while I despair over having to buy a car in the middle of chip crisis and used cars being more expensive than new cars:

The Instagram challenge started the stupidest way - someone on tinder gave me shit for not having full body pictures on there. Which was true, because I didn’t have any. And I’ve been sort of very removed from my own body, If that makes sense. I know I’m not skinny but I was very skinny all my life up until my mid 20s or so, so my brain knows me as skinny, sees me as skinny when I look in the mirror and then I’ll see a picture of me and feel absolutely horrible about it. So I tried taking one and it wasn’t good. I figured I should have a full body picture on there because what if I actually go on a date and then they’re disappointed? I’ve since deleted dating apps and shall continue my solo life until I’m not thinking “what if they’re disappointed” because I happen to think I’m a pretty great person regardless (or maybe even because) of my cellulite and tummy and whatnot and dating (or even the idea of it) makes me forget what I know to be true. (this is a very long backstory I’m sorry) but what stuck with me was that I don’t know how to pose in pictures. At all. I’m not comfortable in front of a camera. I don’t have cool backgrounds because I’m a homebody. So I followed a bunch of people on TikTok. I looked up Pinterest pictures to recreate. I downloaded an app that takes 100 pictures over a minute so I can move and see what works. I started going on adventures and documenting them. Or even going for a hike just so I’d have a cool backdrop. I didn’t post them on Instagram at first. It feels cringey to me still to post them. That’s why my account is set to private and I have like 3 followers. It’s more a document for myself and having the possibility to make it not-private in the future. And it helps me romanticise my life a bit. Everything on social media is glossy and my life isn’t always glossy. But it makes me seek out adventure and beauty and new things more so than if I only took those pictures for myself and leaving them on my camera roll. I’m never going to be an influencer, nor do I want to be, but it’s helping me gain confidence in this body that I honestly haven’t looked at since my divorce and that was constantly put down during my marriage, when I weighed less than I do now. It’s making me feel like this body is alright - more than that, if I stop being awkward and just learn how to act in front of a camera, it’s really, really beautiful. And I can use a bit of that aaaand yes. I should look into how to properly handle a kettlebell again. I feel a bit awkward at the gym still because I’m the only person at my fitness level in the kettlebell section but i need to just get over myself. It’s not like people are actually gonna care what I do there. i forced myself to run despite the 31 degrees today. The nice running track in the forest keeps getting worse, so after the first 20 minutes I left and used the normal hiking trails for my run. I WAS SO FAST. I was honestly a bit scared I wouldn’t be able to graduate to this week because the running length went way up but I did super well. And the app didn’t track properly so it looks like I was crazy slow. Bit bummed about that cause I could’ve used the win of seeing how fast I actually was but I know it in my head so that’s alright. And I saw two wild deer, not 10 metres ahead of me!

Week 1 summary time: goal 1: left house and moved every day, did 3 zombie trainings and went to the gym 3 times! Gym was hard, I went this morning even though I very much didn’t want to but I got it done. (+1 constitution, endurance and strength) goal 2: no takeout! And I made a watermelon salad, which was a new to me thing. (+1 constitution and wisdom) goal 3: I took tons of pictures and posted four of them on Instagram. I took a bunch more because they take some setting up and I’ve banked them for future use. I think from next week on I won’t post a picture of every run but rather make it one post when I’ve completed the three runs for the week. Maybe makes it a bit more balanced. Ideally it would then be one “creative” post, one adventure and one workout per week. I’ll see how that goes. I did have a very small adventure this week but I’m not going to count it. I wanted to go see alpacas today but instead spent the day trying to find a car and fighting a migraine. I’ve noticed that currently when I’ve done one thing that means it’s the end of the day for me so adding adventure on top is proving more difficult than during the 0 week when I was avoiding workouts because of my knee. Hopefully next Saturday will be back to adventuring (+2 charisma)

Haha, I feel like if you were chasing me with zombie makeup on, my times and distances would greatly improve 😄 I’m mostly using kettlebells for RDLs and squats, which is a bit lame. Their kettlebells only go up to 20 kilos and I’ve outgrown them for RDLs already, which makes me sad. But if you have any suggestions for things to do with kettlebells that aren’t very heavy, please tell me! I’d love to do more with them because they make me happy.

I think even if you move with some stuff you don’t want to keep, getting rid of a portion of it helps. I did this trick in my last move where I procrastinated unpacking things, which I don’t necessarily recommend but it did show me what I actually use and what just takes up space cause it stayed in the boxes and then I just threw the whole box out after 😅 Your garden honestly sounds fantastic. I tried growing cucumbers on my balcony and failed enormously (they’re still alive, they just don’t have cucumbers on them). If you end up with tons of cucumbers and don’t know what to do with them: I’ve been making green goddess salad at least once a week and it’s so, so good. i think I’m gonna try the bike ride for warm up idea! My calves are mostly alright (although my running intervals are much shorter than yours so that might change) but the Z5K program is gonna make warm up walks much shorter so biking seems like a perfect idea.

There are a few communities specifically for women, women in tech and women in data come to mind. I only have experience with women in data (of course all of them cost money), they offer career coaching for their members for free as well as a mentorship program. I’m a beginner just wanting to get into the field so I’m guessing this makes more sense for someone like me but they have a fairly active slack community with tons of women helping each other out, which is so nice honestly. That said, the environment itself still feels toxic. I’m only adjacent/working in tech companies but not a developer myself, and my experience so far has been everywhere from straight up sexual harassment (tbf, that was a hardware developer) to very corporate but the women pick up all the caretaker things.

In awe of your clean-kitchen-dedication, going to use you for motivation to empty my dish washer now like a good adult

I'm a bit late to pick this up, but... I switched jobs last year, from what was basically a job I created for myself that I worked 60-80 hours a week for and just had to get out. And I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go but nothing concrete, couldn't make sense of what my skills could be good for if not this crazy job that I'd somehow found myself in that didn't exist anywhere else. So I booked a session with a resumé writer. Career coaches are crazy expensive I think but I had a 90 minute session going through my resumé and just talking about what I've done and what it could be good for and it helped me so much (and helped me land a job that was a few pay grades higher than what I had been doing). But mostly it gave me tons of confidence and sense of direction. I'm not sure if that's something you could benefit from but if it sounds like a good idea at any point, I'll happily forward you the contact details

Moving is the worst right up until you're done moving and got rid of so much stuff and know you won't have to move again for a very long time. Throwing away 5 random things every day sounds like such a good plan, I've spotted 5 things just having a look around where I'm sitting 😅

HI!!! How are you?! You were so on my mind when I joined my gym and the trainer asked "anything you like?" and I said "kettlebells, please" and he immediately made me regret it She doesn't usually crawl on my lap unless it's covered by a blanket and she forgets that it's me she's on top of so this was extra special I did SO well at the gym yesterday. It was 39° Celsius which was horrible because their air conditioning doesn't really work, it's not too bad in the cardio & machines area but the kettlebell/dumbbell room was a sauna. BUT! It was so empty. I took my sweet time and went up to the next higher weight for every single exercise and it felt so good! I'm very sore today but got my run in. So currently at 2/3 gym sessions, 3/3 runs, 0 takeout and tomorrow I'm making watermelon salad (and possibly a watermelon mocktail), going to the gym and then either tomorrow or on sunday I'll hike to possibly an alpaca farm. I've also got my 3 instagram posts in for this week. Running out of post-run poses, gonna have to switch it up at some point if I stick with the running track instead of beautiful forest scenery. The track has been amazing on my joints though and today it started raining right after I got the "mission complete" on my headphones! It was wonderful. Feels like I got out of my knee-injury-slump

Also an ant bit me in my butt. The audacity.