Persephone_

Great job avoiding the pull of the sofa flop!

The meetup sounds like a success! Awesome.

Guys I have only worked out once in the past almost week. Behold, my excuses! Friday the pool was closed (why didn't I run? Unknown). Didn't do any paperwork. -1 Saturday and Sunday I was in Wisconsin, visiting my grandma Saturday (spent six hours in the car) and my friend Sunday. Calling these two days valid no exercise days. No paperwork Saturday, did a little Sunday. -0.5 Monday I swam! POINTS FOR ME. And did paperwork. +2.5 Tuesday I meant to run, but instead worked on research for a paper due Friday. Not procrastinating on a paper: calling it another valid excuse. Didn't do paperwork again. -1 Today I have my swim lesson and plan to do a bunch of paperwork, will update with points when that happens. This post: +0 (not negative! that's . . . something.) Total: +48.5 Ugh.

Definitely better late than never! Love the attitude. I like the picture comparison in your first post--where'd you make it?

Updating time! Boring but necessary paperwork points from the past few days and today: +3 Wednesday I ran in the morning and, hey! The motivational speech I have to give myself to get out of bed and into my sneakers is probably only half as long as it used to be! Progress! +2 Wednesday night I had my swim lesson where my instructor was basically just like, yeah the best way to learn butterfly is to just practice it, go. Which was actually super helpful! I tried doing one-arm drills but I think it just confused me; anyone know if they're helpful if you're still learning? While practicing the whole stroke, I got to the point where I can do the keyhole part of the arm stroke and then get stuck trying to bring my arms around. I basically just dolphin kicked with occasional arm movements back and forth for half an hour which was fricking exhausting in the best possible, hey I'm accomplishing something and also it's turning off my anxious brain, way. We did take a break to practice backstroke starts which was fun. +2 Tonight I made myself go to the gym to elliptical, since the pool's super crowded nights and I didn't want to run two days in a run. The draft pre-game show was on and since I know very little about college football I entertained myself by deciding who I liked based on looks alone. (Aww, he looks nervous! This guy has jerk hair and I do not like him. That guy has a cool design shaved in to his hair, hope he goes high.) Very scientific. This post: +7 Total: +48.5

Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

And getting sleep! High fives everywhere.

Passes everywhere! This is awesome.

Yay for continued progress!

If you're interested in Zombies, Run!, all you really need is way to listen to it. (On the tablet maybe?) You can add in the mileage after you've run, which is what I do when I have to run on a treadmill. I don't know how that works out for the regular seasons, but it works for me for now!

On purpose??

Had the delightful realization during class today that I felt like I NEEDED to exercise. The last time I felt that way was when transitioning from teaching (rarely exercised, but did walk all day) to grad school, and before that probably not since the diving season ended in high school. My body is getting used to exercising and/or my class was particularly boring today. Why yes, five years of teaching DOES mean that I will notice and get easily exasperated when my professor cannot teach well. Or when she spends twenty minutes trying to turn on the volume on her computer. (She hadn't tried turning it off and on again.) After I had to explain that gmail dot org was probably not the website she was looking for. Anyway! Felt like I needed to exercise! And so I did, swimming 18 lengths including two attempts at butterfly and NOT getting water up my nose on backstroke flip turns probably 50% of the time. +2 Points! This post: +2.5 (0.5 from paperwork last night, need to do some today) Total: 41.5

Yesterday (which was a planned rest day) I crashed and fell asleep on the couch at like, 4 PM. I woke up long enough to move to the bedroom and that was it until midnight, when I woke up and read for a couple of hours. I usually have coffee in the morning but didn't have any yesterday; clearly my noncaffeinated body needed to make up some sleep debt. I only did one piece of paperwork but better than none! +0.5 Today I ran W5 D1 of Zombies, Run! C25K. I realized that I'm not horribly out of breath after running a minute anymore, which is amazing! My legs get tired but I can keep going. I am also sore calf free! I've only done one piece of paperwork so far today but plan to do more before bed. (Will give myself those points when I actually do them, though.) +2.5 This post: +3 Total: +39

I completed Week 4 of Zombies Run! HALFWAY THERE GUYS, like at least twice as far as I've ever gotten before.

You're at less than an egg a week? That is definitely improvement worth celebrating.