In case you’re wondering what happened to CouchCam, it’s currently facing the wall to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities with the sight of a half-naked Scotsman. That’s right, folks, Ben (aka WeeB, aka The Ferret) is visiting us in Sydney for the first time. He flew in Thursday night and we immediately took him out for a Nepalese feast at House of Kathmandu. (The best part was the complete lack of guilt I felt, given that I’d had a run that morning and watched my Points all day long.) Friday was devoted to giving Ferret a tour of our fair city. We walked for probably five hours all up, taking time in the middle of the day to join the Snook and his co-workers for lunch. It was a bright and beautiful day, and despite my slip, slop, slap I still ended up rockin’ the farmer’s tan. I snapped a couple pictures not realizing that my camera was in some weird overexposure mode, but I kinda like the results:

In the afternoon I went on my longest run yet: all the way down Cleveland Street to the Sydney Cricket Ground, around Fox Studios past the horse stables and up to the start of Centennial Park, then back down Anzac Parade to Cleveland, turning right on Chalmers and running around Central Station before heading back down Broadway to home. Elapsed time: one hour five minutes. Distance: 8.5km (which, due to the fuzziness of my pedometer’s calculations, I’m dubbing “Kristy Mystery units”). I can definitely tell I’m improving though. Once I get warmed up, I don’t really need to stop and walk at all. (What rest I need I’m getting at traffic lights.) I’m also enjoying myself more, and I think I’m starting to get into that mental state runners talk about where you just seem to be able to brainstorm and work things out and solve the problems of the world. Maybe it’s a rhythm thing and I’m getting consistent enough that I go into a kind of self-hypnosis. *shrug* At any rate, it’s nice to finally be able to think about things other than the screaming aches and wearinesses of my own body. When I came to the cricket field at Sydney Boys’ High, I headed to the right intending to skirt along the footpath, but then impulsively I decided to head right across it instead. Nearby a young guy was teaching a little kid to skateboard, and an old couple were throwing tennis balls to their dogs, who were rolling around on the grass in doggy ecstasy… and I just couldn’t help smiling. Some days Sydney just won’t let you be in a bad mood.

I shouldn’t have whined about staying the same weight for three weeks. I had a gain. Yeah, turducken and all, but it’s still depressing. I’m now back to 2.4kg away from wearing my new shoes. I know that’s nothin’, and I should be thinking about how it’ll only take two weeks to get rid of. But I’m not. People keep complimenting me and I smile and thank them for their encouragement… but I don’t think any of them realize how down I am about my progress right now. I know I’ve had peaks and troughs before, but the trough I’m in is lower than I’ve felt since I began WW seven months ago. I was in the shower the other day, not thinking about anything in particular, when suddenly my brain just stated: “You can’t do it. You’ll never do it.” And then it was out there, and I can’t seem to shake this feeling of powerlessness and self-loathing. I forced myself to a kickboxing class Monday night (mostly in the hopes that it would mitigate what was sure to be a gain at the meeting last night), but it left me so sore and bruised and tired afterwards that I just felt on the verge of a breakdown. Yesterday afternoon I had a crazy e-mail exhange with the Snook – “Why am I always starving? I HATE MYSELF.” – in which I tried to rationalize skipping the meeting but he wouldn’t let me. I left work dreading the weigh-in and wanting nothing more than to sit at home and eat leftover pumpkin pie and be completely self-destructive. And that made me so damn angry with myself that I decided to do the most painful, punishing thing I could think of: I went running. I put on my goddamn shoes and hobbled out the door. I ran all the way down Harris Street to Pyrmont, around by the Anzac Bridge and the Fish Markets, and then back up Wattle Street to home. Along that back stretch I was definitely in some pain – my side ached, my ankle was sore – but I could see someone else coming towards me, someone as red-faced and sweaty and slow as I was. It was only just as we reached each other that I realized it was Karen, one of the girls from my WW meeting. We shared a wave and a smile. Anyway, I got home and showered and made it to the meeting, and the whole time I was sitting there I was still feeling depressed and like everything I’d accomplished was a big fluke. Megan told us that motivation is a combination of how important a goal is to you and how confident you are in your ability to reach it. My confidence was at rock bottom… But then at the end of the meeting Megan announced that we had a milestone to celebrate, that someone had just passed the 30 kilos lost mark… and it was Karen. I felt both inspired by her and completely jealous, and then that made me feel like a big selfish jerk. I need to get out of this rut and I need it to happen fast. I’m seeing the hypnotherapist again on Friday, and I’m hoping to see her again the next week. In the meantime, I’m just going to take it one day at a time.

Now THIS is what I need instead of running on the road: The Treadmill Bike. HA!

I actually got out of bed at 6:30 this morning and went running. I KNOW! Threw the whole family’s schedule out-of-whack. The cat was like, “Whuuuut?” I ran the same route as Sunday, hoping to improve on my time a bit. I really need to get a stopwatch; I just rely on my iPod to tell me how long I’ve been gone. I could tell I was definitely going faster though. I remember that “Pump Up the Jam” (thanks, Max!) kicked in around the Fish Markets last time, whereas today I was quite a bit farther along Pyrmont Bridge Road. I could almost see the ghost of myself a couple hundred yards back and I was trying to concentrate on beating her to Glebe. Unfortunately running on one day’s rest is a lot harder than running on three days’ rest for me, and by the time I got up the hill to Glebe Point Road I had a burning stitch in my side. I had to walk a couple blocks to get my breath back. I finished fairly strong though and I think I ended up cutting two or three minutes off my time in the end. I’ll see that as a big win though, considering how much pain I was in and how much heavier the traffic was on a weekday (meaning I couldn’t blow through a lot of the lights). My ankle’s a little sore now though… I think I need some new running shoes. These are over a year old!

Trail Note
Did I mention that I’m running again? Well, I am. Lately I’ve just been taking off after work – I loooove daylight savings – and heading in a different direction. I’ve been through the uni and up through Newtown to St. Peters and back; down Cleveland Street as far as Moore Park and back; and this morning I zig-zagged my way through Ultimo to Darling Harbour. It was a GORGEOUS day to be out. I passed a group of old Asian ladies doing Tai Chi near the Exhibition Centre and debated on joining them. I saw vendors setting up stalls for the Thai food festival later this arvo. I chugged past tourists on Pyrmont Bridge trying to capture the perfect city skyline shot. Mostly I just marvelled at how magnificent Sydney can be on a summer day… And of course I sweated. I sweated a lot. (Thanks, hypnotist.)

At last, the 87-kilo glass floor has been shattered! After weeks of bouncing between 87 and 88, I’ve finally dropped to 86.6. We are closing in on fifteen kilos’ loss, kids!

And to what do I attribute this progress? Merely the fact that I’ve literally been exercising my ass off lately. Last week I worked out six days in a row. SIX! That’s more than I’ve done since high school. I’ve been mixing it up too – boxing, squash, yoga, running, walking. I wasn’t sure I was going to get the loss in the end, since my daily weigh-ins have all been a little higher (and I drank a lot of beer on the weekend). I’ve also been ravenous with all this new energy expenditure. I think my metabolism has finally kicked into gear though, and hopefully it’s gonna stay this way. Eighty-five, here I come!

I went running in the park this morning for the first time in two weeks. It was a little later than my last run – more like 8:30 than 6:30 – and consequently it wasn’t so chilly out. I still had some slight sniffliness, but not anything near as bad as I had last time. I did wipe my nose on my sleeve though. Just so you know.

Oh god. I was worried this would happen. I’ve been tagged!

Q: What are you training for now?
A: Nothing in particular. To help my WW progress, I guess. Running is hard so I feel like I’m getting more benefits than other kinds of exercise.

Q: If you are raising money for a cause, what is it and why is that cause important to you?
A: I wish I could say I was, but I’m not. It’s the purely superficial “Get Kris into a size 14 bikini by summer” cause.

Q: What is the furthest distance you’ve run in your training and what is the furthest distance you will run before your event?
A: In the past two weeks? My furthest is four big laps around Victoria Park. Not much, I know, but I can already feel an improvement. Each time I feel like I can go a little further before walking. I’d like to get back up to doing 5K non-stop.

Q: What is your favorite flavor of gu? (or other sports gel)
A: Huh? That’s a little futuristic for me. My half hour shuffles around the park don’t require astronaut food… yet.

Q: How many days a week do you run?
A: My current goal is twice a week, which I’m meeting. It’s hard though, since it’s chilly in the mornings and dark by the time I get home from work. I can’t wait for Daylight Savings so I can run in the evenings.

Q: Are you injured in any way right now? If so, what are you doing about it?
A: Other than the cold (which kept me home sick today), I’m actually in pretty good shape, I think. I’m trying to prevent the tendonitis and back pain that marred my previous running attempts so I’m continuing my weekly yoga class. My route around the park includes a section on the grass, and I plan to travel further afield once my fitness levels improve.

Q: What is one item of running clothing/gear (shoes don’t count) you can’t run without?
A: Lately it seems to be a handkerchief!

Q: Do you have a talisman you are planning on taking to your event? If so, tell us!
A: The Snook is my talisman. 🙂

Q: Share one thing about yourself we don’t know.
A: I actually did run track in middle school. I sucked at it, but our competitions were so small that I still managed to score a couple ribbons. Long jump was my favorite. (Who doesn’t like playing in the sand?)

Hmm, who should do this next? Probably Eileen, though she doesn’t have a blog. (Write your answers in the comments, RT!)

Guess what I did this morning? I went running. RUNNING! For the first time since my tendonitis incident during the Nike Women’s Classic last year. I did 25 minutes of jogging/walking around Victoria Park, making sure I ran on both the sidewalks and the grass to give my legs some variety. My ass feels sore already and my face is nuclear red, but I feel pretty good!

Done any good deeds lately?
Remember how my sister ran the Honolulu Marathon last year? It turns out that Katie Krawcyzk, a good friend of my cousin Jenny (who you’ll recognize as a frequent commenter here), is running it this year to raise money for AIDS services. She’s got another reason though: she’s doing it to get her Dad to quit smoking. I really liked this bit from her training page:

I have chosen to run a marathon to show him that overcoming most of life’s hardest battles (such as quitting smoking) is an issue of determination and mind over matter – you can achieve anything, no matter how much you may resist, or how much you struggle to get through it. Even if you never wanted to do such a feat for yourself in the first place, you do it for those you love because they want you to, and they need you to; you do it to make yourself healthy so you can make the most of the one life you’re given. Through this marathon, we raise money for those living with AIDS in order to prolong their lives as much as possible until we find a cure. For me, I am not only hoping to help save their lives, but I’m also hoping to save one more.

That’s awesome. Please consider donating a few bucks if you have any to spare. (And Dad, are you listening? Say the word and I’ll start training.)