This is not a weight-loss blog...

...because the last thing we need is another one of those. But I went to enter my running time into FitDay this morning, and I found that I've been running for a year as of this weekend, and I figured I should say something about that.

I have now gotten up before dawn 6 days a week for a year to go running. Don't ask me how I did it, because I couldn't tell you. I had to, because I refuse to go running during the day for two reasons - there are more people/cars out during the day, and they annoy me to the point where I'd have to turn around and go straight home, and also during the summer it's way, way more pleasant to go running before the sun comes up and it gets hot. Honestly, though, getting up before dawn 6 days out of every week sucks fetid donkey balls. I don't know what else to tell you. It does get a little better after about 8 months of doing it, but it still sucks.

The other thing that sucks - my feet. I have mutant feet. To begin with, they're large and have no arch; and then there's the fact that they don't even match, because one of them has a mild deformity (kind of like a bunion, but more so; the bones are bent funny). This means that finding running shoes is hell because the bad foot is about an inch wider than the good foot; I generally buy shoes that are a little loose on one and a little tight on the other, and then suffer for a week until the too-small one stretches out and stops causing all my toes to go numb. In addition, I have arthritis in the bad foot, and it tends to act up on weeks when I'm breaking in my new shoes or increasing my mileage, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. I mean, I get that I could take a painkiller before I go out, but this has always seemed like a bad idea to me; what if I hurt my ankle or knee, can't feel it because of the painkillers, and end up really injuring myself? So yeah, mutant feet = not cool.

When I started, I'm pretty sure I could run about 1/8th of a mile. Now I usually run 5 miles a day, unless it's really hot or I'm not feeling well, in which case I run three, or unless I'm having a good day, in which case I run 7 or 8. Five is my average, though. And it's an easy five - I don't breathe hard, or suffer from noodle legs or stitches, or get that terrifying coppery taste in my mouth.

I can't really tell you how much weight I've lost, because my cheap scale finally bit the dust and my mother's digital scale gives me a different weight. I would estimate it to be somewhere in the area of 50 pounds, but I can't really be sure.

I can give you a better approximation of how much my body changed size, if you're interested. I would estimate that my starting jeans size was a 16/18 (the ones I was wearing used letters, though, and I have since gotten rid of them, so again, I'm not all that sure) and it now seems to be a 10/12. If I remember correctly, my starting measurements were about 47-36-47; they are now 40-29-40 (yes, I know I'm still on the large side. Go troll somewhere else, because I'm not interested). Starting bra size was a 40D; it now seems to be a 36DD.

On the more interesting side - the running seems to control my depression better than medication did. I really don't advocate this for everyone, (good lord, take your meds!) but it works in my case because mine is caused by a chemical imbalance. It's still possible to derail my fragile brain chemistry with too much alcohol or not enough sleep or, even worse, a combination of the two, but Jesus H Macy, it's about 50497286467 times better than taking Zoloft, where I basically felt nothing except the urge to rip the heads off everyone I encountered. With running, I basically feel okay. Some days I am happy, some days I am anxious and upset, and they seem to mostly balance out evenly. I am cranky, but crankiness is part of my basic makeup, and I no longer find myself shouting at people for no reason. This alone would be enough to make me drag myself out of bed at the buttcrack of dawn every morning for the rest of my life, even if I had remained a size 16.

No one else seems to have this next problem except my brother, but I will mention it here anyway. I used to have a problem with ankles that were overly flexible - I would be walking along, one of my ankles would give out, my foot would roll under, and down I would go onto my face. It occurred to me sometime around May that it'd been a while since that had happened to me, so I started actively watching for it, and I seem to be cured. I don't know what happened or if it was even the running, but I suspect that it was because David does not run and apparently it still happens to him.

Then there are all the standard benefits of exercise; you sleep better, you need less sleep, you feel better, etc. Not so interesting. You can read about that elsewhere.

In conclusion - I love running. I intend to do it for the rest of my life, if only so I never, ever have to deal with antidepressants again.

Also, I'm leaving for the coast house again. I'll be back at the end of August or the beginning of September.