I pretended that zombies were chasing me

Run, Forrest!

And then I wrote a completely brilliant blog post and accidentally deleted it, and this is my attempt at recreation. Oh well, I made the picture prettier this time, so something good came out of it.

On numerous occasions in the past, I have said that I would not run unless I was being chased by something big and hungry with long, sharp teeth. Or maybe one of my exes. Or a Jehovah's witness.

Then, not very long ago, I took up running. And I liked it, too. Today I broke 5k for the very first time. I didn't do it fast. Hell, a Jehovah's witness might have been able to catch me at that speed. The ex...not so much. With the big, hungry something, I'd just hope to run into someone that I could push in front of it as a distraction.

But anyways, I'm ridiculously proud of this:

Treadmills and fried bears

Yesterday was the fifth day of rain in a row. Six days ago there was almost sun. Almost. And before that there was more rain. With other words, there wasn’t much to do other than shopping for stuff I don’t need online.

I considered buying a treadmill. Then I remembered that I don’t really like running. I’d run if I was being chased by something. Like a bear or Tony Blair. Luckily that hasn’t happened yet. So I ordered one of those machines that deep-fry things. ‘Cause that’s almost the same thing, right? Yay.

I’m wondering what sort of things I can deep-fry. You have the standard choices like pork, chickens or a nice banana, but I enjoy trying out new things. Maybe chocolates. Or my stuffed bear. The little, ugly one that I won at a carnival, not the one that actually like. Or maybe the guy in the booth where I won the little ugly bear. Hey, if I fry an actuall bear, that’ll piss it off and it’ll chase me. Then it’ll be as if I did buy a treadmill.

See? I’m brilliant.

Red and stinky vs. the movies

How come people who exercise in movies always look so damn perfect? Take running, for instance. People who run in a film never really sweat, except for a small patch on their chest. Their hair is always perfect, their faces never get shiny and they’re never so out of breath that they can’t carry a conversation.

I, on the other hand, go running and I come home more or less drenched, my hair is a complete mess and I’m so shiny you’d think I’d been recently polished. Not only that, I’m as bright red as a rose in bloom, although sadly lacking the rose-like smell.

Now, I realise that making a movie where the characters just huff and puff and look as if they’re about to die, might be a waste of time. And you do want to show off the fact that this person is physically healthy, seeing how we out here in the real world are more or less obsessed with physical health. An obsession that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the condition of our own bodies.


I would love to learn how to run like they do in the movies though. I would probably get a lot more exercise if I could do that.

Run, Forrest! Run!

Last Monday I took up running. That's right - running. As in "Choochoo goes huff and puff up and down the hills".

I wasn't planning to run, I really wasn't. Just like every other night, I put on a top and a pair of jeans and took the pooch for a walk. The dog and I both suffer from the same condition: we have a bunch of energy that we just don't know what to do with. The dog is taken for a couple of walks, and she seems happy. As for myself... Well... I pace back and forth a lot.

So there we were, walking down the street towards the woods, and I just couldn't seem to get rid of that over-energetic feeling that I get. So I walked a bit faster. It didn't help. And that's when it happened. All of a sudden, my legs were running. Both of'em. I don't mind telling you, that I was a bit surprised. They just kept right on running for an hour or so. If I'd known they were going to do that, I wouldn't have worn jeans.

I always thought that this form of exercise looked absolutely horrible. Everytime I see someone running, they usually sound as if they have some sort of painful lungdisease, eating them up from within, and they're quite often a bit purple-looking. Surprisingly, it wasn't that horrible. No terrible diseases grabbed a hold of my respirational system, and even if I had turned purple, nobody would have seen it because

a) it was dark out, and
b) I'm the only person in Hellhole, it would seem, nuts enough to go running in the woods after dark.

(Picture "Moon over rust farm" by Ctd 2005 for www.Flickr.com)

A forest adventure...

Today somebody gave me one of those little gadgets that counts how many steps you take. You're supposed to take 10000 steps a day. Apparently the WHO came up with that. And what better way to test my new toy, I thought, than to take the dog for a walk in the woods.

What I didn't consider, however, was all I'd had to drink just a moment earlier. After having walked for about an hour, nature decided to call. Or scream. So... I had to make a little detour off the path. When I was sure nobody would see me, I tied the dog to a tree and chose a nice spot.

Now, before you can do you business in the woods, you have to break down a kinda psychological barrier. Well, I have to, anyway. My potty training was really efficient, I guess. As soon as the dog realized what I was up to, she stared at me in utter fascination. And when she's fascinated by something, she looks a bit like Benny Hill. The whole process took forever, because if you think it's hard to pee outside, you can only imagine how hard it is with Benny Hill staring at you.

But I learned something important today: When you've poured down a huge softdrink, you shouldn't top it off with something diuretic, like a large cup of coffee...