I’m with awkward: things I’ll never say

Posted on by
Reply

2013-05-15 22.14.56

  • I genuinely dislike going to the toilet. It’s not the actual action; it’s more something about the presence of a toilet… of toilet stalls and toilets and those weird looking brushes. And then there’s the smell. Is it just me or do all toilets, even the ones that are impeccably clean, smell funny? I always postpone going as long as possible – I can’t say my bladder is all that grateful. Oh well.
  • It’s no big secret that I enjoy girly tv shows that may very well make your brain shrink in size in the long run. It’s a guilty pleasure I have chosen not to be ashamed of. What I’ll never say out loud is that, when watching proper shows like Suits and The Newsroom and Game of Thrones, it’s still the drama I enjoy best. I like Mike & Rachel and I’m a complete sucker for the ‘young love’ thing Jon Snow and Ygritte have going on.
  • Talking tv already anyway, I have two more confessions: (1) I was rooting for Aidan, (2) I am team Jacob and have a solid theory to back it up – and yes, I am 21 y/o and get that I should be ashamed of being on a team in the first place. Which gets me to:
  • I have read the first book in the Fifty Shades series and do not get how people are still bitching about Twilight. Twilight is sixteen-year-old girls hyping over a vampire and a werewolf. Fifty Shades is adult, twenty/thirty/forty/fifty something women hyping over a man with a twisted mind who is supposedly too hot to be true and likes to play it dirty in the bedroom, portrayed in a book that is so badly written I kept wondering whether it was edited at all. Plus, there are party board games. As if reading it in public isn’t bad enough.
  • If you’re male, somewhere in the right age group and talk to me in a British accent, I’m probably game. And yes, the fact that I will be living in the UK for a year worries me.
  • Whenever I have some time to kill, or just nothing better to do over dinner, I tend to re-watch the ending of sappy Hollywood blockbusters (think Step Up, Crazy Stupid Love, Dirty Dancing, Mean Girls). You know, the part where people fight and cry and make out and live happily ever after.
  • I have start to finish conversations in my mind. I repeat things that have already happened, I imagine things that I should’ve said, I make things up from scratch. Think I’m weird already? It gets worse. I unconsciously do facial expressions while I’m at it. I can look angry, disgusted, happy, exalted & confused – all in a 5 min timespan.

Miles over Matter: Do you take, for better and for worse, your running shoes to be your lawfully wedded companion?

Posted on by
2

robinnyc

“I’m a corporate lawyer turned fitness journalist and ultramarathoner.

SHUTUPANDRUN is for athletes who think medals are the highest form of Bling.  We sweat with swagger on the streets of our cities.  And we never sacrifice style for function. Fueled by the ethos that there is no finish line, I channel the collective energy of the world’s running crews, a family forged in sweat.” (source)

Meet RobinNYC.

I sincerely hope many of you already know about this amazing chick from the Big Apple, but in case any of you haven’t, please take this as your cue to check out her website and her Instagram and Twitter profiles.

Just two days ago she finished her fifth marathon in five days for ‘MS run the US’.

Five marathons in five days.

FIVE MARATHONS IN FIVE DAYS.

About a week ago I found myself wondering if I should quit running. Stop doing it. Leave behind the piles of sweaty clothes and lonely left socks, and join my friends who tell me I’m crazy to chose running over sleep and insane to run in the rain. Give up the runner’s high and the endorphins and my post run monster smoothies.
I had just gotten back from my first appointment with a new physiotherapist (No more needles, hooray!). I had walked in hoping to hear about a magic trick, or a magic shoe, that would make all my problems go away. But when I walked out, the Berlin Marathon seemed further away than ever.

For 45 mins he had watched me run, had bended my leg in ways I didn’t formerly deem possible (turned out, neither did he) and had thrown lot’s of “ahh… I see”-s at my head. The picture of him looking doubtfully at his computer screen mumbling something about ‘taking the time to write it all down carefully’ was still etched in my brain. With a small leg length discrepancy, and a lower back & pelvis that are stuck in place while the rest of my joints suffer from hypermobility, running a marathon just felt kind of out of reach. It honestly felt like my body just isn’t meant to be running. 

And that’s when I read about Robin and her five marathons.

Five marathons in five days, I really can’t get over it. Reading Robin’s story motivated me to try to make it work. I might never be able to run 5/5, but my legs surely should be able to handle just the one.

For the moment I might not be allowed to run on pavement, & have to take it real easy, & start a quest looking for the perfect footwear. But so what if I will have to build muscle strength like no other to make up for my hollow back and weird joints? I’m told that if I put in enough time & effort, it is possible. And who knows, if I try hard enough, it might even be possible to get in shape in time to run Berlin on September 29th.

I must admit that at the moment it all seems a bit daunting. Lucky thing I wasn’t planning on running 42.2 kilometres because I thought it would be easy.

Desktop2

So yes, I do take thee, sweet running shoes, to be my companion until the end of my days – or at least until the end of September.

Here’s to daily sweating
To determination & dedication
To claiming the sunrise as yours.
To squats, lunges, and standing-bow-pulling-poses
To killer breakfasts
And to lots of post-workout beer.

Here’s to running that goddamn marathon.

WANTED: Crash course “How to approach strangers in five easy steps”

Posted on by
3

2013-05-07 14.35.14

‘I don’t have to do anything today. I have the entire day off. So WHY am I awake?!’

Yea, I get frustrated.

I’m currently on my second detox day, drinking nothing but fruit & vegetable juice and I have energy to spare. I wanted to turn in early last night, but ended up doing some at home yoga. So I planned to sleep in today, but lay in bed wide awake at 07:30 a.m. without any hope of dozing off again. Oh well.

This afternoon I grabbed myself a bottle of juice, a book and my hoop and headed to the park. I had been there for about an hour, happily alternating hooping with doing random yoga poses, when I noticed this guy settling down nearby. He was cute. From the second he sat down I felt him staring at me – me noticing means it was really obvious, because I never ever notice these kinds of things.

I continued to do my own thing, while he got comfortable reading a book. Every now and then we exchanged a glance, shyly looking back down when our eyes met. After a while he got on the phone and started pacing: walk towards me, turn round, walk away again -repeat.

As forecasted, clouds arrived. Covering the sun, depriving the grass of the sunlight and us of the warmth needed to stay outside wearing shorts. Not wanting to go home just yet and praying for the clouds to go away I kept hooping. But as I felt the first drop of rain (which later turned out to also be the only drop of rain) hit my face I decided it was time to pack up and go. So did he.

We both gathered our stuff and left. He on foot, I by bike. As I passed him on our way to the exit and our paths split, our eyes met once more, this time daring to hold each other’s gaze.

And then the road made a turn and he was out of sight. Probably never to be seen again.

Once home I fired up my laptop and opened Facebook. Now, two hours later, I am still staring at it intensively, hoping for something that will never happen. Because of cours I have absolutely NOTHING to go on & nor does he. When I fill in “male, blond hair & tattoo on the inside of ankle, owner of nice boots” not a single social media platform will be able to tell me who this stranger is.

It might be the 21st century, but if we want to get in touch with total strangers, we still have to approach them in real life. So why is it so damn difficult and scary to go up to someone and ask for a phone number. Or suggest to have coffee sometime? Be like “Hi, do you want to go get a drink?” What’s the worst that could happen really. They might say no. Big deal. Or they might say yes and after 30 minutes he might think you are a complete freak, or he might be boring you out of your mind. Both are perfectly fine. We don’t hit it off with everyone, we’re not supposed to. After 30 minutes we can smile, say goodbye and go our separate ways: nothing lost. OR we can exchange phone numbers, go to the movies, make babies and live happily ever after.

They should teach you how to do this shit in elementary school. Just sayin’.

Sunny awesomeness & the perfect summer song

Posted on by
Reply

20130506-112112.jpg20130506-112128.jpg20130506-112153.jpg20130506-112216.jpg20130506-112227.jpg20130506-112145.jpg

My legs are so white it’s scary, but the world will just have to deal, ’cause I’m wearing shorts!

The little hippie craze hooping in the park I went on yesterday was lovely. I really like how hooping makes dancing on your own outside okay. And dancing outside in the sun is way better than inside. And gras definitely triumphs wooden floors.

The rest of the afternoon was spend laying around & dozing off while listening to live music. My friend’s band was awesome! They’re called MORRIS and this is their facebook page. Check them out! They’re getting better and more professional by the day and I swear they will go far -in which case our bathroom will be worth a crazy amount of money, as we have their very first autographs on the wall.

After ending up at a terrace drinking beer (and I had been so good, drinking nothing but water all day, because I wanted to prepare for my detox…oh well) with one of my best friends and some friends of hers, I came home to find I had acquired my first sunburn of the year. My shoulder shone at me all red & bright & painful in the bathroom mirror, failing to make me feel bad for only remembering to put on sunscreen when the damage was already done. It might have been the beer, but all I could do was smile goofily at my reflection while rubbing coconut oil at the burn: summer’s on its way.

….
Well I’m addicted to a couple of things 
Like the smell of cut grass and every smile I see 
Don’t have my hands in my pockets 
Cause I’m huggin everything in my way 
Cause I’m so in love with life 
Ya And when love is contagious 
There’s no such thing as separation or strangers 
Warning I’m on love overload danger 
Cause I 
I just can’t get enough
…

I don’t understand how it’s possible this song has only 22,665 views because it’s BRILLIANT! The perfect summer song.