Turning the negative positive

So…this is both a wedding and fitness related post.  Crazy, I know.

Anyway.  I got a call yesterday that my wedding dress was in, three months earlier than they’d predicted.  Exciting, right?  I had to go in and pay the balance on it and check it out/try it on, so I drove to the dress shop today to do so.  I ordered the sample size, so I figured it would fit just fine and maybe be a little bit big.

Well, what they don’t tell you is that the sample size gets terribly stretched out from people trying it on and sweating all over it.  I put on my never-before-worn dress, and, well, yeah, it fits fine and is still a little bit big in the boobs.  But I had the saleslady take some pictures of me, and wow, they were terrible.

Not only do I think my butt looks huge, but I’m in the process of growing my hair out and it’s at that terrible in-between length where it doesn’t look good unless there is a large hat on top of it.  I also have a big old unpoppable zit on my chin.  I just don’t feel “lean and mean” like I did on May 30th when I first bought it and that makes me a little bit sad.

Here’s the one picture from the day that I liked:

Heh.

So, I get home and, of course, feel bad.  I did an hour of yoga this morning which was lovely, but not really too much of a workout.  (It was really great for balance and stretching and quite relaxing, too.)  Given that it’s my snacky time of day, and I’m feeling emotional and gross (two major overeating triggers for me), I know that staying at home is a recipe for disaster.

But guess what?  It wasn’t!  I decided to channel my negative feelings about my body into something I could feel good about.  I thought about how much I wanted to become a Person that Runs, and decided to give it another go!  What the heck, I thought.  It certainly can’t hurt.

I threw on my yoga clothes from this morning and went out for a run.  Since I didn’t so much enjoy myself the last time I ran outdoors, I tried to take another route to see if that helped.  And it did!  We’re new to the neighborhood, so I went down a road I’d never been down before.  It was delightful!  There was a stream, and beautiful big houses, and PONIES, and ducks and chickens and a pond, and a friendly Golden Retriever that barked happily at me.

Unfortunately, I had to reset my heart rate monitor about 4-5 minutes in because it wasn’t reading, so my stats aren’t accurate.  BUT–according to Map My Run, I ran 3.1 miles (5k!) in about 32 minutes.  I burned about 375 calories (estimated) in the process.  I tried to do a rough 6 minutes running, 1 minute walking thing, but it was more like I ran 10 minutes, walked 2, ran 5 minutes, walked 1, and so on.  My run was VERY hilly, so especially towards the end I walked/jogged very slowly uphill and ran quickly downhill.  (Unfortunately, unless I were to run circles around my subdivision, everywhere around here is hilly, which is…interesting.)

I feel very accomplished, and no longer feel quite so bad about the heinous pictures at the bridal store.  But, two questions and one random statement to finish off this post:

1. Where do you put your house/apartment key when you run?  I stuck it in my bra, but it was a bit scratchy.
2. How do you run hills without looking like an old man?  I am tempted to bend way over when going uphill–is that wrong?
3. Pigeon pose in yoga is INCREDIBLE.  I want to sleep in it.

[Via http://thefitbride.wordpress.com]