Pants-Free Summer

Heat Advisory, day 2: I decided I'd wait until it cooled down after work to take a really easy leg-loosener of a run today. Unfortunately, by late afternoon I was confronted with this death knell for the evening run:

FREQUENT CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING... HAIL UP TO NICKEL SIZE... AND GUSTY WINDS UP TO 50 MPH ARE EXPECTED. IN ADDITION... VERY HEAVY RAIN... WITH RAINFALL RATES OF UP TO ONE INCH AN HOUR... IS OCCURRING WITH THESE STORMS.

As is Weather.com's bailiwick, this was followed by a warning that "lightening is nature's number one killer," which can't possibly be true. Everyone knows zombies are number one.

Eager to log some easy miles anyway, I decided I'd once more return to the gym, where haven't been since the last snow. I was amazed at how empty the place was tonight, especially compared with how jam packed it was in the winter months. Either New Year's Resolutions fell by the wayside, or the denizens of Park Slope discovered crystal meth keeps you skinny and energized. Like exercise, but with open flesh wounds and half as many teeth as you should have! In any case, I hopped on a 'mill and got down to it, setting my sights on a relaxed hourlong run.

After 25 minutes, and with the Yankees on a rain delay, I was bored to tears. I decided to mix up my workout a bit, and threw in some quarter-mile pick ups. Look at me, so casually throwing in some light speed work! The first one felt great; quarter miles are a cake walk compared to 800s, I thought. After a quarter mile recovery, I picked it up again. And suffered.

Quarter miles are not easy, I thought, remembering I haven't seen a track since March, and had never even done quarter-mile repeats before. But since I'd already decided this was how I was going to break up my next four miles, and anything is better than 800s, I figured I might as well dig in. Maybe I could use this time productively and check out my form.

I glanced to the mirror next to me to check out my stride length and whether or not my upper back was tensed and nearly fell off the treadmill.

Was. That. CELLULITE?

No, it can't be. I looked away. Must be a weird angle. Bad lighting. Something.

I looked back. Oh God. Sure enough, I spied it. Impossible. The fronts of my legs were so toned and so... marathony. And yet, I could have sworn I was looking at Mischa Barton from behind. My legs were like a mullet: all business in the front, all beer-swilling, cheese-fry loving party in the back. How did this happen? And more importantly, what did this mean for my newfound love of short shorts? Have I had body dysmorphic disorder this whole time and been thinking I look way better than I do?!

Well yes, frankly, but short shorts give me great joy, so I'm willing to tolerate the fact that I don't quite look like Shalane Flanagan in them. But that's not to say there isn't room for improvement. If this is indeed to be a pants-free summer, when only the shortest shorts will do, I must honor and respect that, and fight tooth and nail and ass cheek to look my best in them (not just to me, since clearly I already think I look my best, which is the crux of this problem). Which brings me to why I was so eager to get some easy miles in tonight to loosen up: last night, for the first time since... February of 1984, I suppose, I did an hour of strength work. An hour.

Josh assured me this would enhance my capacity to wear short shorts. Though in hindsight, since I mooned Josh (and many, many others) a few weeks ago during Reach the Beach and he therefore saw in the flesh (literally) what I'm dealing with, perhaps this was his subtle way of addressing my body dysmorphia. Whatever the justification, I attended this little torture fest Josh arranged (clad in modest shorts, actually, because there were a few in the crowd I hadn't met before and didn't want to make jealous of my well-sculpted derriere.) The workout involved climbing up and down on a bench in Central Park, propping myself up on things, and flopping around in the grass, using my body weight as resistance. Shockingly, Miss Body Dysmorphia over here was all "oh, this won't be too hard, it's just my body weight." Surprise, surprise: after doing 40,000 front and side step ups, heaving my body up 24 inches with each rep using only my hamstrings/quads/ass, I sort of can barely move today. If I spent more than 90 minutes at my desk without getting up, my whole lower half seized up. I ran tonight because I was worried I'd be even stiffer tomorrow (thats what he said). I ran purely to force my body to move. And it hurt.

But surely, that pain is the sensation of cellulite dying, screaming out "Claire, stop climbing on shit unless it's a bar and you're climbing over it to help yourself to what's on tap!" But I know it's back there, calling to me, and I fully intend to make it suffer. The short shorts will live on!

Well, hopefully anyway. I'm legitimately marathon-level sore today, so I may be too scared to return to future strength sessions. Unless there's free beer at the next one.