Raise your hand if you
Exercise and I are not friends. But I'm in a battle here, folks. I'm fighting for a goal that is only possible if I get off my butt and get moving.
Right after I began my journey with Weight Watchers Online on January 1st, I finally put my Wii to use and started doing some easy workouts with the EA Sports Personal Trainer game I have. I'm embarrassed to admit how red my face was every time I would come back upstairs after even the easiest of workouts. Really, it's shameful how out of shape I let myself get.
Fast forward about four months and here I am in my sixth week of training to run a 5K. It still makes my tummy flip a little just to write that sentence. I lace up my running shoes and hit the pavement at least three times every week, sometimes more. The app I use to help me, Ease Into 5K, started me off with just short spurts of running with a healthy dose of walking in between. Every day the bar was raised just a little higher and a little higher until last night I hit my first milestone - a run of 20 minutes straight.
And I didn't even die.
Here comes my problem. I probably would have felt like I was going to die, or at least pass out or puke, if it had been just a couple degrees warmer. I run at night because it's the most convenient time for my family and our schedule, but also because it's so much cooler. I returned home from a run on a pretty warm night last week and told Evan, "I think I'm in trouble. I'm not going to be able to do this."
The 5K I'm planning on running is scheduled for September 1st at 9:00 am. It's going to be rather warm.
And I don't sweat.
Yup, you read that right. I don't sweat. Now before all my female readers start hollering about how amazing that would be, I'll concede that it certainly does come in handy to know that I'm not going to get all slimy and funky no matter how high the temperature and how strenuous the activity. However, it can also be very problematic.
*TMI Warning!*
Really, for as long as I can remember, I haven't been able to sweat normally. I might get a little damp under my arms, along my spine, and on the nape of my neck, but that's it. My forehead and face stay bone dry and I certainly don't have the.....ummmm....output of sweat that a normal person has. I still remember having to sit on the bench for most of our T-Ball games as a young girl because our uniforms had black shirts and black hats and I would just faint in the outfield if I got overheated, which was easy to do. Not exactly an easy thing for a 6 year old to deal with.
I just can't get rid of the heat. In college, I went on a quest to find a white Badger cap to wear to football games because I would end up overheated without it. My dark hair just acts as a sponge, the heat has nowhere to go, and down I go.
Now here I am trying to lose all this weight (48.4 pounds and counting, by the way!) and running has been crucial to my success. I set a goal to run this sonofafricking 5K, but the first time I had to run in any kind of warm weather, my body got MAD. My face turned hot and blazed a fire engine red, my head started to swim, my stomach lurches, and I could feel the tingles of hot fire tickling all over the skin on my extremities. It was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other without having to stop and faint or puke.
Just to be clear, I am NOT quitting. I am going to run that race, so help me God. What I'm going to have to let go of is my original hope to run it in less than 30 minutes. If it is any kind of sunny or warm out, I am going to be hurting just to keep going, let alone to keep up a pace that puts me at the finish line in that kind of time. I'm just going to have to give myself some grace and understand that the time isn't the most important thing. I'll never cross the finish if I end up passed out in the second mile, for goodness sake.
Yet another thing that makes me a weirdo, I know. Anyone heard of a problem like this before? Any runners have any advice for me? Of course, eventually I would like to start actually "working out" in a gym to maintain my weight (once I hit goal) and work on toning my body, but I'm almost scared to do it because of my problem.
Help me out here, friends. What's a girl to do when she doesn't sweat?
