Rather proud of myself.

I was awoken yesterday by a phone call from my mother, reminding me that we had an appointment at the gym today and asking me if I was going. I informed her that she had just woken me up, and that we had discussed earlier in the week the fact that I didn't appreciate her making my appointments without my permission because I didn't know how I'd be feeling on Saturday. (Id had a bad stomach all week, and early mornings are one of my big triggers.)

She seemed miffed that I wasn't likely to be her gym buddy that day. I think now that the only reason she bought the gym membership for me was so that I could go with her, not equal parts keeping her company and improving my own health.

She called again later to tell me that the next orientation class (which they want me to do so that they can find out what I can do with weights, what my heart rate is and shoud be, etc) that fits into her schedule is next Saturday. At that point, I lost politeness, and asked her, since she'd already done her own orientation, why it was so important that my class fit into her schedule.

She tried to backpedal and say that of course it didn't really matter, but her tone told me that her frustration had started all over again. She, like my father, was assuming that my time was her time and that she could do whatever she wanted with it, regardless of my preferences or even my health concerns.

I'm definitely going to make an effort to go to the gym with her next week, likely on the days Rei has to get up early for work, since even if early mornings can be a trigger for some health problems, I did say that I'd try to go with my mother when I could, and I meant that. But I do wish that she'd stop trying to run my life for me and then getting annoyed when her plans, often made without consulting me, don't go as she wants.

I had planned to go the gym at some point yesterday, but ended up not doing it after all. Why? Because by the time I had walked the three kilometres or so from where I had lunch to the mall on the east side, I wasn't in much of a mood to go do another 20 minutes on the treadmill or stationary bike. My bad toe hurt like hell, and I was tired from not getting much sleep the night before, so a little while after I got home, I ended up taking a nap.

Of course, after Rei and I had both napped, we decided we wanted pizza, so we went for another walk, this one almost two kilometres, for pizza and then home again.

So in total yesterday, I walked about five kilometres, which is more exercise than I probably would have got had I just gone to the gym anyway. I'm pretty proud of myself, since that's also the furthest I've walked in any one day in years! My feet don't hurt that much, aside from my bad toe, and my face is sunburned like you wouldn't believe (I have very fair skin, so much so that I have never tanned but only ever really burn), but aloe gel and a day of rest and writing will help me recuperate.

Which is good, since I think I'll go to the gym tomorrow, if I'm not feeling cruddy. See if I can do just a bare two kilometres on the treadmill or something. Shouldn't be too hard. At my normal walking pace, which isn't strenuous at all, it takes me around 40 minutes to walk that far on the street, so maybe half an hour if I push myself on the treatmill.

And the warm weather has been kind to my lungs lately, so touch wood, but I shouldn't have to worry too much about them objecting to increased activity and seizing up! After all, I walked the whole 3 kilometres yesterday without needing my meds at all!

Yup. Pretty darn proud of myself!

(Why is "proud" not an option I can choose for my mood without filling in the custom line?)

Taking up a challenge.

You know, to spruce up my time at the gym and to motivate me through geekish ways, I'm going to undertake the challenge of walking through Middle Earth. I'm the kind of person who gets more motivated when I'm working with milestones and a large number of small goals, so this is the kind of challenge that will work well for me. Even if I don't make then entire journey that the Fellowship did, I'll be interested to see just how far I can get before my gym membership runs out.

This means that I'll end up posting about this a lot, to help keep track of where I am and what I've done. Hope nobody finds that too boring; I promise not to make such entries long and involved. Likely just a brief mention at the end of other entries, unless something particularly interesting happened in regard to my exercise routine.

Starting tomorrow, this challenge gets underway. I'm going to aim for a few miles a day at first, since I'm not used to stenuous walking or biking and I'm not sure how my body will take me doing it on a more regular basis. Probably well enough, so long as my lungs hold out, but we'll see what happens as it happens.

I'm excited about this!