Running while standing still: a cliche, but still true

The title will be explained later.

I got to have my boobs handled and painfully squished* by a total stranger this morning.  Combine that with waking up a little bit late, missing breakfast, and greeting the first cold rainy morning of fall, and my day started AWESOME.

I got to have breakfast in the radiology office building's deli, so I could leave behind the horror of cold hard plastic for an icy cold soda and an egg sandwich.  Oh, I do love breakfast sandwiches.  They are totally better than boob squeezing.

I didn't have any enzymes with me but I ate my sandwich anyway.  Oddly, my stomach wasn't upset afterwards.  This made me say "hmmm" and text my husband.

At work, I spent the majority of my day attempting to do something which is by all accounts vital.  However, I can't actually access the website I need to use.  Okay, I can access it, but I can't make it *work*.  Tech support is very sorry but they don't support my type of computer.  One person claims to have gotten it to work, but I couldn't get in touch with her for details.  I tried various things, but none of them worked either.  And all my usual resources didn't have good ideas.  So today I spent my whole day working furiously while getting nothing done.  Hence the title of today's post.

I don't feel too bad about this.  I still have leftover internal peace from my hike.  I can feel it eroding, but it's still there.  I wonder how many days of Agency stress it takes to eat that much peace?  Following a sand dune analogy, all it really takes is one big storm.  But a season of daily tides will also eat it away.

On a hunch I didn't take any enzymes with lunch, either, and my stomach was still good.  This has prompted me to google these terms:  andrographis, liver, and digestion.  It turns out that andrographis is particularly good for the liver and digestion, and specifically promotes enzyme production.  And I have noticed my digestion being generally happier since I started taking andrographis in June to treat Lyme Disease. 

Oh, how I wish my parents' medical comfort level had included herbalism when I was a child.  I might have known of this herb thirty five years ago.  So, so many unhappy days could have been averted.  But now I know.  And now I can digest mightily.

I still don't know why it hurts when I drink alcohol (Oh alcohol, I miss you so much.  Write soon.)  I hope the naturopath I'm going to see will be able to tell me.  I do have a completely unfounded theory, of course.  My theory is that my liver is not used to producing enzymes, so it's painful like any other unused item in the body would be after you started exercising it.  The fact that it's been over three months tends to refute my theory.  But why should I be the only (pseudo)scientist not to ignore evidence they don't like?  Everybody else does it!

JD has been doing the Couch to 5K program all summer and he did really well at it.  Just recently it occurred to me that maybe I should try it too.  I don't know why.  It's not like I don't exercise.  Or like I have extra time.  Or I like running.  But it does seem like a fairly quick way to burn calories, and that I like very much.  And regular running could help keep me fit for my less regular but still energy intensive activities.  Long story not much shorter, I decided to give it a go.

I didn't put much effort into it.  An hour before I started I was still pretty dubious that I could, or would, even do it.  I downloaded two podcasts last night that play music for you and tell you when to run and when to walk.  They were free so no loss if I bailed.  And then at the end of the workday today, I thought "What the hell."  And I came home and told JD not to fix dinner yet because I was going running.

JD looked pretty darn surprised.  And then he decided to go too.  He had skipped his run because it was pouring this morning.  We both went and put on running gear.  In his case this didn't involve any searching or decisions, but I had to find a sports bra, some shorts that wouldn't ride up, and something approximating running shoes.  I had noticed an old pair of trail runners in my hiking gear over the weekend but they had no insoles.  A few minutes and a few modifications later, I was as ready as a well rounded (hee) woman could be.

And you know what?  It wasn't bad.  I even kind of liked it.  I felt good enough that I was tempted to keep running when the guy told me to walk.  Sanity prevailed, however.  I figure whoever came up with the program is pretty smart, because it has worked for lots of people.  And I am not that kind of smart.  So I ran when the nice man said to run, and walked when he said to walk.  And I might do it again on Wednesday.

The one thing I didn't like was the jiggling.  My well roundedness was bouncing up and down with every stride.  It was distracting and awkward.  Maybe that's why they make those compression shorts.

*for my annual mammogram, so I or my insurance company paid for the pleasure