Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Wogging it out!

So at the beginning of my healthy lifestyle journey I started walking, you may remember the description of my experiences with the first year of this journey in this blog http://happydance-dancinghappy.blogspot.com/2011/04/working-out-isnt-working-out.html.

I didn’t jog for most of my life.  I had a bad injury in high school when I fell down some stairs and in that process moved my pelvic bone up, and now it moves back and forth and creaks (yes, my hips sometimes make old lady hip noises).  After the injury I didn’t walk fast (so no way could I jog) for about 4 years.  I started jogging after Bebe and I moved into our house and I had been walking at a very fast pace 5 miles quite a few days a week.  My pelvic bone seemed to be doing ok, it still creaked but it didn’t hurt all the time.  I would go around a block at night in the Fall and come back exhausted and not really liking it.  So when I went back to a healthy lifestyle of eating and working out to keep my heart healthy, due to heart problems on both sides of my family and not wanting that to happen to me, I just walked and did the other extreme workouts described in “Working Out Isn’t Working Out” blog.




Now a year in of this new lifestyle and I have decided to pick up the jog again.  I know it’s the middle of July…and I know it’s hotter then all get out outside.  But I’m jogging at night.  Well I don’t call it Jogging I call it “Wogging”.  A wog is a mix between a jog and a walk.  If you remember from my bicycle blog, I live in a VERY hilly area.  I can’t bike up a hill, nor can I jog up a hill (as of right now).  So I have been jogging down the hills and walking up the hills.  The hills, when you are at the bottom, look like Mt. Everest.  I just can't do that!





I thought I would hate wogging.  I thought the wog would become the new workout that I would do for a few days and then set aside because I would make an excuse and sit on the couch instead of getting up off my big butt and doing something.  There isn’t a set program and the opportunity for me to skip a day or do the whole “oh, a wog, I’ll get to it tomorrow,” and then never really get to it, EVER, is really high.  But because I have named it “a wog” and it just sounds too cool not to do, I have wogged almost every night for the past week, except for the weekend when I was having some rest days. 



My wogs have become an adventure of sorts.  I start off doing some odd stretches in our driveway.  I know my neighbors are probably sticking there noses through their window drapes thinking, “What in the world is she doing now, walking around doing lunges and pulling her leg back like that?  Does she want to be a ballerina? Did she forget how to walk straight? Oh no! Did she almost fall over?!?!” (Not the most graceful walking lunge person around, I’ve got to admit.)



Then I start off on my wog.  At first I am at a slow but gradually steady pace of walking, then I hit the comer and start into a fast paced jog down hill.  Once I reach a marker that I have set up in my mind, I start walking again.  Then once I reach the top of the hill I start jogging again.  This continues for a full mile until I reach back around to our house.  

Now the wogs aren’t easy.  But I do it because I know it is one of the best things to do to be able to run and it’s really good for your heart.  I know I’m jogging downhill and walking uphill, and that I should probably switch them, but for the beginning I’m going to do it like this.  It is still really difficult and the only way I get through the jogging part is by telling myself that I must get to the marker I have set up in my mind to meet.  So I jog about three – four blocks downhill until I stop at a light post.  In my head once I see the light post I hear my fitness friends telling me to “go for it girl”, “keep jogging”, “don’t you dare stop”, “ Just reach the light post.”  The girls aren’t really with me, but I hear their encouragements in my head pushing me along, especially when all I want to do is stop.  This helps motivate me enough to get to the light post.  Every time I wog I make the point to stop jogging and start walking a little further, so past the light post, and then the next day past the light post by three steps. 



My experiences with wogging have been interesting.  First off I started this wogging craze when the Midwest was going through a heat wave of biblical proportions.  Second off I look like an idiot when I run so I probably don’t look so cute wogging.  Third off I get cat calls, bitten by bugs, and I sweat like a pig throughout it all.  Not to mention the wild animals and people whom I pass all the time.

I do my wogs really late at night, thinking it will be cooler and no one will really see me in my yoga pants, sports bra/t-shirt.  WRONG! Every time I go out wogging I get a whistle or a call from some dude or a car of dudes.  Ok, cool, you like girls that run, that’s fine and dandy, but you cat called at the wrong girl.  I look like an idiot running, I am sweating beyond a normal person, and the cat calls make me feel uncomfortable and makes me not want to wog (though I continue to wog) since I am alone at night.  I wish they would stop.  Note to guys who like to cat call at girls at any point, sometimes it is flattering, but when a girl is sweaty, red in the face, and breathing like she is having an asthmatic attack it is not the time or place to cat call, wait until they are at a club or something and have done their hair. I have at least 10 new bug bites every evening after my wog so I have welts on my arms and legs. 



Also the wild animals that run amuck at night you wouldn’t believe.  I have seen raccoons, possums, snakes, frogs, and rabbits.  The raccoons usually scurry away or just sit on the other side of the road and watch.  The possum I saw actually played dead and I had to run around it, when I looked back it was gone.  The snakes are always in the grass, never near me (THANK GOODNESS!), the frogs right now are baby frogs and I have actually stepped on one (sorry froggy who is now probably in froggy heaven, I started to tear up when this happened and couldn’t look back to see if I had killed it or not I just felt a squishy feeling beneath my shoe and it was when I saw a bunch of frogs I was trying to jump over…leap frog really didn’t work in this instance) and the rabbits have run along side me and then take off to the side of the grassy areas in the parks to get away from me. 


Overall, though, my wogging experiences have been great.  My favorite part, though, has got to be coming home, drinking a big bottle of water, going over to Bebe and giving him a big old sweaty hug before heading off to go to get ready for bed.  His face is hilarious and it makes the wog totally worth it!

No comments:

Post a Comment