Trading Flab For Scab

Ew... Just writing the title to this blog makes me cringe a bit.  The word "scab" is just one of those gross-sounding words - to me, at least.  What is to like about a scab, other than that it means your body is healing itself?  Ok, that is a pretty good positive aspect of a scab, but I mean other than that, of course!  They are ugly, they itch, they beg to be picked off, and even if you don't pick it off, it often gets scraped off on accident.

Well, apparently, we don't all feel the same way about wounds and the scabs that follow.  As I was shaving my legs last night and having to maneuver yet again around the giant scabs running up my shins, I cursed my husband for the workouts that cause such ugliness.  Every time a scrape is finally healing up and the nasty scab is gone, he writes into my schedule more dead lifts and SCRAPE!  Off goes a chunk of skin on the front of my leg again!  

When I complain to him about this, reminding him that the point of doing this exercise in the first place is to have better looking legs, not uglier legs, he checks out the scrape and just says, "Looks good to me!"  When I ask him to clarify, he says something about how sexy these scrapes/scabs (and the scars that are surely forming) are because anyone who knows anything will see them and know that I am "seriously working out now" instead of messing around with some cardio (and really, according to him, I might as well just officially not try if that is going to be my only work-out anyways.)  

Apparently, these scrapes mean I have good form or something?  To me, trading flab for scab isn't quite what I had in mind.  Can't we come up with an equally effective exercise that spares my skin and doesn't leave me scarred?

There Goes My Ego or Road Rash

Matt has been out of town for a few days, so now that he is back, I was really looking forward to a real run tonight.  By "real" I mean making good time by myself without pushing two kids way over the weight limit of my double stroller with a very chatty 5-year-old riding bike in front of me, beside me, behind me, on my toes...you get the picture.  It feels more like punishment than exercise.

I was loving my run tonight though.  It was just me and my feet and my thoughts.  I had made it about a third of the way through my run and was running around Depaul University.  I turned a corner and suddenly, I had the wind at my back and I found myself running faster without any more effort!  I found this quite exciting for some reason and thought to myself, "I should go even faster!  It will feel like flying!"  Well, faster I went, flying I did not, unless you count the dive I took about 10 giant steps into my "flying."  Remember, I am running right around a university so there are college kids all over the place.  When my toe hit the two-inch raised section of sidewalk and I ate it, I almost dove right into two young college boys and nearly scared them to death!  I think they jumped almost as high as I did!  They had the decency not to laugh at me outright and immediately rushed to my aid as I played dead there on the sidewalk.  Out of all the empty sections of dark sidewalk tonight, I had to pick the section with two young guys on it!  

I'm fine.  I have scrapes all up my right arm and shoulder, plus holes in my new running pants and stinging knees, but my I think I left more ego there on the sidewalk than skin.  I have to say  though, I did make good time, despite the crash.  I think I ran faster than ever once I got up to get as much distance between myself and the very gentlemanly witnesses I left behind.  

Oh!  As if one episode of maniac running wasn't enough for one night, I scared the you-know-what out of a biker tonight too!  I was almost home and was coming up on a patch of wet cement on the sidewalk that was roped off.  In order to get around it, I had to run in the street for a bit, so I hopped out between two parked cars and into the bike lane and right in front of a biker going the opposite (and correct) direction!  He skidded and ran his bike into the curb while I apologized profusely.  He didn't seem too upset for some reason and there was no damage to his bike, thank goodness.  I was a menace on the streets tonight!  Watch out for me if you are ever in my neighborhood past dark!