Running. With Mint Chocolate Chip.

~ Live & Learn

Here we go again.

Up 10 lbs in less than 30 days. No walking, no step challenges, no running, no elliptical, no treadmill. How easy to Quit. Devilishly insidious. One day. And then a week. A Month. And counting. How fast it all comes apart.   

Laying in bed, skimming blog posts, RSS feeds, morning papers – words skittering by, wispy clouds, digesting nothing. I pull the covers up. I’ll run this afternoon. Maybe. Sure I will. No I won’t.

I’m out the door, Running.

Mile 1: Cool, 50 F. Lower back stiff. Legs heavy. Can’t see 3 miles today. Hell, not sure I can see the end of 2.

Mile 2: Lower back loosening. Legs heavy. Stomach queasy. 7:30 PM yesterday. Snack run to Palmer’s Grocery. I cut through the rows to the freezer aisle. I wipe the condensation off the glass. Eyes move from Brand to Brand to Brand. Momentary calm settles in. I grab a pint of Häagen-Dazs Mint Chip Ice Cream. And then a pint of Talenti Gelato Mediterranean Mint. And then something called Graeter’s Handcrafted French Pot Mint Chocolate Chip. And a quart of Edy’s mint Chocolate Chip. Yep, 4 containers of Mint Chocolate Chip.

Mile 4: I’m on the gravel shoulder, highway to my left, guard rail to my right. Between the guard rail and Long Island Sound, is a grassy bank. Canadian Geese sit, resting. Mother and Father guard two goslings, both yellow, fluffy, and tucked in between. I slow to take it all in. Heaviness lifts, I get my second wind. I have 5 in me.

Mile 6: I round the corner for a long hill climb. 50 yards ahead of me, Father, mid 30’s, running with his Son, ~ 5-6 years old. Boy is lifting his little red sneakers to keep up with Dad, his Mets cap pulled low.  Mind riffs through my Father – Son moments, can’t recall a single time when I ran with my Son. Heaviness sets back in.  Regrets, ponderous and tether. And rout.

Mile 8:  Susan is walking down the street for her morning walk.  It was funny. It was. I chuckle to myself as I approach her.  And now the rest of the story.  Susan joined me on the snack trip to Palmer’s last night. She for apples, me for snacks.  Several hours after we returned, she blurts out: “Do I embarrass you like that?” “Like what?”

I cradled the four Mint Chocolate Chip cartons in my arms as I approached the check-out.  “What took you so long?” I set the containers down, one at a time, on the conveyor. I lift my head looking at the check-out clerk and then at Susan: “Did you really need all of this?”

8.77 miles. 14,833 steps.

Nap time.

And then, Gelato.

Notes:

 

 

58 thoughts on “Running. With Mint Chocolate Chip.”

  1. You are… such a bugger! That had me burst out laughing! And that is some chocolate-mint collection, indeed… The run might just have been a good idea, after all 😉 And besides, you got a nice prize at the end!

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  2. David, David, David. It’s probably not a good idea to run almost 9 miles after that much time off. Nor is it wise to roll your wife under the ice cream bus like that….dangerous. Very dangerous.

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  4. Talenti. To die for. Any flavor. I always look for the 3 for $10 specials and then there is absolutely no guilt. 🙂 Proud of you ole man!

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  8. I’m a firm believer in the rewards of physical exertion, pal, but 4 containers of mint chip aren’t typically it. Nevertheless, the blood pumping, the Adrenalin flowing, the mint chip melting off, it IS all good. Now if we could *just* move the focus from ice cream to isometrics, say, we would be on the right track. 😀

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  9. …thank God for a sense of humor! which of those 4 brands of icecream did you enjoy most? I appreciate that I don’t like mint chip anything so it didn’t make me go look to see what’s in my freezer (happens to be mango by Talenti).

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  10. well, it sounds like you did manage to squeeze in (no pun) a customer quality control taste test of your own making, a long run, a glut of emotions, and an encounter with your love, so i’d call it a full 24 hours. (pun intended)

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  12. I’m one ahead of you David. I can have ice cream without running first 😉 😉 😉
    Your expensive French something-or-other-pot surely is as little French as what the Frenchies call ‘Emmental’ (cheese) which I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole or ‘my’ UK ‘Swiss rolls’ which I haven’t EVER seen (nor, God forbid, tasted) in Switzerland…. But hey, if it’s the French name that made you decide, you’ll have to pay the price!
    Lovely post – couldn’t comment earlier, had a choco ice-cream cone to finish first 🙂

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  13. As a middle-aged jock with an obsessive need to push harder, I SO get this. I’m in the first week of a month long challenge that starts with a daily 2K on the erg trying to get under 8 minutes. I accept that as long as my body is able, I will set that goal just a few inched past satisfied.

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  15. Ten pounds down in less than 30 days. Just saying. But enjoyed the run and chuckled at the image of you carrying all those pounds pout of the store…French or not, such pleasures have a price.

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  16. I long for the time when I would prefer apples over mint chocolate chip. I mean, I have restraint. Unfortunately as I get older, I’d pile on those 10 lbs. in no time, and that’s with regular 2 or 3x wk bike rides (10 mi), mountain bike rides (occasional), walks every day with the dogs (3 miles or so) and guerilla gardening – tree climbing/pruning, weeding, mowing, edging. Seriously I am an active person. But if I get lazy (and I do, it seems, almost seasonally) and veer away from my super-healthy regimen, if I nosh on unadorned good organic corn chips, healthy popcorn or even yogurt, nevermind ice cream, I’m done for. It sucks, because I just can’t get away with it unless I want to be fat. Which I do not. So I understand, I do. Totally undestand the heavy leg syndrome as well, especially if I’ve indulged. We just have to keep on moving, don’t we? 😉 xo

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    1. Hey Carter. I’m confident that if I blindfolded you, you would select 1. HD, 2. Talenti, 3. Edys. And you would spit out Graeters. Next time your Mom brings you to the office, we will test. deal?

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