Many Meetings

Stodgy Legs Elf hadn't used her quill in a very long time. She wanted to run and to write beautiful stories about how she had succeeded at running, but a wiffle-tilt had smaggered her lumbar and caused all kinds of jabbing peevernicks, and as anyone knows, it's impossible to run with jabbing peevernicks connected to one's spine.

"I will have to heal again", thought Stodgy Legs. "In the meantime I will work on strengthening my back and reduce my run to a slow but steady walk.

The worst part about it all was that Stodgy Legs Elf really had very little time to use a quill any more. She had returned to the Elvish School for Elves Who are Gluttons for Pain to become a Master Elf, and was riddled with many meetings that kept her entirely too busy. "Sigh", she thought. "I guess I will have to try to run without telling all the beautiful stories. Perhaps I will pop in occasional and regale the intertwined audience of net with a story of glory or one of failure, sorrow and pain."

Bucket Belly Elf & Stodgy Legs Elf Go to the Wall

Stodgy Legs Elf and Bucket Belly Elf

It was quite some time since Bucket Belly and Stodgy had decided to do the 84-mile Hadrian Wall path hike, and then lost steam when the timing of the Dragon Flight Masters didn't correlate with their seasonal rhythms.   It was time again to renew the pledge.  "We will train this year and hike next summer", they decided.

Stodgy Legs Elf wasn't exactly sure what training for such a long hike would involve, so she decided to do some research and find out. She mostly discovered that she needed to work on her stodgy leg hiking muscles, and her cardiopulmonary strength.  In preparation for the hike, she would start in April 2011 with a rigorous hiking/walking/cardio routine that increased in distance weekly until the actual hike.  But for now she would simply increase her cardio training at the gym to 45 minutes combined with 30 minutes of weight training.  That would be a 15 minute increase over what she was doing now, and a good start.

"It's good to have a reasonable and exciting goal again." thought Stodgy.  "I'm not overdoing it, but I have Scotland and England to look forward to and some time with my best friend and love of my life, Bucket Belly."

The Mirror of Stodgy Elf

Stodgy Legs Elf gazed in the mirror. She remembered a time when the moon caused her long, golden hair to shimmer playfully as she tossed it behind her shoulders without concern. Dashing through the forest on a cool summer evening, muscles would ripple across her back and through her legs. She was much more social back then, much more full of energy... but perhaps not quite as experienced or wise, and surely a little too reckless. Now her hair was darker and shorter and touched by gray strands. Wrinkles played around her eyes and she had a tightness about her mouth. Her skin sagged, ever-so slightly along her back. Her legs... well... she didn't want to think too much about her legs.

She had been trying very hard to make her short, stodgy legs move fast and become less stodgy. It had been six months now. Her muscles felt a little more solid, but the size of her legs remained the same. "I am a thickly built, middle-aged elf", she said to herself, "and nothing is changing about that." A sigh fell from her lips as she sank to the floor, crossing her stodgy legs and attempting to stretch her aching back. Recently, the imps have been busy thrusting daggers of doom into her lower back, hips and knees while she slept. At least that is the only explanation Stodgy could think of for the growing pain. Imps could be very cruel. Especially as an elf became older.

Stodgy Legs thought she might need to visit the medicine shaman in the Woods of Pharmantra to see if there was something physically wrong with her. "The year is half over and I must do something. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to shrink my legs."

In the meantime, Stodgy planned to renew her motivation. July 2 was half way through the year, and that much time gave her a measured five pounds per month to lose in order to make her goal. "That is reasonable", she reasoned.

Using her philosophy based on the river moss, she set forth with the following plan:

Continue eating healthy, whole foods... but stick to planned snacks and meals. Eating extras and betweens is adding up, even if they are healthy!

1 hour workout per day. 2+ hours natural activity.

M-Th: Gym. Weights & Cardio. Walk Zero the Imp Dog

Friday: Hiking

Saturday: vigorous housework

Sunday: yoga

"I must be strong", thought Stodgy Legs Elf. "I'm not truly ancient yet!"

The Great River

In the last few weeks, Stodgy Legs Elf had discovered something about herself. She had lived many hundreds of years, but it had taken her all this time to discover this thing. Once in a while a thing is so obvious that it is hard for an elf to see it. Like the leaves of trees on the path beneath her feet, or glowing green of the moss on a quiet river. Those things that cover everything, are everywhere... which makes them nowhere. Discovering the something that is everywhere and nowhere is like carefully turning the focus on a camera lens to sharpen a new plane within the depth of field. What was invisible, suddenly leaps into view.

The thing that Stodgy Legs had discovered about herself was this: Stodgy had always believed that she failed at fitness plans because she didn't try hard enough, but this was not true. In fact, Stodgy Legs had set many extremely difficult goals, like running 26.2 miles through the woods in bare feet or walking 1,000 miles in one season. She had always succeeded at these goals. It wasn't that she was not trying hard enough, it was that she tried too hard. In the attempt to reach massive goals she worked so hard that her beating elf heart and stodgy legs had rebelled against her once the goal was accomplished. The wicked bansheebrigs in her brain had told her that she was too worn out and deserved a long break. The cunning borgabrigs in her muscles, told her it was all too much and to give up for a few weeks. Before she knew it, Stodgy Legs Elf would not only lose all the strength she had gained, but would end up a dumpy and sad and pudgy Elf with extra stodgy legs all over again.

Stodgy decided it was time to change the pattern of the last several hundred years. She began to set new, more reachable goals that were things she could do for the next hundred years and not be plagued by bansheebrigs or brogabrigs. She slowed down and looked at the moss on the slow, slow river as it moved slow, slowly along. The tiny, winged mossmorphers who flitted just above the moss where they could only be seen by the keenest eye, whispered to her,

Come join us as we float above the lichen,
soft and glowing
Be carried by the river without fighting,
without rowing
Let your effort fit the hushed flow of water,
of the motion
Join the river in repose, yet advancing
to the ocean.

-- Stodgy Legs Elf

Flotsam and Jetsam

Image found: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vamps/158643000/

Stodgy Legs Elf was spiraling down into the dark after being clobbered by a large and angry Rhinitiseroseule. She was doing so well with her running when this ferocious-type beast came to plague her life. He came amidst the swirls of PM2.5 particles in the toxic human air that surrounded her faerie home. She had to fashion a mask of witchspyder webs to cover her mouth and nose just to walk outside, and she could not exert much energy without swelling and becoming blue. "I am not a blue faerie by nature", thought Stodgy Legs. "The color does not fit me well."

But in spite of this tragic setback, Stodgy Legs had lost 5.5 lbs of her Stodgy self in the past two weeks. "I will not miss that part of me", said Stodgy Legs Elf.

Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

Stodgy Legs Elf was ready to get in touch with the Earth through food. She had always loved the herbs and roots and leafy greens and whole grains of the Earth. This year she decided that it was time to rid herself of polished grains and foods that had been processed and packaged for humans in a hurry. "Life is too beautiful and precious and the Earth is too magnificent for me to rush by it's treasures", thought Stodgy.

Stodgy Legs had decided to cut her portions down, and to eat whole and natural foods again. Every time she did this, she felt more energy and health. "Really, the rewards are so great that it makes little sense to do otherwise", she told herself.

Strider

Stodgy Legs Elf was making great strides with her interval training. She could now run 4.5 miles without stopping, and even 5 miles on a good day. She was working toward a 10k. Stodgy was a very, very slow-running elf, but she had a lot of stamina. She could run and run. "Perhaps I should say that I jog, rather than run", thought Stodgy Legs, reasonably.

But Stodgy needed to work on eating less foods. Her plan to watch portions had failed miserably, and now she was caught up in a whirlwind of celebrations during the season of snow faeries and winter sprites. "When January comes, I will begin again" vowed Stodgy Legs.