My buttal region hurts like nobody's business and it's all that Catie's fault.

I say drat to her and her 15 minute mile. Double drat. I shouldn't be so venomous, I know, but I can't help myself. My heiney hurts. It hurts like nobody's business.

Since I've stopped working out at my gym, I found it very hard to motivate myself. I miss the clear goals my trainer used to set, and even more I miss the women at my gym. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed the social part of it until I left.

Sure, I have my purple happy fun ball of pain, humiliation and torture, but while the ball has a definite presence, it really doesn't have many social skills. I haven't hung out with it as much as I thought I would.

I find I miss the encouragement of friends.

Not that my three loyal readers haven't been wonderfully supportive. Michele has sent me some excellent exercise videos, Nicole reminds me the perfect butt is steps away, and Catie has been an inspiration with her Body For Life program.

Then that wicked Catie had to mention that she's trying to walk a 15 minute mile.

"Woo HOO," I thought to myself. "A GOAL. I, too, will try to walk a 15 minute mile."

It's a quarter mile walk uphill to my home. I've been doing four circuits (or about two miles) every other day, but it takes me 40 minutes to do this. That means I've been walking 20 minute miles. (Stay awake, there WILL be a quiz about this.)

After I read Catie's entry, I decided to try to make the first mile in 15 minutes.

"Piece of cake," I told myself. "How hard could it be to pare 5 freaking minutes off from walking down to the road and back up home twice?"

Okay, now I know you're saying to yourselves, "But Marn, Catie is walking on an incline on a treadmill and you're going to be doing half your walk going steeply downhill. Isn't that CHEATING?"

.:Cough:. Cheating .:Cough:.? Isn't *cheating* a rather harsh word? Wouldn't it be kinder to say that it might be a tad easier my way?

Well, yes, I DID think that would make it somewhat easier, but that just shows you what a 'tard I am when it comes to exercise.

First off, if you run all the way downhill, you tend to collapse in a quivering, gasping, lobster red heap of jello because you have zero energy left to make the steep climb back uphill.

Don't ask me how I know this, I just do, eh.

BUT (there I go again, me and my big but, eh), if you try to walk quickly down a steep hill for a quarter mile without running (so you'll conserve energy for the climb back up) then your body has to do A LOT of braking.

To my surprise, I have found that the major braking muscles are NOT in your legs as you might expect.

Nope, those braking muscles are in the buttal region. Oh, are they EVER in the buttal region, eh.

Although it has almost killed me, I've pared my time to cover a mile down to a smidge over 17 minutes.

I'm not sure I can do it, BUT me and my achey breaky derri�re are going to keep trying for the elusive 15 minute goal.

Anybody know if they sell Ben Gay by the barrell?

--Marn