Have you ever been at the liquor store, checked the time, and thought “whoa, I better hurry up buying this booze or I’ll miss my deadline!” No? Really? Okay, so it’s just me and Hemingway, then.

Smaller companion pieces cause me more stress than longer reviews. I’m naturally verbose and I find it easy to hide behind lots of language. Keeping something under 200 words is like telling me to type my master’s thesis using Twitter, and it’s doubly hard when I can’t find the enthusiasm that usually comes so easily with coffee and an hour of background music. But I still got it done an hour early and now I can concentrate on watching the rest of Spaced. Once I’m done with the treadmill, I mean.

After a brief hiatus, I’ve gotten back into dealing with the treadmill on a daily basis. I stopped for awhile because one or both ankles would hurt for days afterward, making it difficult for me to climb stairs or balance when shaving my legs in the shower. I think I’ve fixed the problem by treadmilling* for less time (30-35 minutes a day instead of an hour), because even though my lungs can keep going, my lungs were not destroyed by 15 years of soccer. I’m almost 30. There are limits now. Also, my goal is to run a 30-minute 5K, which is not impressive for any sort of runner, but I am not a runner and I see nothing wrong with striving for what’s acceptable.

While I love to complain about my injuries, my crabby ankles are nothing compared to Vern, who broke her foot in a pothole in Soulard during a photo shoot. She fell but the camera equipment didn’t, which makes her a total professional and you should absolutely hire her because also she is amazing.

Unfortunately, she will probably not be able to run the Zombie 5K with us, because even though she’ll be recovered by then, she won’t have any time to train. Training isn’t a joke. It’s necessary. I’m not training to win; we’re pretty well convinced that we’ll all “die” within the first five minutes of the race. I just want to finish and maybe not choose any obstacles that require pull-ups. Can you do pull-ups? Are you insane? Even at my peak physical condition (size 6, 3 miles, 200 crunches, and a handful of dude push-ups every day), I was never able to do pull-ups. I like to think that in the world of upper body structure, you can either have super strength or super boobs, and it’s clear that I’ve made my choice.

*I don’t like using “treadmilling” as a verb any more than you do, but I’m not to the point of being able to run the whole time and I feel dishonest saying so for convenience’s sake. It’s more of walk five minutes/run five minutes cycle the whole time, which doesn’t sound like much but it’s helping me build endurance without crippling myself in the process.