100 Days

What I ate today

Breakfast (10 a.m.)
2 servings of oatmeal
1 ½ servings of skim milk
Calories: 335
Fat: 3 grams

Lunch (1 p.m.)
4 chicken filets
3 low fat tortillas
1 serving of Just 2 Good bleu cheese dressing
Calories: 330
Fat: 4 grams

Snack (3 p.m.)
1 stick of beef jerkey
Calories: 150
Fat: 2 grams

Dinner (7:30 p.m.)
1 foot long Subway club
Calories: 640
Fat: 12 grams

Total Calories: 1,455
Total fat: 21 grams

Exercise: None. Worked all day. Not great, I know. But sometimes days like this happen. I have to work all day Tuesday, too, but I am going to try to get to the gym in the early afternoon. I’ll need the extra energy.

Pepto Bismol, I hope, will be my best friend in life from here on out. Let’s just hope it doesn’t cause cancer. I have never even tasted the stuff, but from what I can tell, it is what I need to get through the current stomach problems that plague me when I eat shit. My boss thinks I might have an ulcer, but my boss is a lifelong journalist, so we don’t put much stock in his non-journalistic opinions.

I said that I would tell you about basketball Saturday. Here’s what happened: I was working out at the junior college alongside the assistant coach for the womens basketball team here. In walked one of his players, a 5-10 forward from Cameroon that we will call Muna (cause that is one of her four names). Muna and I are kind of friends, at least as much as we can be with the writer-writee relationship. And we played some one-on-one last year and I nearly beat her, even though I wasn’t trying.

Since then I have talked mad shit to Muna about nearly letting a 370 pound man beat her at her own game and I issued an open challenge for her any time. When she showed up Saturday, I started talking mad shit again, only this time around the assistant.

“I would love to watch you play Muna,” he said. “She will kill you.”

“Any time,” I said.

So we decided to play right after I was done working out. I was planning the usual 40 minutes of elliptical bliss, but I figured it would be good to get some other style of cardio in. My first mistake was accepting the challenge at all. My second, and biggest, mistake was working out my arms and shoulders directly before playing. Now, I am no good at basketball. Some would say I suck. I would say I don’t practice very much. But my arms were freaking dead by the time I got on the court. Muna was fresh. I think that is the main reason she beat me 10-2 in our first game and 5-2 in our second game. It couldn’t have been the fact that she’ll be playing at a low level Division I program next year, right?

Actually, things started out really well for me. I blocked Muna’s first shot (how dare she bring that weak shit into my lane!) and then posted her up for an easy layup. Then, suddenly, Muna (who. By the way, has a very interesting story highlighted by the fact that before she came to Colorado, she had only played basketball on dirt courts in Cameroon.) became much faster than me. She was incredibly quick off the dribble and apparently had developed a jumper and, since I had to play soft defense to combat her speed, she just rained it from the outside.

Also, apparently I am not in good basketball shape yet. I’ll admit that I was severely winded during my second possession. I think that if I hadn’t just lost 56 pounds, an ambulance would have had to be called. By the end, when she started missing shots, I was too tired to even put my arms up to rebound. After the score hit 8-1, I was just begging her to end it. But she kept fucking missing shots! Damn! Finally she nailed the coffin shut and I wept in the corner of the gym while catching my breath. About 15 minutes later I challenged her again, this time to five. I was a little more competitive, but still couldn’t compete, really.

After that game we hooked up with two other girls players for some two on two. I faired a bit better (my passing skills are amazing, yo) but we lost 11-10 on a two pointer. That was it for me.

On the other end of the court, some members of the mens team (ranked 15th in the country at the end of the regular season, they are pretty damn good) were playing. They offered me a spot in their game. I politely declined.

The lesson here? Don’t get too cocky too soon. Also, just because you can go on an elliptical machine for 40 minutes straight doesn’t mean you can survive in an actual sport.