I’ve kind of let my exercise regiment fall to the wayside over the past month. For one thing, it got really cold — I know, I know, wasn’t I the one who would go running rain or shine, in the heat or in the cold, no matter what? Didn’t I run 1000 miles one year? What happened?

I stopped being so hardcore is what happened.

Since I feel better both mentally and physically when I exercise, I need to get back on the stick. I have my general goals, and then I have my reach-for-the-stars goal.

My exercise goals for 2012:

• Run at minimum 3 days a week.
• Lift weights at minimum 2 days a week.
• Run a marathon in under 5 hours.

Which means, running friends, I want to do another marathon. I did one in September last year and it was total crap: there was a five mile stretch both out and back that basically was a single lane through blond gravel, so it was painful, annoying, and blinding…for ten miles of the 26; they didn’t have enough water/refreshment stations and they weren’t stocked well; it was hot. I didn’t do well for a number of reasons, but one reason is that I need to concentrate more on training to do more than 26 miles. Most training programs for beginners/non-elite runners seem to taper off at 20 miles in the training, and every marathon I completely bonk out at 21 or 22 miles. So I need to work on training runs of 25 to 30 miles. I can’t believe I’m actually typing that out, but there it is!

So: let’s do another marathon! Santa Barbara’s half marathon was great, so I wouldn’t mind going back down there!

I am one of these people that really, really wants to see evidence of the strange, unbelievable, paranormal events. Not because I want to be all James Randi and yell, “Ah HA!” when it doesn’t work. No…I want to see it because I think it’d be really cool.

My friends who say they’ve seen ghosts? I suspect that something else happened during their encounter other than “confrontation with an otherworldly spirit,” but the idea of actually interacting with a ghost is mega-awesome-cool.

(I refer you to Stephen King’s take on The Amityville Horror from the perspective of an adult. As a kid, you’re terrified, you’re watching this and thinking, OMG get out! As an adult, you watch the destruction happening in that house and all you can think is, “How would I explain this to my insurance company?”)

I’ve visited a couple of astrologers who came highly recommended by friends as being amazingly accurate. Like, everything they said came true. One of the astrologers told me I was never going to have kids. That’s how accurate my astrological readings were. I do not know of an astrologer I can recommend to you, sorry.

I visited an acupuncturist for two or three session. I can’t remember what the reason that drove me to an acupuncturist was. Acupuncture is a very strange experience and I actually recommend getting a session once — if I can stand having needles driven into my skin, trust me, you’ll be fine. But nothing happened as a result of the acupuncture.

One friend told me that the first time she meditated she had an extreme religious experience. Another one told me about a vision that was so intense he opened his eyes — and when he closed them again, the vision kept right on going. Me? Every time I’ve meditated I’ve spent most of my time trying to sit still and count my breaths. I’ve still gotten a lot out of meditation…I just haven’t had otherworldly experiences at it.

Which brings me to exercise and why it took me so damn long to realize that yes, exercise was having a profound effect on my life.

I don’t like to exercise. I often describe my exercise routine as “The triumph of determination over genetics, ability, and desire.” If I could have all of the same effects from sitting on a couch eating bonbons as I do from exercise, my butt would be on that couch so fast the bonbons would wonder what had happened. My friend Nina (with whom I ran the Seattle and San Francisco Marathons) looooves to exercise — she exercises for the hell of it. I associate exercise with being made fun of in gym class.

There are lots and lots of genuine physical benefits to exercising. I find weightlifting 1000 times more useful for losing weight and keeping it off than cardio (provided you do weightlifting with a purpose and a plan and not just picking up a few weights here and there). I think having a steady cardio routine does increase my energy during the day overall, although the effect is minimal on a day-to-day basis. In fact, my usual response to the axiom that “Exercise gives you energy!” is “Exercise makes me tired!” Which is does. Right at that moment. Overall, however, I have more energy.

Before I go to the gym I come up with all of the reasons I don’t want to go: “I don’t wanna.” “I’m busy.” “What’s the point?” I have to bargain with myself: “Just do one set of each exercise and you can go.” Once I get there, I do my full workout. Afterward, no matter how the workout went, I feel better. I definitely feel like a happier and more positive person than I did before I went to the gym. Somehow, however, my brain can’t figure out that going to the gym is a net-positive, and almost every time I’m going to the gym I have to go through that bargaining session.

I do it, though. I have to exercise. I’ve discovered I have no choice. Not just the physical effects. Not just the reminder to keep my body in good shape. No, it has incredibly profound and noticeable effects on my mood and my mind.

On days when I have a huge run of 15 miles or more I’m far more likely to be napping in the afternoon than saying, “C’mon, kids, let’s put on a show!” But if I don’t exercise regularly, I nap every afternoon.

This was actually a problem when the kids were little and I didn’t exercise much. I would lay on the couch, unable to stay awake, and they would watch Dora the Explorer or whatever. When the show was over, Sophia would poke me and I would wake up long enough to put on a new episode for them. I haven’t spent an afternoon like that in, literally, years.

The biggest and most repeatable effect that exercise has given me is that it has completely changed my brain chemistry. If I exercise regularly, I am happy and productive. If I don’t exercise, I am depressed and weepy.

There’s a one-to-one correlation on this.

Exercise: wake up every day and go about my day.

Don’t exercise: wake up and think, Enh, I’ll go back to bed. And really feel a complete lack of hope in my day, despite absolutely nothing have happened that might cause that.

So there isn’t a question of whether I’m going to exercise. It’s like brushing my teeth at this point: I have to do it. This effect is probably why I’ve only had the runner’s high once or twice with all of the running I’ve done — the endorphins are spending the rest of their time lifting my mood out of the dirt. They don’t have time to give me a real zing.

I discovered this, by the way, because I used to take anti-depressants. The more I kept exercising, the better my mood was getting…yet I’d continually forgotten to take the pills. Eventually I said, “Apparently I’ve gone cold turkey without meaning to, so I’m going to stop taking these altogether, ‘kay?”

It’s hard when I throw my back out or when I travel, particularly to cold climates. Generally the longest I can go is a week before I get a wave of melancholy, and that’s enough to make me say, “Okay, gotta go for three.” I don’t think I have to exercise a lot to achieve this effect — maybe three days a week is good enough.

The rest of the time, the exercise is to keep my body in shape. Yeah, there’s no getting away from that angle, I’m afraid.

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Oh! I forgot the one “offbeat” experience I tried that really did work for me: chiropractic. I’ve seen a couple of chiropractors over the years — I have a herniated disk in my lower lumbar — and I’d say the sum total of benefit received was about zero. Chiropractic really ranked around the level of astrology for me. I was about ready to get a prescription for medical marijuana to deal with the pain and have I ever mentioned to you what I think of cannabis? (If you enjoy it, godspeed. I’m one of the people who it affects very, very badly.)

A few years ago I threw my back out and my trainer at the gym told me to go see his chiropractor. I really didn’t want to. What was the point, really?

Then the pain got worse and if you’ve had really bad, chronic pain, you know you’ll try anything, even if you suspect it’s probably quackery.

I went to see my trainer’s chiro and in one visit, he reduced my pain about ninety percent. In the morning I couldn’t stand, sit, or lie down comfortably, and in the afternoon I could.I didn’t have to wonder, “Is this effective? Kind of? Sort of?” After the next few visits, my pain was entirely gone.

His name is Armen Agacanyan and he is amazing. He used to have an office near Santana Row, but now he’s moved to having his office solely in Morgan Hill. I don’t care. Driving down there is completely worth it.