FatBlogger

run, rabbit, run...

With apologies to Christine Morton and John Updike!

In the past when I have lost weight successfully I did two things, I, of course, was more aware of what I was eating and limited my calories, and I ran. I really enjoyed jogging and it always seemed to help me lose weight much more quickly. Often times though I stopped working out and jogging when I fell off the calorie wagon, and over the years as I slowly got a bit bigger and bigger, I did not think jogging and running could be an option for me.

The first few times I tried it hurt, like I was carrying a 50 pound sack of cement, and indeed I was. I also read that the stress on joints was 3 times your body weight, and the thought of doing that to my knees just did not sound safe. I was afraid I would "blow out a knee" or hurt myself.

So I started walking. Walking gets a lot of good press because it is so accessible to everyone. It is easy on the joints, heart, and is something that you can go back and do everyday. When I was training for the 1/2 marathon, even when I got up to 10 miles, it was 90% walking.

I noticed something with that training, I did not lose any weight, zero. Of course I was not diligent with my calories, but still, it should have accounted for something right? And through it all, all the walking, I always longed to just let loose and jog. In the past, running had a zen like quality for me, hard to explain, and almost impossible to capture by walking. I miss it.

Anyway, a few days ago, after another fight with my son, I did not let it escalate into a meltdown, I went back to the park that I have neglected for about 6 months. I walked a lap, jogged a lap, until I had gone two miles. I did not set any records, but I did much more jogging than I had in the past. It hurt for a while, but got easier as I went along. I was tired, but exhilarated, I have not gone two miles at anything in a long time.

When I got home I googled a few "is it OK to run when you are fat" type of things, and came up with this article from about.com, and it put aside my fears about the dangers I had perceived for heavy runners. It can be done.

from walking to running

It is a good article and she brings up a interesting point, running simply works different muscles, more muscles, than walking does. When you run your body starts getting "prepared" for more running in the future. Much like lifting weights, your body tries to get ready for the next work out, and this aids in weight loss and increased cardiovascular functioning. Its all good. There is a danger of injury to the knees and joints, but taking it slow, mixing in walking, can pretty much alleviate that.

The benefits, in my mind anyway, seem to far out "weigh" the potential dangers. I am looking forward to more regular trips to the park, and looking forward to all the results.

8 the hard way...

OK,  I had planned to go ten miles Sunday, but I only went 8.  It was not an easy run, despite the cool temperatures. my pace was to walk for one minute, run for 15-20 seconds. It took me about 2 hours. Extending this time out to 13 miles, one could assume it will take me 3+ hours to finish the half marathon. At that rate, why bother to run at all? I might as well just walk the damn thing.

I am a bit discouraged I could not get back up to ten miles, but not surprised, I have laid off for about a month. I have a ton of stuff to get done this week before we leave, and I am doubting now I can get in that 12 mile trek on Wednesday.

And of course I am still fat. Tanned, but fat. I am lifting weights about every other day, so I have good muscle tone, and I do not hate myself per se, but 50 pounds is a lot to lug around for 13 miles. And to top it off, I have a bit of a throbbing pain in my groinal area, and it is not the pleasurable kind. Going to the doctor so he can feel me up, and get on my case for still being fat after I told him 6 months ago that I was losing weight...well...I just don't have that penciled into my agenda right now!

On the positive side, I did go 8 miles, despite how long it took. No problems with my knees or joints. It could be worse.

I noticed on my 8 mile trek that I had a hard time getting into the groove. Around the 5th mile I started to run more easily and  for longer periods, and then it got hard again. What was the difference? Thinking and not thinking about what I was doing. When I was thinking about how far I had to go, the next marker up ahead, my breathing, my legs...it was difficult. When I was thinking about my son, the music, or something else, it was easy, or at least I did not notice how hard it was.

Mind over matter... mind over 50 extra pounds of matter to be exact.

Sundays at the park...

You know what I hate? No... besides being fat. I hate when I spend 30 minutes writing a post and then because of my own stupidity, like trying to open another IE window, it erases the whole damn thing before I saved it. I will try a second time to be as witty as I was on the first, and if it isn't you can blame my re-do.

First off, let me thank Jaye for the advice, and Jeff, my e-coach, for giving me the whats up on "runners rash". Dana, Margaret, good guess, Michelle, you were close. Apparently I am supposed to wear longer biker type shorts. I will try that out, but I am going to have to wear those shorts under another pair of jogging shorts, I have no intention of wearing something that tight in public, I do have some dignity left, despite what you might think to the contrary!

OK, on to the park...

I really like running just before nightfall, in the twilight hours of the evening. I am not sure why. Mornings are supposed to be better for you as a runner, but I just can't do it, or don't like to anyway. I suppose it is because in the evening things are more relaxed, the day is over and you can really focus on the priorities in you life, really home in on them. I think that is why I resolve so many issues or see things more clearly on my long runs. In the morning I tend to just think about all the things I have to get done that day, all the things I didn't do yesterday. It seems more of an indictment on the lack of completions than anything else. I find it hard to focus on the things "that matter" and easy to focus on the things that are trivial. So anyway, I like running in the evening!

Last Sunday I got a great front seat on all kinds of life's little dramas, it was like watching a play unfold in three acts.

Everyone I passed had a unique scent too, not that I went out of my way sniffing, I just have a very strong sense of smell, my wife calls me a human bloodhound. There were cheap perfumes and talcum on the older folk, sporty body-washes on the middle-aged ladies, Old Spice on one dude, CK for Men on another. Me? I use UNscented Secret. That's right, I use a woman's deodorant, but only for real sweaty days. It is THE only thing that really works for construction workers, believe me I tried them all. How did I find out? Ran out of my own and grabbed the wife's one day. Hey, I said it was unscented, and I even take the label off... so I can't be labeled!

Anyway, I digress...back to the park...

There was the couple in their late 50's, complete with a shitzu on a leash and cocktails in hand, walking laps until the gin and tonics were dry! Everytime I passed, the damn dog tried to nip my feet, I was about to drop kick it over the fence, when they suddenly left.

There was the young "couple"  in their 20's. She was serious about getting some time in at the track, he was just tagging along in hopes of, well, tagging her.

There was a couple in their 60's, they did not come to run or walk, but fly a gas powered airplane around the field! The wife did not do anything but stand "by her man". After about 30 minutes they were done, they walked by me looking solemn with this huge plane. He looked like Wilford Brimley, complete with huge gray mustache... she just looked bored. Ahh, the retirement years.

There were two girlfriends, mid 30's, macked out to the nines in expensive running apparel and gear. They walked 1/2 a lap to the far side of the park, then sat until dark just talking on a bench. Every time I passed them they seemed to be in an intense discussion and apparently the exercise was a ruse to get out of the house for an extended period. Probably sharing secrets about an infidelity, or thinking about one.

As it got dark there was only one woman left. She was around 60 I would guess, a little pudgy but not obese. She had on an old pair of white shorts and a blue plaid short sleeve shirt. I noticed all of this because she only had buttoned the middle button of the shirt. Kinda weird. We were about to pass each other in the wooded section when she stopped short afraid to go forward. I thought she must have thought I was a mugger or worse, but as I go closer I noticed something in the middle of the path, a baby opossum, about the size of a kitten. I tried to shoo it away and it dropped right down by my feet and curled up pretending to be dead! It did the same thing when I passed it once more! Cute.

Maybe I like running at night because the people are not as earnest or serious as the morning joggers. This is the dilettante time, for wannabes like me, people in flux, transitional humans.

These are my kind of people.

8 1/2 miles and counting...

Sunday that is how far I went, and under two hours, 113 minutes to be exact. That is really a good time for me considering the heat (around 85-90) and the fact that generally I am around 15 minutes per mile walking and running. Averaging 13 1/2 minutes per mile is really good, my trainer wanted me to do 14:45 per mile. I did so good in fact that I wonder if I miscalculated something, I took a different path at the park. We will find out this Sunday, I will go back to the old path for my 10 mile trek. 10 miles! I am not really looking forward to that. Why you say? Well...

The last long run I went on, my feet were killing me, they became sore and blistered because of the new shoes, so this time I put some socks on. My feet felt great, only I did not account for the constant rubbing of my underwear on the inside of my thighs! Towards the last mile I was waddling/jogging more than walking/running. When I got home I applied some baby oil, which helped to grease the friction there a bit. By the way, I tried some hand lotion...OUCH! Talk about salt on a wound! What do long distance runners do anyway, go commando? That does not seem appealing to me either. I guess I could stuff a bottle of baby oil down my shorts and give it a squirt every mile, but somehow I think people would talk.

This time there was a little pain around my ankles and shin bones, and man was I sore in my leg muscles for a few days after. But is was a good hurt, like a merit badge I had earned. I am a bit concerned about some lingering twinges when I bend my knees though and I wonder if that is normal?

I have more to tell about my park trek, but will have to make it a post for tomorrow, I want to cut it short tonight so I can make the rounds and get caught up on other blogs...like yours!

Mas o Menos

"More or less" for those of you Espanol impaired. That about sums up my weekend to this point. It started out great, went to midland (as we used to say in the Midwest), then went into the crapper (pure Northeast). My apologies if I messed up your indigenous jargon and or language.

Saturday was OK, did not do much except household projects, I am working in the garage making a workout room for me and the kid.

Sunday I went running for my long run as usual. It had rained and it was cloudy and the temp "plummeted" down to 79, so I took my shot and went to the park. This Sunday I was supposed to do a "time trial", no actual long run, just a fast one to see where I am at. I walked a quick mile to warm-up, stuck the headphones into my ears on my MP3 player and took off. About 1/4 mile into the run, I could not get the rhythm of my breath right and I was heaving like a rhino. The freaken ear plugs kept slipping out and the cord was strangling me. The music was cranking and Greenday was driving me on so I just kept plugging them in and plugging on. I finished the mile running strong, but winded in 9 minutes 49 seconds. I finished up by walking another mile to cool down, breathing like a mad man, sending many children trying to fly kites running to their mothers. One good thing though; no problems with my knees, legs or feet. All in all not great, but better than I thought I could run a mile being 45 pounds overweight. I thought the time trial would be a snap, after all I had just walked/run 7 miles a week ago, it actually turned out to be much, much harder.

That night we ordered Chinese delivery and I cut my usual order in half but I ate a boat load of noodles, feeling like I "deserved it". The scale told me I had dropped 8 pounds in 10 days, so I thought, what the hell. In addition to the noodles I ate something called Chinese fried bread and there in lies the problem because it seems to have gotten stuck in my upper intestine, blocking the swift removal of any food and now anything I eat seems to just get stuck in my stomach. This morning when I woke up I felt like a puffer fish, there must have been so much MSG in the  food that my body distorted into the the shape of Jabba, when I was really going for Aragorn, and it kinda put a stop to the "feeling good about myself" saga. Somehow overnight I gained 3 pounds. Obviously this is all just water fluctuating around, but damn it those three pounds made me feel a whole lot better about myself!

For now I am just hoping that things will pass... physically, mentally, spiritually.

7 miles strong!

Yes! Sunday morning I went 7 miles as part of my training! This is THE farthest I have ever gone, ever. I started late, at 10:45, it was 80 and not too bad, but by midday it shot up to above 90. The last mile I really wanted to quit, but I didn't. It took me along time, almost two hours.

For the past month my right lower leg had been bothering me when I exercised, it would cramp up pretty bad and become painful, the remarkable thing is Sunday it felt great. I am not sure if this is because I passed some kind of threshold and it is now used to this kind of exercise, or because of the supplement I started taking. I have been taking Advil to keep swelling down and a few days ago, while shopping at Costco, I picked something up called "Triple Flex", which contains Glucosamine and Chondroitin. I have read in Runner's World that some people recommend it for joints so I thought I would try it. It is supposed to take 6 weeks for it to have an effect, so maybe it is all psychological? I don't know. Those two ingredients are essential for the repair of the connective tissue around joints and the cartilage that cushions movement. So far, so good.

It has also been three days now since I "began" to get serious. I am writing everything down in a journal and after two weeks I will tell you how I am doing and what I have been doing. The first three days are really the hardest part of starting something new, I am doing good, I like my chances with this.

Thanks to everyone for all the support, good thoughts and well wishes on my endeavor, believe me, it makes a difference. Onward and upward!

vision quest

As I have been increasing my activity lately, mostly walking with some jogging or using the stationary bike, I have been having these flashes of clarity. It is a hard thing to explain really, like putting on glasses that clear your vision for brief moments. During these times I understand things, I see things in my life as they really are and as I have made them. There are no answers in these moments, just a feeling of profound understanding, and then they are gone. Weird.

I think it has something to do with the length of the activity, which have been increasing slowly over the last few weeks, and the fact that I have been using music more as I workout, listening to my wife's mp3 player or pedaling away while Greenday blasts on my boom box.

There was a time when I was 165, 170, 175 pounds and I had the wherewithal to get there. Of course the fact that I was that weight, several times, indicates it never lasted, but nevertheless there were times when I succeeded. During those times, on a diet and exercising, I would also get these moments. Once about 20 years ago a major revelation was revealed to me about my life that still holds true today.

There is something about the activity or the exercise, maybe the release of endorphins, maybe something else, that focuses your mind like a laser beam, like a zen meditation. There have even been times when I have had a problem or needed to make a decision, went for a long long walk or run and the answer was clear to me by the time I got home, never to be doubted or regretted.

It is truly a great feeling, a peace and comfort that food can't touch and I welcome it back again to my life. I only wish It could last longer throughout the day or compel me to more purposeful action. I guess for now I will be grateful that it compels me to exercise at all, and for longer and longer periods of time seeking a clearer vision.