How I Got Here

I have never liked running. The last time I ran was in high school, over 25 years ago. Running was something my football and wrestling coaches forced us to do, seemingly, and sometimes literally, as punishment. Even further back, in middle school when I went out for track and threw the discus and shot put, the coaches had the other 'big guys' and I occasionally run the 'fat man relay' (that is what they called it) in track meets with other teams. I guess it was a bit of fun to see 4 mostly overweight, but definitely slow guys run a 400 or 800 yard relay against 4 similarly speed challenged boys from the opposing team. It always got a good laugh from all the spectators. Those are my two most vivid memories of running, which makes it all the more strange that I should find, almost by accident at the age of 43 that I like running.

I've struggled with being overweight almost my entire life. In the last five years, I'd added even more extra poundage to my already overburdened frame and a couple of years ago, received a diagnoses of 'pre-diabetic' from my doctor. It wasn't yet bad enough that I had to take insulin, but if I stayed on my current path, it was only a matter of time. Yet, a year later, I had only made very minimal progress in changing my lifestyle. I'd managed to lose 10-15 pounds of the 60 I figured I needed to. I skipped a couple return appointments to the doctor, trying to avoid unpleasant news.

Then, a year ago I made yet another attempt at making significant changes to my lifestyle, exercising regularly by walking on the treadmill and tracking (and limiting) calories. In about four months, I'd lost another 22 pounds, and then, as had happened many times before when trying to make healthy changes, 'fell off the wagon'. By November of this past year, I'd gained 16 of those 22 pounds back. I was starting to wonder if I would ever make long term changes and really live a healthy lifestyle. I thought about why I had failed so many times before and how I could do it differently this time, and succeed. After writing about it a few times in my 'losing weight' blog, I realized two things. The first is that losing weight as a goal just didn't work for me. It wasn't motivating and mentally, I just couldn't maintain the discipline it took for a goal about which I didn't really care. I realized that it was just a convenient way to measure 'living a healthy lifestyle', but I really felt that I needed something I was really interested in doing to motivate me to make the changes I knew were necessary. The other thing I realized is that I had to stop focusing on my weight at all because it promoted short term thinking as far as the changes I wanted to make. If the purpose of eating better and regular exercise was to hit a certain weight, or waist size, then if/when I hit those numbers, my motivation to continue the healthy living would be gone. I needed to find a way to make those changes a long term proposition, to be the way I wanted to live the rest of my life rather than something I was doing to reach some arbitrary number related to my body size. The problem was, though I thought and wrote about it over a period of weeks, I didn't come up with this new source of motivation. And I knew that I could sit around and wait for it to come, so I decided just to get moving again and hope it would come to me.

So I started walking on the treadmill again. We've had the treadmill for about 10 years and most of those years it has sat in the corner unused. Every few months (or years), I'd get on it for a few weeks, walking as a way to try and get exercise back into my life. I really wanted to jump start the fitness so decided to go 45 minutes rather than the 20-30 I'd done in times past. One day, just so I could feel like I was really working out, I alternated the walking with some jogging. When I finished that day, I was tired, but I felt good. Funny thing is, the running made that 45 minutes go by much faster than just walking alone did. In fact, the time seemed to fly by. So the next day, I did it again. Walk some to warm up, then run a little and walk some more. At first it was less than 3 miles, then I hit 3 miles; 3.2, 3.3. Pretty soon I was trying to do a little more each day. In order to ensure that, I started timing the walking and the running and adding a little more running each day, or go a little faster. It got to be a game and I looked forward to getting on the treadmill to try and beat my last distance. That was when I realized that I liked running. Then an idea for a goal formed in my mind and it seemed crazy, but was exciting at the same time.

I want to run a marathon.

It was crazy. I was still at least 40 pounds overweight, less than a month off the couch and I'd never been much of an athlete even in high school. And that was a long time ago. But I couldn't shake the idea and every time I thought about it, I got a thrill and somewhere down deep I knew that I could do it. But I also knew that it wasn't something I could just do on my own, and it wasn't something to be taken lightly. I would need a plan.

My wife had told me about a training program called ‘Couch to 5K’ which included alternating timed walking and running. This was exactly what I had stumbled on myself so it seemed perfect. As I looked over the plan, I realized that it was starting at a point well behind what I was already doing. Week 1 of the plan was only 3 days/week for 20 minutes; and running 60 seconds for every 90 seconds walking. But I also realized that I had been trying to go too fast. The last session I did before changing to C25K I was able to get in over 3.8 miles in the same 45 minutes that had been less than 3 miles just a couple weeks before. But when I finished that run, I was completely exhausted and still tired the next day. I'd read enough beginner articles and tips online to know I was trying to go too fast and was headed for an injury or burn out.

So I officially started the Couch to 5K training plan on 12/27/09. It is a 9 week plan at the end of which, I should be able to run 3 miles without stopping. At week 14 on March 28th, I'm planning to run my first 5K race at the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick 5K in West Des Moines, IA. If that goes OK, then at week 18, on April 25th, I'll attempt a 10K at the U of I River Run in Iowa City. The Marathon is scheduled for week 43 in Des Moines on October 17th. I'm reviewing a couple different marathon training plans and will make that decision in the next month. From what I can tell, most of those plans are 16 weeks and assume 6 months to a year of previous running. I'll be at the six month mark when I would start a 16 week plan, so it may be a little aggresive, but I believe I can do it, even if I end of walking some of it this first time out.

The best thing is that now I have a goal that I'm really interested in achieving and that supports my other goals of living a healthy lifestyle and getting fit. I'm even OK with finding out later in the year that I won't be ready for a marathon in 2010 if that is what happens. I know it is just a matter of time before I will be ready and I'll be having fun and feeling better than ever as I train for that day. That's the other part of my thinking that has changed with this new goal. I'm not panicked about not hitting my goal by X date and if I don't, I have failed. I'm in this for the long haul and if I don't reach all my goals this year, there is still next year and the years after that. Before this, it was always a sprint race to reach a certain weight by a certain date. That required X pounds per week and if I had a bad week, I had to lose twice as much the next week, and on and on. It was a self defeating plan from the beginning. I know this isn't going to be easy and it won't always be fun. But I'm relaxed and ready for the challenge and I believe what I'm trying to do is attainable, and I will attain it over time.