One Mile at a Time

It feels so great to be running again, I can hardly believe that I stayed away so long.

A little over a year a go I was celebrating achieving my goal of dropping from 197 to 175 lbs through exercise and watching what I eat (not a diet by any means), I ran the largest 20k race in the US (finishing third to last in my age group), and I was feeling great.

Since then I’ve been using every excuse I could come up with to not stay on that horse:

* I was injured (true but not for a whole year)

* I had too much work to do (ditto)

* the demands of a family keep me from fitting it in (how is it that my wife can get up at 5am every day to fit her work outs in then?)

* blah, blah, blah. (Maybe you’ve been there)

Well since I’ve laced the running shoes back up three weeks ago I’ve:

* been feeling great

* got my energy back

* reduced my stress

* gotten some of the best sleep I’ve ever had

* been able to focus better at home and work

* had one person tell me I looked like I am losing weight

* rediscovered that “I’m a Runner” again

I’ll be updating my miles walked, ran and biked on the left side of my blog under “890 Progress”. I’m nearing 1,000 miles (the equivalent of driving from Des Moines to Washington, D.C.). I’m planning on participating in two races in the coming months so I’ll be posting on my training progress as well, with the big race being on my 40th birthday, Super Bowl Sunday 2008 in Huntington Beach, California.

Finally I want to give a special word of thanks to my friends Amy and Tom at Runners’ Lounge for encouraging me daily and being the voice of the running community.

I'm going to take it one mile at a time, enjoy every one of them and visualize myself crossing the finish line strong.

Man Running on Flickr by Sansartore

Finisher on Flickr by Sosidesc

My Recent Journey

It was about two years ago that I was complaining to my wife about how I had no energy and how this and that was aching, and in a way that only she can, she looked at me and said "Don't you think you should be in the best shape of your life when you turn 40 years old?

She was right, and that night laying in bed a hatched a plan. An 890 day plan that would end with me running my first marathon on my 40th birthday....SuperBowl Sunday 2008. Being fairly sedentary at that point I started slow. I walked and cut out a few foods without really dieting. Then one day I decided to just run a block to see how I'd feel and to my surprise I felt great.

Long story short I set a few goals and tracked everything I ate, every mile I walked, ran or biked, every sit up and push up I did. It worked great, sort of. I ran a couple of organized races and lost 22 lbs overall, and got my body pretty close to high school shape.

Looking back I didn't set the right goals though because once I hit my weight goal and ran a few races I started losing interest. It's been a number of months that I've been off my 890 day plan and shamefully I have to admit that I've put all the weight back on and my pants are tighter than ever.

I've learned that for me to sustain long term success the goal can't be a number (goal weight or miles run, or goal pace - those are great milestones and reasons to celebrate but not much more), it has to be a direction. I've been back on my 890 plan for a week now, and I'm starting over again slowly. The test of my success this time isn't going to be if I finish a marathon (http://www.runsurfcity.com/site3.aspx) on February 3, 2008, it will be the next week when I'm sore and feeling proud and not so motivated to run in Iowa winter weather.

I know I'm not alone on this journey (I do have friends supporting me http://blog.runnerslounge.com/ ) and I'm hoping that by stepping out into the bloggesphere I'll meet others I can encourage. If you're training for your first marathon please write and let me know how you're doing, I'd love to visit your blog and share in your journey as well.