The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

I ran a 5k race today. Well, run is a little generous - I ran parts and walked parts. All in all, I finished with a time of 38-something - not bad for my first run in 15 years. I couldn’t have done that without losing the 75lbs. First the hills were killer, then the flats were killer, then the entire process was a killer. At least I saved a sprint for the last.

I don’t know - I might try a couple more before I give up on running. I definitely enjoy biking, and volleyball season starts Monday, so there’s lots to keep me active. I sure do like the idea of running through the backlots of Disney though, and I don’t know that I’m ready to give up on that dream just yet.

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Well I’m dropping something down to let y’all know how it went. Don’t worry I’ll try to give more details in another post, as well as a picture of my number. But ya, I broke 24 minutes. That wasn’t an official goal I set for myself, but the fact is I usually run my normal runsat about an 8 minute mile.

Few quick things I can mention though…. And it’s probably good for other people to think about. For all my talk about running being a solo activity and testing yourself, it’s damn harder to do in person. Looking around there were lots of people in quality gear all appearing to be in great shape. It’s hard not to compare yourself to others. For all my noncompetitivenature, I was getting nervous. In fact I about psyched my self out with all the tension building up without a focus .

And I think that affects a lot of people. Whether it’s your first time or first in a long time, there is that sense of public scrutiny. How you handle that anxiety is another matter : raw self-confidence, pride, vanity, frugality, or whatever. Something that will get you to toe the line, waiting for the gun. For me, it was a little pride and vanity. I had brought along my cheerleader, my beautiful wife, and there was no way I was going to back down in front of her. Especially for fears that seem silly even in my own mind.

Pacing around at the line, I jockeyed for position. Didn’t want to get too far in front or too far back. Once the race started, all the built-up tension was focused and flowed out of me into my running. Sadly, it left a little present behind. Lactic acid in my arms. People may not think your arms get much of a work out while running, but proper and more efficient form uses the movement of your arms. By a mile and a half, my arms and shoulders were killing me. I had kept them so tense waiting for the race to startthat they were worthless. They hurt so bad I’ll even admit I walked 4 times, for about 5 seconds each time, because of the pain.

As is obvious from my numbers (60 out of ~250 and 7:43 min miles) it goes to show that you should NEVER go on appearances. You, and they, might be surprised as you pass them by before the end of the race.

Hey all. So tomorrow is the race.

I’ve got to say, I’m getting excited. Nervous ya, cause I haven’t raced in a long time. But excited too. When I ran yesterday to keep loose, per the Ipod I was hitting 1:50 quarter miles. I have no idea how that’s happening. But its encouraging to say the least. And I’m pretty much as prepared as I’m going to be. It’s more going to be a matter of running smart.

Running smart. Bet that sounds a little strange. If you’ve never done it before, running in a race is completely different than anything you can do on a treadmill or by yourself. Sounds like a good article for next week.

Just wanted to give a shout out to Adam Hansen of the Yippie Show and Marcel Janus of bone187 for marking us as a favorite on Technorati. If you haven’t done so yet, go a head and get it in tonight. I’ll check in the morning before I go out the door. And in case you forgot, the deal is I’m donating 5 $’s for each person who tags us as a favorite before the race. I’m glad to be donating 10 dollars so far but my wallet’s bigger than that. And two names aren’t going to cover much space on my number.

And I’ll describe more tomorrow or Sunday after the race, as well as posting a picture of my number. While I don’t need beauty sleep (wonderful side effect of being married), I do need sleep for the race. Waddle on.

I have accepted an invitation to run as part of a team in a 5k race with my coworkers in June. It’s a little frightening - although I used to run cross-country competitively in high school, as Dave can attest (he ran for a different school’s team) I wasn’t that good then, and 17 years later I haven’t aged like wine or fine cheese. Dave assures me two months is enough time to get used to the 5k distance - we’ll see. I’ll measure out 5k somewhere in my neighborhood and give it a go tomorrow morning. I haven’t committed yet, but I likely will.

I have finally had time to start messing with the look of The Life Ledger. I have probably one more day’s worth of tinkering to do, then we’ll be creating some original tools for our readers - charts, nutrition info, calculators and more. I’m looking forward to rolling it out over the next few weeks.

Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention - Dave and I got interviewed by the crew at Weight Loss Tips - you can read my interview here, and I expect Dave’s will get posted soon. Here’s an excerpt:

-Do you think it will be easy to fall back into your old lifestyle pattern? How do you prevent this from happening?

It took years to develop the habits that led to my weight-gain; I expect it will take a while to replace them with healthy habits. Some are easy, like no longer eating fast food (I pack my meals or find healthier alternatives); some are harder, like not snacking during meal preparation or grazing at gatherings. To prevent slipping back into old unhealthy habits, I practice awareness in two different ways:

1) I weigh daily. I don’t freak when my weight fluctuates from day to day, but I do watch for trends. I set an alarm weight of 5 lbs over my current weight; when I reach my alarm weight, I know I’m slipping back.

2) I count every calorie every day. Over time, I learn how to judge a meal’s caloric content without looking it up. Also, if I have to write down every bite I take while grazing at a party, I’m much less likely to eat it in the first place.

Read the full interview at wltips.com.

Oh, and one more thing - the wraps at Jersey Mike’s taste a whole lot better than Subway’s. I’ll have to look into the nutrition info.

So as I say elsewhere here, I lost most of my weight by running. And I was steadily increasing my distance. My longest distance was a little over 9 miles, I think, and averaging around 20 miles a week. Then I met my wife.

Heh, you know what? I didn’t notice, or care, that I was running less. My preferred time to run is in the morning, but now that time is put to better use holding my wife. Yes, I’m a bit of a romantic; what can I say? But the fact that she is such an amazing and health-conscious cook is why my weight was able to stay steady. So at the time I didn’t miss running.

Currently the only running I do is about 30 minutes before my karate class. And while that’s nice for general cardio, it lacks the ability to get me to that “cleansing place” where all of life falls away: just you and the road. After runs like that I get this sense of clarity that’s amazing. It’s very similar to a Nike commercial I saw just the other day(but I was unable to find it on youtube yet).

Now I’m looking to try and get refocused. And I’ve decided to do that by signing up for a race. It’s not a long race, only 5k(or 3.11 miles for us Imperialists) . I’m not usually competitive, and trying to run with about 500 more people is going to be interesting to say the least. At the same time, the money goes Habitat for Humanity, so that’s motivation right there as well.

In fact, tell you what. For each person who tags The Life Ledger as a Technorati favorite blog, I’ll add 5 dollars as an additional donation. Race day, I’ll write the names on my number or carry them some other way, and then post a picture of it afterward.