Off the wagon

For a couple of months, actually. I was going to the gym pretty regularly for a bit, then a new baby came and I find myself looking for a new job. And there hasn't been much to brag about lately. The runs I've taken have been slow and painful. Winter, though, isn't a great excuse for me. I've always enjoyed cold weather. But usually when I get up to do some exercising, my wife tells me that she's been up three times with the baby and he needs another bottle. I'd take him with, but even a short half hour run in 30 degrees isn't good for a baby, no matter how bundled he is.

So this is me:

Only less cartooney.

I recently watched the film Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead online and think that juicing may be a great idea. If you haven't seen the movie, it's not juicing as in steroids; it's juicing as in fruits and vegetables. My wife is off getting groceries now, and I've sent her with a list of produce--pretty much anything that can be stuck in a juicer. If there's enough when she gets back, I plan on starting tomorrow with a juice-only diet for a while.

But wait, the juice fast in the movie is 60 days and the holidays are coming up. Wouldn't it be best to start afterwards?

No. I think this is the perfect time to start. Under normal holiday circumstances, we get fatter between November and December. I've even got a birthday thrown in the middle of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I figure there's a choice: start the new year fatter and go for a New Year's Resolution that will likely end in the wastelands of well-intentioned ideas, or break the cycle and begin something new. It's time to get out of the cycle of Normal.

Normal is eating everything in sight. Normal is naps on the couch in front of a football game. Normal is a month of leftovers of things I really didn't like eating in the first place but deal with once a year. Normal is dousing gravy on everything imaginable. Normal is lying to yourself that it's only once a year.

Normal is broken.

It's time for crazy.

Secret Weapon

So one of the best ways for a runner to cut weight and get in shape is not to cut calories, but to increase mileage. Cutting calories when there's a sport involved is actually counter-intuitive, as the body will hold on to calories and not spend them as much as it normally would. Weight can actually be gained and strength diminished this way.

So when I unleashed my secret weapon last week and changed my eating habits, I was careful not to cut the calories, at least not noticeably. I still want the same feeling after meals, but just from different, better food.

Last week started Lent, and while not Catholic, it's something I've participated in for a long time. I see it as finding God in places out of my usual places. Plus, I've got a bet to win with my wife. So I changed my eating habits. That's right, I've gone vegan.



But not the douchebag, angry at meat-and-cheese-eaters, protesting-slavery-of-the-honeybees vegan. This is about how my body reacts to certain products. Lately, they've just been sitting like a brick and draining energy.

It's actually fun. I get to try all kinds of fun foods, or just try out new ways of cooking them. I found a good vegan raw protein, that my wife likes as well, and I'm keeping a stash of cooked black beans, my favorite bean.

Yesterday I had Chipotle: the vegetarian burrito without sour cream and cheese is totally vegan. As far as I know. Many restaurants, in fact, have vegan options. Even in Wichita, a city with a few slaughterhouses that can be smelled all over the city with a good crosswind, there are vegan alternatives and entirely vegan restaurants.

In 5 days I'm already down 5 pounds.

This may work wonders for me. :)

Curse you, Achilles!

So the myth goes that Achilles was dipped in a water as a baby that made him invincible, except for the heel where he was held to be dipped in. It would have been such an easy thing to do to tie a rope to the little guy and get him in there all the way, making him totally invincible. Then also, maybe runners wouldn't have so much trouble with the achilles tendon.

A little bit of research reveals some interesting things about the achilles tendon:

• It is the largest tendon in the body.
• In spite of that, it doesn't get much water.
• An injury here technically isn't tendonitis, since the suffix -itis implies a swelling of the tendon--the achilles tendon doesn't swell. It's called tendinopathy.
• Vikings believed that it was the pleasure center of fertility and would boil the tendons of their honored dead to make what was called "baby broth" which was given to women of childbearing age without telling of them of the stock ingredient. They believed this produced babies that were happy about killing.

I'm chalking this up as my first serious running injury, and one that I'm milking for all it's worth. Will be spending the rest of the week in the pool or on a bike.

Marathon

I'm telling people that I ran a marathon this week. But not in a row. It took 6 days.

Mon--4 mi
Tues--4 mi
Wed--4 mi
Thurs--4 mi
Fri--4 mi
Sat--6.2 (ish)

I have the training plan downloaded for actual marathon training, but it's a 16 week deal that leads up and tapers down to the actual race date. So until that starts, I'm going to be working on volume and a bit of speed. Because this was a slooooooooooooooow week.

But I still ran a marathon.

Starting again with a bet

4 years ago, I was down to 190 pounds and could head out on a whim to do 10-12 miles.

Now, I'm at 230 and have started to put up some more volume lately. I've been hitting 4 miles a morning this week, prepping for running some races this year.

And I have some motivation.

4 years ago, I had lost 40 pounds running while my wife had put on 40 from pregnancy. She's knocked up again, so I'm once again trying to lose as much as she gains. We actually have a bet going. Unsure about the stakes, though. That will get ironed out at some point.

But anyway I'll be doing my darndest to keep a training log through Daily Mile and keeping my focus here.

So here's to this Clydesdale getting back into shape!