On March 3rd of 2009, following a sobering visit with my doctor, I finally resolved to get my health and fitness in order. At that time I clocke
d in at 284 Lbs (286 Lbs on the doctor's scale, but I'm pretty certain it's the devil's scale, so I will stick with the reading on my bathroom scale).
With a combination of better eating (mostly South Beach Diet - with yummy meals provided by my uber-supportive wife) and exercise, I hit a low of 218 Lbs in November. At the beginning, the exercise consisted mostly of 30-40 minutes on the elliptical cross-trainer in the basement. Until, that is, I broke the darned thing sometime in May. So, I was faced with about $100 for parts to repair the thing (plus actually trying to
do the repair, not really my thing), or worse still buying a new machine.
Being the cheap bastard that I am, I took a look at my running shoes and decided to start jogging. So at first I had a neighborhood loop that was about 2-1/2 miles. Took me well over a half-hour and I could barely run 5 consecutive minutes without keeling over panting to catch my breath.
Slowly but surely, I was able to get through the run without feeling like I was going to suffer a stroke, and over time I was able to expand it to about 3 miles (about 5k). Then 4 miles. Then 5 miles. One of the highlights of the summer was doing the 6 mile (10k) loop that my father used to run. Took me about 65-70 minutes, but truthfully I never, ever imaged I would be able to run the loop that my dad ran.
Then, one day in August while I was still enjoying the endorphin rush of a just completed run, I started surfing the web and found out that the Denver Marathon was in October. "What the hell" I thought to myself, and signed up for the Half-Marathon. So, there I was, the endorphins slowly subsiding, and I came to the realization that I now had about 8 weeks to train to train for 13.1 miles (21k), more than double any length I
had previously been able to complete.
Well, long story short, I did it!
As I reached about the 12 mile mark, we came to a fork in the road where the people doing the half-marathon veered right to head back towards the finish line, while those doing the full marathon continued on for another 14 miles. While I knew that I was not ready to finish a full marathon, I did have a moment of envy for those continuing on.
So, again to recap what I had done in the 8 months since starting my fitness crusade:
- I dropped about 60 Lbs
- I went from a shirt size of XXL to L
- I went from size 44 pants to 36.
- I hiked up Pikes Peak. Ok, I did it via the shorter, back route along The Crags, but it was still about 12 miles round trip with an altitude gain of 4,000 feet (from 10k feet to 14,110 feet at the top).
- I completed the Denver half-marathon.
Sometime in November, again in the throws of an endorphin high (damn those things!), I thought to myself...I need another challenge. I am the type of person that needs a goal to keep focused on in order complete something this challenging. So there I was again, surfing the web, trying to find my next challenge, this time a full marathon. At first I thought of New York City, but that was in November, which did not give me time to train. When I found the website for the Paris Marathon, I knew that I had found my next challenge! 95 Euros later, I was officially registered! Bib # 41979 was mine! Me and 39,999 other lunatics would be running through the City of Lights.
So that's it in a nutshell. Now here I am with about 97 days left before the big day. I'm faced with training in the middle of a Colorado winter. Cold. Dark in the morning. Dark at night. Finding the motivation may be the real challenge. After seeing the movie "Julie & Julia" I thought it would be fun to document this insanity. I don't know who will end up reading this, but I hope that you find it interesting and, if I may be so presumptuous, a tad inspiring?
No comments:
Post a Comment