Friday, June 27, 2014

Last Debbie Downer Post

I've got to turn around the content of this blog if I'm going to turn around the content of my life and training.  I've got to do something this weekend I've never done before.  I've got to not start a race I'm registered for.  I won't be going to the line at Buffalo Springs 70.3 because I'm not ready.  I haven't been able to run because of a foot injury, and if there's anything I know about this race it's that it's all about the run.  When I walked the marathon at Ironman Texas and finished in 16:21 minutes, a lot of people told me how awesome that was because I stuck it out.  The fact is I think it did me more harm than good, mentally.  At some point I gave up out there during Ironman, but I just kept walking.  The lesson I learned that day is that I can give up and still finish.  That's NOT a positive thing.  I used to compete with myself, challenge myself, set goals, set challenges.  Lately I've been back in a "see if I can finish" mode, and that's not where I want to be.  If I had started the race this weekend, it would have been in the hopes that I could finish, not in hopes that I could beat my last time that I did it. So I'm taking a week of vacation, a couple of road trips.  I'll run if and when I want, as far as I want, and if my foot feels bad, I won't.  In a week or so, I'll decide what the rest of my summer holds and how I'm going to approach training for the marathon and the 50 miler.  I want to train strong, I want to be strong.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

2015 Houston Marathon Is A Go...Kind of.

I received word yesterday that I had received a spot through the Houston Marathon Lottery, meaning I'll be toeing the line there for the third time this coming January. In keeping with my new commitment to optimism mixed with gentle realism, it's time to think about my goals for this marathon.  First, a little history.  My first marathon came roughly 9 months after I ran my first step as an adult.  I joined a couch to 5k group and basically went couch to marathon instead.  It was an amazing ride and I finished that marathon in ~5:20.  This was a bucket list style marathon, my only goal was to complete it.  I trained that way, I raced that way, COULD it be done?  Houston Marathon number two was a different animal.  I had been running and competing in triathlons for 3 years.  I had figured out how to train, I was running faster and longer than I had before and I had a bold goal.  I wanted to run a sub 4 hour marathon.  My eating was pretty well controlled although I noticed that I was having more "cheat days" than I was used to and the scale had started to creep up.  I pushed hard, I raced smart, and I ran a 4:01.  This was just shy of a 1:20 minute pr, something that's basically unheard of, but it was bittersweet, one stupid minute.  That was two years ago, which brings us to here.

On the upside, this will technically be my 5th marathon (2 stand alone, 2 Ironmans) so I know what to expect.  The "can" question doesn't plague me the way it used to.  Of course anything can happen on any given day, but I know it CAN be done.  The question plaguing me today may already be clear, am I shooting for that elusive sub 4:00 again? The downside is, well, everything I talked about yesterday.  The downside is that I feel disconnected, I feel fat, and the last time I went to the line feeling like this, I did a 16:21 Ironman (with a 7:30 marathon, all walking), a 2:30 personal worst.  To be clear, and this has been difficult to admit to myself, but I did that Ironman so badly because I was doing it fat, mentally.  I told myself many times, you don't deserve to be out here, you don't look like these people, you didn't work as hard as they did.  That's why I did so poorly, because I convinced myself that's all I was capable of.  I had blisters, I didn't have good race nutrition, but my biggest failing was mental, but I digress.

I'm coming to another unpleasant, although not really surprising, realization about the weight I've put on.  It's making it a lot harder to run. Shocking I know, but the truth is my "running mind" still wants to run the pace I used to.  I can still "feel" that pace and I want to run it, I even think my body feels good doing it...for about 3 miles.  Then it reminds me pretty quick that I'm not 32 and 180 lbs anymore.  I've got aches and pains, tendinitis, etc. and it's because my body can't haul around the extra weight as fast as I want it to.

So can I hit that sub 4?  I think I can IF I get the weight off of me and keep running.  It even feels stupid to type.  It feels like saying, "I can learn to speak Spanish if I study the language and practice with other speakers."  As obvious as this equation might be, it's something I'm going to have to work at.  I know what I need to do with the food side to start losing weight, but it's trying to figure out how to keep myself running without continuing to hurt.  The easy answer is slow down, but it's hard to convince my brain to slow down more than my body already requires.  After all, I want to go fast!

Monday, June 23, 2014

New Beginnings, again and again

When I started this blog 5 years ago, I titled it "Fat Man Running" with a bit of a tongue in cheek sensibility because I was feeling great about the fact that I was on my way out.  I had turned my life around and was losing weight, running, and feeling happy.  Five years later and things are, well, different.  Not completely, I still run, I'm still a happy person, but the joy, the confidence that I had gained that allowed me to be deprecating enough to title my blog something about being a "fat man" has definitely changed.

In some sense the title is more appropriate than I could have known.  When I started running five years ago, simply put I was a fat man.  I was 6'0" and over 300lbs.  Fat man.  Over the year of 2009 I lost over 150lbs and at my lowest hit somewhere right around 180lbs.  Today I'm sitting squarely up around 210-215.  Lots of numbers, who cares.  What I do is go back to each of those points on the timeline and think about how I felt.  At over 300lbs, I was on a collision course with diabetes, heart disease, and who knows what else, what was worse is I knew and really didn't care.  The various gory details of why I was a depressed, fat slob (and I don't toss that term around flippantly) aren't necessary, but I did "change."  I started running, I started eating so I could run farther and faster and more.  I wanted nothing more than to run and run and run.  It got me down to 180lbs, it got me involved in new friends, it got me a new girlfriend (now wife), it got me a second chance at life.  Now here's what no one does know.  I was still fat. Fat in the head.  I would look at the minimal flab that I still had, either from being overweight, or just still being a larger guy, but I looked and saw a "fat guy."  I hid it, I masked it, and most of all I was able to tell myself that it was "so much better than I was."  It was true, and for a while it kept me satisfied.  I was new fat.  Healthier fat, skinnier fat, but still a fat guy in my own eyes.  Fast forward to now when I'm 30ish pounds heavier, I've run marathons, done Ironman Triathlons, raced, trained, coached runners, triathletes, I've totally immersed myself in the things that made me different, and guess what, I'm still a "fat guy."

I've been fighting myself for 5 years not to be a fat guy.  I've brooded, I've cried, I've pouted, I've run, I've won, I've lost, I'm winning, I'm loosing.  What I have to realize is this is a fight I'll never "win." I'm always going to be a fat guy because it isn't a matter of the number on a scale or on the waistband of my jeans for me, it's the fat in my brain.  I hate that I'm a fat guy, but I am, and the sooner I stop fighting him and start using his fat ass, the sooner I can be happier, more often.  I don't know what this means, I don't know if this is some kind of epiphany or if I'm just thinking, but I'm tired of fighting, but I think that's because I'm tired of losing.  So I need a new way to fight.  You know the old same behavior, different expectation scenario, it doesn't work.  So I'll keep working, and I'll still be fat, but maybe I won't have to always be losing.