Pretending it's the home stretch

because it basically is ...

I've exhausted my alphabetic book of excuses ending with zygodactyl zydeco zebras zipping zephyrs zealously ... next time I'll get the unabridged book of excuses.

Anyway - for whatever reason I'm having trouble finding a road, a hill or a track to run on, so today I opted for plan Q ... obviously plans B through P didn't pan out well either.  I headed to the gym and found it crawling with my favorite creatures - gym rats.  From the oblivious people who have no clue how to use the equipment to the obnoxious who seem to go out of there way to be in people's way or hog the equipment ... I opted for the stair-stepper - 30 min level 2 & 3 and feeling surprisingly strong and not winded.

After getting off the stepper I paced around the cardio equipment waiting for either a treadmill or an elliptical.  I did get a good laugh watching all the people doing bizarre things that vaguely resemble exercising on the equipment, like the guy who was doing the gazelle leap at a very fast pace, but his feet were barely touching the treadmill, or the lady who had the treadmill at the max incline and was holding on for dear life.  Eventually this lady finished her ... walk?? and had to do her ... stretching???  Of course the fact that there were now 3 people waiting for the machines made no difference ... I was first in line, the little angry gym rat in training had been waiting an entire 2 minutes and another guy was waiting at the far end of the row.  Before the stretchy lady could finish her whatever she was doing (I actually think she got her foot stuck on the control panel of the treadmill) another machine opened up.  I was about to step on when I saw gym rat jr in the mirror charging up behind me - like actually almost running.  I wasn't willing to have a confrontation over a treadmill (and unlike a swimming lane, we couldn't share it ... sorry Julie couldn't resist ;-)  )  So he jumped on the first machine just as the stretchy lady finally jumped off her machine so I didn't have to wait too long.

I did 30 minutes on the treadmill at a moderate walk increasing the incline for the first 20 minutes and then going back down during the last 10.  Overall I'd say I accomplished what I wanted ... I just dread the gym rats (both male and female) but I did my best to ignore them and just enjoy my music and my training.

Of Snot Rockets and Streamers

Day 14 of what will be known as The Great Sinus Flow of 2011 ... at least today hasn't been filled with the intense sneezing fits I've has pretty much every day since my last post.

Training Stats:

Will not bore with the details of the past couple of weeks, but I did train some ... unfortunately pretty much everything was cut short or otherwise altered due to the insane allergy symptoms I've been sufferring.

Today:  12k 2:1 ratio for the first 4k ... then came the hill.  1:1 ratio for the next 7.??k with a few walk periods longer than 1 minute ... and ending with a barely moving walk for the last 1k or so.  My legs completely gave way one muscle group at a time ... and it was horribly obvious on the gps trainer as the running times gradually slowed from 11.25 min / mile (first 5k including the beginning of the hill) to 13.5 min / mile from the 10k mark to the 11.1k mark.

Total run / walk distance 12.25k total distance including warm up and dragging my tired @$$ home (aka a cool down) 13.5k.  Despite taking more than the usual amount of sinus meds the Great Sinus Flow continued throughout today's run.  I was not able to launch any true snot rockets due to the lack of viscosity of the flowage, but I did have a couple of streamers flapping in the wind before they wrapped themselves around my nicely braided hair like a sparkly and somewhat slimy decoration ... thank you dear for getting up early to do braid my hair for me.  I also managed to soak the seven tissues I took within the first 5k.  Once again the inhaler worked great - I did take one extra puff mid run ... It doesn't make running any easier, but it makes the recovery during the walks a lot easier.

The small victory of the run came between 10k & 11k.  I promised myself I would run at least to the edge of town.  My brain was telling me I didn't want to, my legs were telling me I couldn't ... the mental game, or lack there of, still plagues me ... but something pushed me ... that inner drive that I often lack didn't let me stop, and though the las several run segments were brutally slow, they were run segments.

Again I need to thank my niece Andrea for keeping me on pace.  I'm sure she could run much farther, much faster if I weren't lumbering along beside her.


Non training:

My highs and lows have definitely had their ups and downs ... Work goes smoothly then it gets crazy then it gets intolerable then it goes back to crazy which suddenly becomes the acceptable norm because it's slightly better than intolerable.  The only problem is it makes every other aspect of my life crazier and less tolerable than it should be.

I am really getting tired of the corporate philosophy of empty threats and broken promises.  I resent somebody who has 3 years experience delivering packages or picking up garbage telling me that my 20+ years of school bus transportation experience is meaningless because their system is better.  I'm mentally exhausted from getting my butt chewed for not having a report in on time when I was never informed that the report was due ... or that there even was a report, or a project or a meeting or whatever.  Thankfully my immediate manager is awesome and has faith in my abilities ... she let's me take an idea and run with it.  Sometimes they don't pan out, but more times they work the way I knew they would ... then corporate gets involved and tries to quash my ideas, my creativity, my spirit.

On a different side note.  My company may be opening a yard in Alaska ... they will need supervisors to help run the show for a while.  It may be my only realistic chance to see Alaska ... but I won't get my hopes up.  I'm considered a slightly rebellious rogue, although my area director of safety likes a lot of what I do and how I accomplish it ... He just won't man up and tell the VP level baboons that I know what I'm doing ... Oh well.

Right now photography is taking the edge off my tattered nerves.  Thank you Pam for getting me this camera.  I'd like to post about 638 photos ... actually, it's my blog so I can do what I want, but I'll stick with 5 of my favorites over the past couple of weeks.

OK, I lied ... It was more than 5, but I like them all.  The Sushi chefs noticed I was taking pictures of the food, so they made a happy face for me to shoot.  The squirrels were following me around ... cool.  Oh well.  Thanks for reading.

A bit of history - part 2

I can't remember not being a Christian, although I was not raised in what would be considered a Christian household.  I know now that God has always been there for me, even when I turned my back on him

My faith has pulled me through some tough times, but that was severely put to the test earlier this year.  The year started with the news that I needed my gallbladder removed (a cholecystectomy if you prefer the big words).  During this time I noticed Pam slipping back into depression and again I felt helpless and truly overwhelmed.  Soon I was having trouble sleeping ... a lot of trouble sleeping.  Sometimes I would not sleep at all, or barely get a hour.  About the same time I lost my appetite ... and I lost interest in pretty much everything.  I knew something was wrong, but didn't want to admit it.

It reminded me a bit of the original Rocky movie.  Apollo knocks Rocky down in the 14th round and Mick is yelling at Rocky saying, "Stay down, stay down!"  But Rocky pulls himself up on the ropes and tells Apollo to "Come on" as he gestured.  Rocky lost the fight, but he went the distance and didn't give up.

In August it was like every part of my brain was yelling at me to just stay down, but I can't.  I'm pulling myself up ... I may not win the fight, but I'm not going to give up.  Whatever life has in store, bring it on.

Getting myself to start training again is important.  The truth is I really don't want to train, but I'm starting to find the enjoyment I once had ... Can you say endorphin rush?  :-)  I need the structure, I need the goals and training is the easiest place to start ... I may not look forward to the gym, but I am usually happy that I went.

I trained all four days over the Thanksgiving weekend including a 40:30 brick (40 minutes bike and 30 minutes treadmill - Bike + Run = ICK, ..BRICK), a 5 mile walk in just under 1:30 and 20 minutes on the stepper at level 2.  Not a bad start.

A bit of history - part 1

OK ... I guess before I start yammering away about things I should give a few details about where I am in my life and how I got to this place.

I'm 45 years old.  I've been married to my wife (Pam) for nearly 24 years.  We have a 20 years old son (Timmy) who is currently going to a community college and plans on transferring to a university in the future.  My family is very important to me, and I will speak of them often in my entries.

For nearly 10 years ... actually for nearly 30 years I have been interested in endurance sports - marathon, long distance cycling, ironman triathlon and so on.  For the last 10 years or so I've trained on and off in an attempt to reach certain goals - complete certain events, and to this point I have a lot of failure to show for it.  My latest attempt was over 2 years ago when I was training for a marathon.  Although overweight I was staying on target with my training ... until I tweaked my Achilles tendon, that is.  That event sent me into a fitness tailspin I wasn't sure I'd recover from.

In addition to the disappointment of injuring myself and being unable to do much of anything, I began to notice Pam was just not acting like herself.  I won't go into any details, but after months of watching her and feeling helpless because I couldn't do anything for her she was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.  It was rough, but as rough as it was to sit by and not be able to help, I know it was much more difficult for her to deal with the issues.

After more than 10 months of absolutely no training, and having gained back the majority of the weight I had lost during my years of intermittent training, I was finally and desperately ready to become active again ... except Pam was still struggling, and my work life became incredibly overwhelming, and in the little time I did find to train I wound up suffering many minor but aggravating injuries.

For as long as I can remember I've enjoyed writing - mostly poetry and fiction short stories.  From the tail end of 2008 through the first part of 2009 I turned back to writing as an outlet.  Expressing thoughts, feelings, frustrations, joy through my writing was definitely a sanity saver.  Again, work and other issues gave me little or no free time to pursue what I enjoyed ...


This blog is designed to keep me on track with my training.  I hope to track my progress, discuss my goals and maybe even share an accomplishment or two along the way.  I will have many entries that will be primarily training numbers - running, biking, swimming and other cross training I do throughout 2011 and beyond.  I will not discuss my weight, weight loss, diet or anything else along those lines ... except, of course, when I reach my weight goal - but that will not be for quite a while.  For now it will suffice to say that I am very overweight, and despite that fact I am once again training.

I will also have many entries that have nothing to do with training.  I will discuss my ups and downs, my work, my family, issues and irritations as well as accomplishments and joys.  I tend to go on long, random, rambling tangents that really have nothing to do with anything (just giving fair warning in case yo actually read what I write).  I look forward to keeping this blog.  I will not promise to post every day as I do not always have things to say, but I will update my status on a regular basis.