stu33's blog

To get a start on training for next year's race (and maybe some events in between...who knows), Hoyt, Drew and myself decided to start hitting some weights.  Being that none of us has really been a weightlifter in any points of our lives, we decided the Nautilus equipment at our local YMCA would be the way to go.  That way, we wouldn't be in any danger of hurting ourselves if something went badly.  Drew, seizing the lead on getting us started, called the YMCA and scheduled an appointment for us for Saturday morning at 7am for a Nautilus orientation.

We've made it a year.  Small goals have come and gone, some met, others not, but they all paled in comparison to the big goal.  The Great Race.  We finished it, both teams.  You can see our results here, and hey...neither of our teams came in last overall!  So bonus points for that.

I had a plan for the race.  I was going to basically run the same type of training run that I had been doing for the last 3 weeks.  3 minutes of a good running pace, 3 minutes of walking, 90 seconds of running, 90 seconds of walking, lather, rinse and repeat.  I was fully confident I could do that without a problem.  I had run a really great feeling training run Friday morning, following this pattern.  When I finished that run, I felt I could have run for another hour.  I really felt good about it.

I'm here today to talk about one of the foremost obstacles I've had to getting out and running.

My thighs.

Yup.  I'm a big dude, as we've covered here before.  Being a big dude has certain drawbacks.  One of those being large thighs.  Thighs that, for about 3 inches from my...um..."man place", rub together when walking or running.  Normally this isn't a big deal.  Unless it's a warm day or I'm walking or running a long way.

It's been hot lately.

Hot and moist.

Anyone that knows me even moderately well is familiar with my intolerance of heat.  I'm like some prissy-ass houseplant that only does well in 70-72 degree farenheit temperatures with 60% relative humidity.

The last couple weeks have seen daily 90 degree temperatures and 380% humidity or some crap like that.  I hardly want to get out of bed on these days, much less go for an outdoor run.  When you wake up at 6am and it's already 83 degrees outside, that pretty much destroys your interest in running.

Part 1:  Emotion

Let's be honest.  There's tons of reasons why someone should strive for health.  It shouldn't be something that someone has to think about.  That they have to rationalize, justify, or quantify.  I'm human.  I want to be healthy.  

A velvety shell with miniature chopped peanut asteroids dispersed throughout it's tawny structure.  Replete with the slight teasing flavor of butterscotch, this is merely the outer coating.  Inside is the true delicious payload.  A sweet, salty peanut butter mixture, creamy, coarse and captivating, it melds with the thick membrane of butterscotch shell as you chew it.  Promoting a symphony of complementary and succulent flavors.

In my position at work, I have the opportunity to listen to music through headphones while performing my duties.  This affords me the ability to download all kinds of music and be exposed to many different genres of music throughout my day.

Lately, I've been into Scottish and English stuff, and music like that.  Kaiser Chiefs, Frightened Rabbit, Franz Ferdinand, the Fratellis, Glasvegas, Editors, the National, Stellastarr*, Placebo, Muse...all these are bands featuring heavily in my playlist.  

This is hard.

Much harder than I expected.  Especially after my initial success.  Don't get me wrong.  I expected a struggle, good days and bad days (not the Kaiser Chiefs song...).  I expected to fall down at times.  To dust myself off and get back up.  I fully planned on gut-check moments.  

I'm not going to be rah-rah today or talk about restarts or any other stuff like that.  I needed to get back into the workout.  Today I got back in.  That's all there is to say on that.  I started all the way back at week 1 on the couch to 5k program.