Shall We Get Autobiographical?

This post has been a long time in coming, so please forgive me for a long indulgence.

Growing up, I don't think I was much different from other kids. Certainly I wasn't an ugly child, nor was I dumb. I like to think I was above average intelligence, but at this point, there's no way to know for sure.

Somehow though, I ended up being "that kid". The one who's picked on, the one who becomes the focus of every other kids' fears, angers, and annoyances. I wasn't particularly athletic, which isn't to say it couldn't have been developed. Since I didn't have a natural ability, this lent me to be picked last on teams, to be made fun of when I'd even attempt something physical. I was afraid of the ball in little league, so I'd become a statue at bat. In the field, I played left field, and the once or twice the ball came to me I wasn't able to catch OR throw it into the infield. I ended up being pressured into quitting the team, then made fun of for being a quitter.

High school wasn't any better. In PE, once again I didn't have any natural abilities, which led to me doing poorly. Rather than working with me, I was punished in the only way the coaches knew: running. I think I spent my entire Freshman and Sophomore years running laps. No, excuse me, not running. Plodding, walking, with the other losers such as myself. That year was one of the worst I had in my life, and PE was hell.

Then in 1984 I got the reprieve I was looking for: I was in a car accident with my mother. It wasn't major for me, although my mother ended up in traction for a short time. By doctor's excuse, I was excused from physical education, and said goodbye to physical hell forever!

Or so I thought. In my Junior year we moved to a new town where I attended a new town, and during the second semester of my Senior year, found out the doctor's excuse was only for one year. To graduate I had to take a year's worth of PE in one semester. So during that second semester, I had a 7am PE class and a 4:30pm PE class, the "extra" one designed for jocks to get a little more workout time during their day. You can guess how it went.

After high school, that was it for me. As far as I was concerned, physical activity was the least appealing thing in the world, something I would never be doing again. Of course, I was still eating like an active teenager. The pounds packed on.

As I matured, moved out on my own, and became my own person, I ate anything I wanted, in any quantity I wanted. Who were my friends? People like me, of course, and in many cases, people who'd taken my lifestyle to other extremes! My eating began to mimic theirs, but since I was only 5'6" tall, the pounds kept coming on. 170 pounds, 180, 190, 200. It didn't stop until I was over 250, and stayed there for another couple decades.

Then something happened. A friend of mine introduced me to a plan that he'd lost 20 or 30 pounds on, so I decided to give it a try. The exercise that went along with it wasn't difficult at all, they just said to walk 10,000 steps a day. My first day with the pedometer, I didn't add any walking to the routine and found I was walking 2000 total. The next day I walked around the block where I work, and found it was exactly 1 mile. I walked 7000 steps that day, and burned 125 calories doing it! Still, I wasn't at 10,000, so I decided to walk around twice. That walk, I was out of breath, tired, and sweaty, but I'd walked 12,000 steps, and burned 150 calories! The weight had also started coming off.

So I started walking every day at lunch. Back then, it would take me 50 minutes to walk 2 miles. I was burning calories, so I didn't care! After a little while, the walking became easier, so I started speeding up. I tried to finish the two miles in 45 minutes, and when I succeeded, tried to finish in 40. In 35. When I got to the point where I could do it in 30, it was getting harder to go any faster without jogging. How would I continue to improve?

I found myself at a wildlife sanctuary one day, and was on my way back to the car when I got a crazy thought: what if I ran? It was only a quarter-mile to the car, and I'd been walking for a while. What if I can run? So I did. It was slow, and I got out of breath, but I ran to the car, and didn't die!

I knew what I had to do next, but run outside? Please. I was still a fat guy! So I moved inside, and onto the treadmill. I turned on the TV, and started to jog. The first minute was great! The second minute, mmm, not so great, but liveable. The third one? Dear God, why wouldn't it end? When 5 minutes was over, I walked 25 more minutes

I also found that I burned more calories than I had been burning when I walked! Well then, what if I did more running? The next day, I ran 5 minutes, walked 5, then ran 5 more. I walked the last 15 minutes. Rince & repeat!

Eventually I worked my way up to jogging 30 minutes nonstop on the treadmill at about 4.5mph. Not the fastest in the world, but who cares? I was doing it, and burning the same amount of calories I would have burned, had I been walking for a full hour! I was pretty satisfied with this.

Then the announcement came that my company would be moving. The kicker was that there wouldn't be room for a workout facility. But I was enjoying running on the treadmill! At the new office, out of necessity, I found a route for myself around the office. It was a bit farther, 2.5 miles, and for the first time, I ran outside.

There were people, but I didn't care. I was running outside, and didn't care what people thought! This was a completely novel thought, and for the next year, I ran that route 5 days a week. I did take a few breaks for hernia surgery. When I took up running again, I'd lost 70 pounds and was in the best shape of my life.

To celebrate my weight loss, I planned a trip to Yosemite with some friends to climb Half Dome. This would be quite the accomplishment, but also would involve a lot of pulling myself up a rock by ropes. Again, out of necessity I took up another activity and began weight training. I joined a local gym and started alternating days between weight training and running.

The trip went wonderfully! It was hard work, some of the hardest work I'd done in my life, but I got the job done.

On the way back down from the dome, my friend Bob said, "So what are we going to do for a major activity next year to keep up the momentum?" I responded in jest, saying, "What about Mt. Whitney?"

Over the next few weeks, we started talking more and more about it and finally decided to go. This would be a more difficult trip, requiring better fitness, so of course I trained more and worked out more at the gym.

It was around this time I decided to run my first 5k, the Sacramento Zoo Zoom, and finished in about 27 minutes. It was a BLAST! The kids got to run their own races as well. I also realized that the scrawny, nonathletic kid who became a 250-pound man was now a 158-pound runner. [i]Runner![/i] I was not only doing the activity I had found so hellish in my youth, but realized I enjoyed doing it.

Once I ran the 5k, I started trying to get faster and faster, as well as lengthen my runs at work. See, the faster I ran, the farther I could run, and the more calories I could burn, in the same amount of time. I took up a training program and made a new goal: I'd run the Humboldt Redwoods Half Marathon in October (2008), with the goal of a full marathon the following October (2009).

Then the long backpacking trips came in preparation for the Whitney trip. This was long run time, so I had to back off the half marathon training in order to focus on backpacking. We went to Mt. Whitney, and while we were unable to summit due to circumstances beyond our control, we had another great trip.

Once back from Whitney, I dove right back into running. On the date the half marathon would have been, I ran 13 miles on my own. In essence, I would have been able to complete the half, even though I thought I wouldn't be able to! This got me into some serious thinking. If I could run a half marathon once, I could do it again. The next 6 Saturdays in a row, I ran 14 miles.

I also started researching possible marathons. I went back and looked at the Humboldt Redwoods Marathon, and found out that there were actually two marathons. The second one was in May, specifically, on my dad's birthday. A marathon, on my dad's birthday, in one of his favorite places, the Humboldt Redwoods. It was as if he was looking down from heaven, telling me to do it for him, and so on the first of the year, I started training for the May 3, 2009 Avenue of the Giants Marathon.

Food, Intervals, and Surprises

What Do I Eat?
At the beginning of marathon training, which coincided with the first week of January, I started transitioning away from low carb eating in order to provide my body with the carbohydrates needed to remain fuelled while running. I also upped my caloric intake from around 1200 per day to 1720 per day.

The past month's been great, both with the gym and with my running. Last week was a bit meh, but I can't complain too badly about it. We all have ups and downs, and that was just a bit down. This week's much better, and the outlook remains good.

Yet, I was worried. That's just how I am, when it comes to my weight, I get amazingly obsessive. I weigh every morning (you can see that in my tweets). With the added calories and transition away from the low carb lifestyle, I expected to gain weight. That's exactly what I did, and yesterday morning I weighed in at 170 pounds. That's 12 pounds higher than my all-time low, which is 158.

It took every bit of energy I had not to be stressed over it. I expected at least some weight gain, especially since I've been drinking protein shakes both before and after my weight workouts. It's just difficult, given my obsession with the numbers on the scale.

So yesterday afternoon, what happened? I went down a notch on my belt! I'm now on the last hole. The next step, of course, would be to buy a new one. Obviously, something's working!

So I grabbed my workout book, and decided to do the calorie equation for losing fat, not just "weight". After calculating, the numbers show that given the time I spend lifting weight (which honestly isn't all that much) combined with my running, I need to eat even more.

So starting this morning, my new magic number for calories is 2400 per day. It actually makes sense with what I'm reading in the Hal Higdon marathon book I bought, and in Runner's World. Runner's World said I should be eating around 300g of carbs per day, while Higdon gives a number closer to 400g! I was having a tough time adding food in general, but more specifically, adding carbs. Even with eating carbohydrates every meal, with sticking to 1720 calories per day, I was only reaching around 200g of carbs. Something had to give, and having the extra calories makes it a lot easier to make the other numbers.

Am I expecting to gain more weight? Yes. But this morning, my weight was back at 168. I think it's going to work out. I'll keep everyone updated as to how it goes.

Sprint Intervals
Today was intervals for me: 6x800m @ 7:22 goal, 90s rest intervals. Warmup & cooldown were 10 minutes apiece.



1: 3:38.30, 7:16/mi
2: 3:38.04, 7:16/mi
3: 3:40.93, 7:22/mi
4: 3:46.08, 7:32/mi
5: 3:53.51, 7:47/mi
6: 3:50.86, 7:42/mi

Someone on Twitter told me she found the 800m intervals easier than 400m, but you know what? Nah. They're harder, especially those later ones. That last one was the endless interval.

And next Monday, it's 1600m intervals! At least I'll only have to do three of them.

And the rest intervals? I walked them except for the last 15 seconds of each, something like that. That walking felt good, to be sure.

From the Hearts of Babes
Tomorrow's my son's 7th birthday. We were at Toys R Us tonight because my wife wanted to buy him one last present, a Transformers blanket. She wanted to surprise him, so I had taken him into Raley's to pick up some bananas and just waste some time while she bought his gift.

When we came out, my wife was talking to a homeless woman. As my son and I approached, the lady thanked him for being such a grown up boy, and how what he did touched her. Here's how my wife explained it to me.

My mother-in-law, wife, and his cousins, had all pitched in money to give him for his birthday. When he got it, he said mom, I want to give some of my birthday money to someone who doesn't have what we have. It didn't end there though, after having that conversation with my wife, he went to school. She didn't realize it, but he brought a dollar with him.

Another boy at school's family lost their home and are currently living in a shelter. I guess my son knew about it because he overheard the boy talking, so he took it upon himself to bring a dollar to school to give to the boy. When he told me this story, his eyes were aglow with the joy of giving.

Was I misty-eyed? You bet! I gave him a giant hug and told him how proud I am of him. This all happened without promting from us. He wanted to give some of his money to someone in need (which in the end was the homeless lady outside of Raley's), and in addition, he gave to a little boy in need at his school.

God has truly blessed us and I am in awe of my son. Happy birthday, Gregory.

Every morning as I leave for work, I stop by AM/PM to grab caffeine (in my case soda, not coffee) for the long commute. I purposely go by this display, look for a second or two, then walk away.



Donuts are one of my worst offender foods. It's one of those things where, if I have one, I need more. I've been known to buy 2 to 3 donuts at a time, and have them finished once I get to work. There have also been the days where I've done something like this, only to find someone's brought donuts into work, and then I have some there! Definitely not good.

So isn't it a temptation to go by the display? Certainly. But it's also empowering to look at them and say to myself, you know, it's not worth it. Walking away sets the tone for the day.

Anyway, today I jogged 5 miles at about 5.5mph. The total time was 57 minutes; again, not the greatest, but I'm working on it. My 5k time was 34 minutes.