running


about a month ago, i trotted out my personal resolutions for the year 2011.

at the time that i banged out that post, i had already committed and invested in the idea of number four on my list, which was to "run". at the time that i banged out that post, i had already been to academy with sarah and we had each purchased a new pair of running shoes. sarah got some pretty shape-ups. me, i got some fancy grey and green reezigs. if peyton manning says they are awesome, they've got to be pretty awesome. at the time that i banged out that post, i had already attempted running for the sake of running for the first time in my life. and, to my surprise, it was terrible. i was miserably out of shape.

i don't mind running. i am a running kind of guy. always have been. growing up, i couldn't wait to get outside and play imaginary games of basketball with myself in the role of jim farmer and my ghostmen his teammates at alabama. over several months of basketball season, i can't tell you how many games jim farmer won with his sharp-eyed long distance shooting, clutch free throws and uncanny ways of finding mark gottfried for an open jumper or mike davis underneath the basket for a clutch lay-up. jim i would run around in my back driveway for hours on end on saturday mornings, burning every calorie that i was going to take in over the course of the whole weekend. if it was football season, things were even better. pick up games on my street were fairly epic. our field would include my front yard and the neighbor's houses on either side of me, probably a good 50-60 yards in length. reminiscing with chris hicks yesterday, i remembered just how many kids, more importantly how many boys lived on pinebrook lane with me as a kid. again, we would play forever, usually til the sun went down, running around like we didn't know what it meant to be tired. add onto that soccer and hide and seek and water-balloon wars, i couldn't have been any closer to constant motion.

my physical activity became a little more structured through middle school and high school, but there was still a butt-load of running, all still attached to some sport. after a couple year lull in my early twenties, sports and the running that went along with them found their way back into my routine with the development and the sustaining of the men's softball and basketball teams at the church that continue to this day.

there isn't a period in my life that i look back on where sports and running and physical activity didn't play a huge role. but one thing i never did was just...

run.

if it wasn't attached to some goal, to some number of runs i was trying to achieve or prevent, to some defined end result, running, to me, seemed stupid. if i can stay in shape by playing flag-football, why would i just run? it didn't make any sense. i'd drive by people running in parks, around tracks or on the side of the road and think, how boring.

a funny thing happened, though, between my youth when all my cardio was attached to a stick or ball sport and when i turned 34.

my metabolism slowed down. come to find out, the amount of cardio you get from playing softball for 1-2 hours a week on my crappy diet doesn't actually prevent a normal person from being a fatty. who knew??? come to find out, i was just super lucky. my genetic make-up allowed me to eat what i wanted to eat, lift some weights, run on occasion doing something that i thought to be fun, and i'd never gain any significant pound-age. it was awesome.

after my surgery and recovery in the summer of 2009, i probably weighed less than i had in 10 years. the stress of the entire situation had drained me of most of my motivations, including the want to eat. who really needs to eat when you're worried about eyeball tumors, right? anyway, after i got some focus back, i recovered my same phycical routines and ate even more, trying to put weight back on my diminished frame. over about six months, the weight came back, but it wasn't all good weight. it wasn't all muscle. it wasn't that i was fat, but, like i said back in january, i could see that if i didn't change something, i could be.

and so, the resolution was made. it's nothing more than fact that the best all-around total body workout that you can have is to run. most people just don't do it, because it sucks ass. things like the shake-weight are invented, or that belt that you wear to work that electronically stimulates your abs for you. why run when i can eat fried chicken and have this belt do the crunches for me. running is for losers. i know this personally, because 7-8 times in the last three weeks i've run, and it's sucked ass every time. my lungs hurt. my legs feel heavy. my heart burns. i am sore the day after. there isn't anything fun about it...

until about 30 minutes after i've cooled down, and it's as if i've plugged myself into the wall and this wonderful jolt of energy makes me feels like i've been recharged, telling me that yes, in fact, this is good for me. it really is like nothing else that i've experienced in my lifetime of exercise. right now, the feeling doesn't last very long, but it lasts long enough to get me properly stoked about the next time i'll be able to get outside and just run again.

it's crazy. before i made my resolution, i didn't really know of or about anyone that ran for the sake of running. now, though, it's like everyone is doing it. just in limbo, meg, jacob, ben, vaughn, amy and katie are giving it a go or have been for some time. it feels like every other update on facebook is someone checking in with their stats from their last workout. i have a step-cousin that just ran the full mercedes marathon. others that are already running 10k's. it's nuts. but kind of fun.

'cuz here's the thing. i am nothing if not a little competitive. and if i see someone post a time off of their smartphone app., all i can think is give me a month and i'll have that beat. maybe i will and maybe i won't. to achieve my greater goals, which is not only running 5k's and 10k's but being competitive in them, i'm going to have to find more than three days a week to train.

listen to me. "to train". who woulda thought it? definitely not me.

sarah's probably rolling her eyes. she knows that as soon as i can get from the "sucks ass" stage to "this is kind of great", i am going to be completely annoying about it. i am not there yet.

but i will be.