30 Days Out: Take Action
Keep Going Forward, Keep Going.
Two Months! It’s been two months since you’ve last read about my journey. My last post was about my expedition across the rugged terrain of weight loss. I was supposed to lose 25lbs, but you know what happened. I didn’t.
On a good note, over the past 75 days I haven’t gained any weight! This was a huge accomplishment during my 10 day vacation to the Mediterranean where I basically ate whatever I wanted, when I wanted. It mostly consisted of Cappuccino’s and Pastry’, which were a daily staple of survival onboard and ashore.
Our family vacation was a celebration for my daughter graduating from a dual enrollment program resulting in an Honors H.S. Diploma and an Associates of Science in Information Technology. We decided to take her abroad and show her that the world is big and many things, if not most need to be experienced in person. No amount of YouTube videos or Vlogs or Virtual Reality will compare to standing in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius while looking at ruins of Pompeii dating back over 2500years. It was a great vacation!
Running abroad was non-existent. My wife is overly cautious and was not comfortable with me running the streets of Barcelona at 6am, so I acquiesced and stayed in the hotel. I did get in just one run, of course on a Wednesday and I was going for a 5K, just to keep tradition alive.
The downside of running on such a massive ship, there is a time limit on how long you can stay on the treadmill. 30 minutes! Needless to say, I failed to reach the 5K mark in that little window. I made it 4.59km! That was it. That was all the running completed within a 10-day period.
Let’s do an about face and look back on the months of April and May because I did get some miles in and had a great adventure running in a Ragnar Trail race in Virginia. So let’s look back, but just for a moment because I’m not going that way. The way forward is the Marathon on November 11th.
April Stats:
Total Miles: 92 miles.
27 total runs over 30 days.
Longest Run: 9.01miles, Shortest Run: 2.0 miles.
Highlight: Ragnar Trail Race in Richmond, VA.
Trail Shoes for the win. It was muddy and full of hills. It was great!
May Stats:
Total Miles: 68 miles
23 Runs over 31 days.
Longest Run: 7.5 miles
Shortest Run: 1.01 miles
Highlight: On May 26th I ran a 5K on the local track for time. I finished in 26:45 at a pace of 8’35”. All while weighing 230lbs. It shouldn’t be possible.
It must be a mental abnormality or emotional imbalance that overcomes my senses and disrupts my rational thought processes, to begin training for the Marathon in July. What is it about suffering, more specifically self-inflicted suffering that produces the most growth within ourselves. The thought "Comfort is a Lie" is constant in my mind as I think about the discipline, no foolishness that it takes to train for such a grueling race in the summer.
The only relief in thought is that I have a good group of friends who are willing to carry the load of suffering with me. Within the run club we have over 13 people signed up for the Richmond Full or Half Marathon, many of whom I will be training with over the course of the next 16 weeks. Moreover, I'll be logging a lot of miles with Robert and Dave again, which is the only highlight in this training cycle I can fathom. If you remember last summers post, the months of August and September damn near killed me with the heat and Dave consistently pushed me beyond my comfort level.
My marathon training this cycle will be 16 weeks, starting on July 23rd and ending on November 11th, Veteran's Day. I'm exactly one month out from the start of training, and in these next 30 days the goal is to drop some weight so I start my training cycle at 220lbs.
For this cycle I will be publishing a weekly account of the training and it's impact on my physical, mental and emotional states. I will also be posting "notes" throughout the week, smaller blurbs throughout the week that showcase the realities of training. These next 16 posts won't be a highlight reel, rather a raw and real accounting of what it takes to train and ultimately succeed in completing the Marathon and reaching set goals.
Throughout the last 42 years I've collected a plethora of sayings and quotes that can apply to most situations of my life. Two conflicting sayings come to mind when I am thinking of the development of the plan going forward and goals. "Failing to plan is a plan to fail". That's why for this journey I've hired an actual Marathon coach to program my runs and provide valuable guidance and insights.
Then there is this gem: "In war, the first thing to go is the plan". You've got to be fluid and adaptable, being able to adjust and overcome in any situation and condition, unless you're getting punched in the face! As Mike Tyson famously says, "Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face." That's about how I feel going into this cycle. I'm preparing the plan to succeed, but when it's 100F out with 90% Humidity, that punch to the face may derail my expected training prerogatives.
Motivations for running my second Marathon are similar to my first Marathon except this time has a heavy heap of redemption piled on top. For the second year in a row I was nominated and elected to be my Run Club President, a leadership position. It's simply in my nature, if I'm going to lead, I've got to lead from the front. I'll never be the fastest runner in the club. The club is simply too big with too many incredible people and I've got age and weight perpetually grinding away at me. One of those I can affect, the other is simply a matter of nature. To shorten this down, as a leader in the Run Club, I ought to be able to run a Marathon without the sweepers pushing me along.
My last Marathon I almost DNF'd (Did Not Finish). The cutoff time was 6hrs and I managed to cross the finish line with only minutes to spare, mostly thanks to Dave who pushed me the last 2 miles, ensuring I wouldn't DNF. I seek redemption. I need it in my life. That was a piss poor performance that'd I'd like to forget, but it's with me forever. It's in Strava and on my Coros Training Hub.
The City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh was disgusting. The entire course, all 26.2 miles was up and down, hills upon hills. I don't recall any 1-mile being flat. I swore after I finished I'd never do it again. This year I signed up for the Half and it's just one week before the Richmond Marathon. My coach has programmed it as a slow and easy training run, not to be "raced" but rather enjoyed. In 2024 I'll sign up for the 10K and in 2025 I'll do the 5K. I swear, I'll never do the COO Marathon again. I'm an adult, I do what I want.
The Next 30 days.
Over the course of the next 30 days I will be utilizing the “Notes” portion of Substack to keep ya’ll updated. My weekly posts will start at the end of week one, July 29th, 2023. Subscribe, share and most importantly comment below what you think!
True leadership to me is to be fine to show your shortfalls and work on them. This way you can be a role model to your team and you are an amazing role model for us.
We all struggled at COO 22 but we didn't give up in front of the heat and humidity. We kept going because our friends where there to cheer us on.
Keep on running friend