“What Hill?!” Remarked fellow runner Marcus as I asked him one-time during a run how he felt getting up the notorious hill leading to the Post-Office. His response struck me to the core. “What hill?!?”, exactly, I’ve ran steeper, longer more difficult hills in my life. So why was I even considering this small incline a “hill”? It has ties to the psychological and physiological challenges of dealing with cold/hot, miserable weather. The fact is, it doesn’t matter where you are from, it matters where you are. Right now, I’m at a point in life where that damn incline felt like a hill. It really isn’t.
In my current 90 day journey to lose weight and gain speed, I feel like I’m climbing mount Everest. Losing weight seems almost impossible, insurmountable, like a hill that just keeps getting longer and steeper. What hill?
What type of running I’ve done in the past doesn’t matter. What matters is what I’m doing now. In order to achieve set goals and make them reality, I must take deliberate action and specific choices that propel me towards those goals.
So what’s been happening in the last two weeks since I post?
A good amount of running, keeping my eating in check (except for 3 days) and continuing on with this journey.
I’ve ran 43.79 miles in the past 16 days within 11 runs since my last post. I’m currently unsure of my weight as I’m at a hotel and won’t have access to one until Wednesday. To put that into perspective, I ran a total of 46.08 miles in December and January combined!
As I’m writing this post, I’m actually eating grilled salmon with a vegetable medley. I really wanted to go for a 5-Guys Gut Buster, but that won’t help me next weekend for the All American Half Marathon. Decisive choices, deliberate action.
We kicked off our Run Before the Sun track training and it was a kick in the ass. It was frustrating how slow I was on my laps! It’s fuel in the fire to do better.
The next day I linked up with friends to get in 6 miles on the greenway. I averaged a 9’47” mile that felt comfortable but I did feel “done” when I hit the 6 miles. It was great to see Robert and Jan take off to make it an even 10K. My friend Jan is training for an upcoming race and I’m looking forward to seeing the results of her hard work.
I ended up traveling to Colorado for some work actions and decided to bring my running gear of course. I arrived late Monday evening and the first run I had was Tuesday morning. I live at approximately 400ft elevation in North Carolina, flew into Colorado and decided to run at 6,500ft the next morning. Yeah, it sucked. It was incredibly fucking cold and I simply couldn’t breath and my muscles were begging for oxygen after just half-mile.
I must be getting old or something. St. Patrick’s Day was on a Friday Night, I had Saturday off and I decided to stay in. Hell, I didn’t even drink a beer. Time’s have changed! 20yrs ago, I would have been out until the sun came up. Regardless, I stayed in on the night and decided to run the following morning, which I did. I have the All American Half Marathon on Fort Bragg next weekend and my training had me at 10-miles this weekend. Elevation be damned, I had to get in 10-miles.
It started at 5,823ft in elevation and reached a max elevation of 6,096ft. There were a couple big hills that I had to walk up. During the entire run, I simply couldn’t get the breath I wanted. I tried a handful of times to take a long, deep breath only to result in coughing. You know what’s not fun during a run, coughing. You better have some strong abs to successfully accomplish both at the same time. I’m lacking to say the least.
A NEW PR!! This must be the slowest 10-miler I’ve ever ran in my life. I’m actually just happy I finished the run without injury or an ambulance.
Onward I go into the final week before the All American Half on March 25th.
My next weigh-in will be Thursday morning. Let’s see what happens.