Here’s an interesting article about how exercising for weight loss isn’t the best approach.  Exercising is great for the body and does well to hold of certain ailments such as heart disease or diabetes.  But, and it makes sense, it says that scientific studies have shown that most people exercise and then get hungry and consume the calories burned during the workout.  I can personally attest to this.  When I was training for my marathon, I would fantasize about going to Waffle House after a 12+ mile run.  Where I would promptly gain back the calories I killed myself trying to burn.  This just further emphasizes the fact that nutrition plays a vital role in any workout plan.
Scott Adams Blog: Exercise is Useless for Weight Loss 08/10/2009.

When I was younger, I loved playing video games. And when I say younger, I mean, like, 5:00 this afternoon. Anyway, there are certain games that I play that I feel like I have to start over every time I mess something up. So, I hit the reset button. In a way, it allows me to perfect my game, but it’s still wasting time trying to perfect a level on a video game. How OCD is that?

Starting over. At times in all of our lives we have to start over at something. Whether it’s a software project or as simple as cutting a board, (always measure twice and cut once) there are times when scrapping what you got is the only option. A lot of times you can take the leftovers and build off that.

But there are times when starting over just plain sucks and you can’t salvage any of your previous work. Like running. That’s something you never want to start over doing. You see, the last time I really trained for a race was about a year ago. I haven’t done a lot of running the past year. Yeah, I did the Little Rock Half Marathon, but it was pretty ugly. Doesn’t take a lot of training to do a bad half marathon. So, I’ve gained some weight since the last big training session. About 15 pounds. I started wondering why my pace was getting worse and worse. Turns out, that’s a lot of extra weight when you’re running 5 to 6 miles. So, I started thinking about how much starting over sucked.

Which got me thinking about what I did at the beginning. When I started training back in the day for my first (and so far, only) triathlon, I was afraid to run because I had a lot of weight on my frame and had never run more than 3 miles. So I started riding a bike to lose weight. And it worked. I lost about 10 to 15 pounds doing that. That made running quite a bit easier. So just like good ol’ Michael Finnegan, I’ve decided to begin again.

Introducing my new obsession (hopefully), Felty:

It’s a Felt F80. So, if you’re in Searcy and on the bike trail and a fat guy on a bike whizzes by, that’s me. So, here’s to me having to start over. Hopefully, I will have learned my lesson this time and I won’t have to start over again. But you know me, I’ll probably mess this up screw this up. Dang it, gotta start over….

Where do I begin?

Well, it turned out like I expected. No, I didn’t have my best half marathon time. I had my worst. 2:27:54 to be exact. Let me paint the picture for ya.

Saturday night

I didn’t want to get my stuff ready for the race. I eventually did, but it was a struggle. I checked the weather and it said that the temps for race time wouldn’t get past 46F. So, I decide to pin my bib number and “Half” designation on my long sleeve running shirt. I get everything else set up so that all I have to do is wake up and get dressed. I even had most of everything in my truck ready to go.

Sunday morning

Had to take nighttime medicine to help me sleep because I’m still sick. Woke up, showered and ate a bowl of oatmeal. Looked at the weather one last time. The current temperature in Little Rock was 49F. So much for not getting into the 50′s during the race. This gets me re-thinking my entire race wardrobe. (Not in a fashion sense, but in a functional sense.) Left the house around 6:10 am. Still not feeling it for this race. Got to Little Rock shortly after 7 am and got a parking spot. Got out of the truck and decide to ditch the pants and long sleeve shirt and run in shorts and a technical T-shirt. So much for putting my bib number and “Half” designation on my shirt last night. Also, I’ve been using Vick’s ointment for the past 2 days to try to get my cough under control. You know, the medicine that you rub on your chest. Well, before I leave my truck, I have slathered it on my upper lip, in my mustache, and anywhere else on my face I think might help.

I finally get everything situated and head to the starting line. Starting to feel kinda lonely. Don’t know anyone there. I started in corral “D,” which is where all of the casual runners start. Every once and a while, people turn around and do that “smell the air” thing like they are trying to determine the source of some weird smell. I think the Vick’s is so strong, it’s not only keeping my coughing under control, but helping the others around me. So to throw everyone else off, I start smelling the air and looking around, too, in a way that tells everyone, “Yeah, I smell it, too. What is that?” It worked.

Well the starting gun fires (I think. I was so far back I couldn’t hear it.) and we’re all off. You can tell the first timers. They’re all giddy and ready to run, run, run. I can always tell who they are because, mentally, I have them pinned to the ground and am punching them until they realize that this is going to be how they feel in about 2 hours. It’s cute really.

Fast forward about 1 hour and 20 minutes. I’m coming up on mile 8 and to my surprise, feel pretty good. I look at my watch and start to calculate the time and what it would take at my current pace to beat/tie last year’s time. At this point, I’m right at 10:30 minute mile pace. If I keep it up, I’ll beat my time. I start to day dream that my wife, daughter and some friends of mine were going to surprise me somewhere throughout the course to give me that extra pep I needed to finish strong. I start to think that I have a chance. Turns out, I was getting high on the Vick’s.

Then, I turn the corner and hit the 9 mile marker. It’s a steady uphill climb for about .75 miles. By the time I got to the top, speed walkers were passing me. Yeah, that’s right. My run wasn’t fast enough for people walking really fast. Talk about embarrassing. I finally level out around the 10 mile marker and realize that I now 1) can’t stop running and 2) have to run 10 minute miles to tie last year’s time. (It’s amazing how good I am at math when I’m running.) I also realize that the .75 uphill run depleted what energy I had in reserve. And considering that I was sick and started out with less energy in reserve, I don’t stand a chance.

By the time I get to mile marker 12, I look at my watch and realize that I have to run the last mile in 5 minutes to tie last year. It was at that point that I gave it up. I started walking for a few minutes. I was completely spent. I barely had enough energy to start running again when it turned into downhill. Finishing the last half mile took all I could muster. I kept looking around for a familiar face. None in sight. I crossed the finish line and heard the announcer say, “Great job, half marathoners! You managed to finish under 2 and a half hours!” For some reason, I wasn’t excited to have just finished “under 2 and a half hours.” When I race, I only race to compete against myself. There’s no way I’m going to win one of these races, so I race to beat my previous time. So, my races have 2 places: first and last. Oh crap. I just realized that I’ve just summed up my racing philosophy to resemble that of Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights; “If you’re not first, you’re last!” Now I feel even worse.

So, I finished and got my medal. They also were handing out those mylar blankets. I almost passed them up. I was thinking, “Why would I want one of those? I’m hot.” Turns out, I’m glad I got one because I would have frozen on the long walk back to my truck. Or I should say, “the long limp back to my truck.”

I learned a lot yesterday.

All of the above 3 combined to create the Perfect Storm of Sucky Running.

Now I have to go train for my next race.

*Sniff* *Sniff* Yeah, I know. What is that smell?

Yeah, if you’ve seen my Facebook status, you know I’m sick and I have a race coming up. And that I think this weather sucks. Tuesday afternoon, it was 81 degrees. Thursday afternoon, it was 31 degrees. Anyone else see the problem here.
So, now I’m all congested and hacking up a lung and have to run in the Half Marathon Sunday. So, I’m either going to have the worst half marathon time or my best. The worst, well, because I feel like a big cold pile of poop. Not steaming hot, because that might be better than how I feel right now. Cold poop. The worst kind. The best because I might get out there and think, “Well, I’m here so let’s go ahead and get this over with so I can go home.” And run faster than I ever have. (By the way, as I wrote that last sentence, I nearly coughed up my other lung. Lovely.)
The only silver lining is that when I tell people that it took me so long to finish that the walkers beat me to the finish line, I can say, “You know I was really sick and didn’t think I would be able to run. I almost died. Twice. I left part of my lungs on the course up around the Governor’s Mansion. What’s your excuse for being so slow?”
Everyone knows that’s a lie. All of my friends are way faster than me. Now I have an excuse.
Oh yeah. I went to the Little Rock Marathon Expo to pick up my packet today. I gotta admit, I was a little disappointed. Sure, it was organized a lot better this year than it was last year. There were no lines. The packet pickup/shirt pickup/chip check was as fast as I’ve ever seen one, but the vendors were very limited. Not a whole lot of swag either. When the largest displays are from Easy Runner and One More Mile, then there’s a problem attracting vendors. On the plus side, Bart Yasso was there promoting his book. If you’ve ever read Runner’s World, you’ve probably read something from Bart Yasso. Pretty neat.
So, to all of my friends that are running the race on Sunday, I’ll be the guy coughing his way to the finish line.

*cough* *cough* *hack*

Whoops. Gotta go. My lungs just fell out.

I’d like to take this time to say how much I love my wife. I sent her a text this afternoon asking her to help me get out and run tonight. I have to say that I hate to run. And I really hate running at night. By the time I get home and get everyone fed, the last thing I feel like doing is running. Which is why I usually don’t run. If I could run as soon as I got home, that would be better. So, I was only expecting my wife to say something like, “Hey, don’t you need to get your fat butt outside and run?” Then I, depressed and dejected, would have made some excuse as to why I couldn’t go run. Instead, I got home and she said, “Hey, I thought Iliana would ride by you while you ran. Do you wanna go now?” That was so awesome! It was great to have my girls out with me. Even if it was only half way. That really made a difference and running wasn’t such a problem tonight. So, Amy, if you are reading this (which you probably aren’t), thank you so much for going out with me tonight. It meant a lot to me.

Here’s the video for the race we did last weekend:

Find more videos like this on Marathon Makeover

Still tired. Must … keep … going. That’s what I was thinking at about mile 11 of the half marathon I ran this past weekend. To say that the course had a couple hills is like saying the Battle of Gettysburg had a few deaths. Holy Smack! That course was hillier than Little Rock. There wasn’t a time that I wasn’t going up or down a hill. There were very few flat spots. Anyway, the folks over at Marathon Makeover put together a real first class event. This was their first organized race. You could tell that everyone worked really hard and it was great to see the city of Ridgeland, MS really pull out all of the stops to host the event.

There were 820 registered runners, but according to the official results, only 743 competed. I came in at 335th place with a time of 2:20:45. My only goal was to improve upon my Little Rock Half Marathon time, which I did by about 1 minute. I’ll take that considering the hills didn’t even start in LR until about mile 8 or 9. In the Renaissance at Colony Park Half Marathon, the hills started at about mile 1.3. So, I got worn out a bit quicker in MS than AR. I hit the wall around mile 10 or 10.5. From there on out it was just me trying to push as much as I could and let one leg fall in front of the other. You would be surprised at how much hills really can take it out of you. Chicago was all flat, and aside from running out of water early on, it was pretty easy (as courses go). The Renaissance kicked my tail. If they do it again next year, I’ll probably go, but I’ll know what to expect.

Here’s the course:

Up next: Maybe a half marathon in Conway later this year.

Well, time to start running again. I have a half marathon coming up at the end of June that I have to get ready for. It’s in Ridgeland, MS. My mom lives there and it is organized by her running group. Sounds fun. Head over here to take a look at it.

I did my first real training run at lunch today. Five miles with intervals in the middle. Here’s the map:

This run has reminded me of something: I HATE TO RUN!

Well, time to start running again. I have a half marathon coming up at the end of June that I have to get ready for. It’s in Ridgeland, MS. My mom lives there and it is organized by her running group. Sounds fun. Head over here to take a look at it.

I did my first real training run at lunch today. Five miles with intervals in the middle. Here’s the map:

This run has reminded me of something: I HATE TO RUN!

Well, time to start running again. I have a half marathon coming up at the end of June that I have to get ready for. It’s in Ridgeland, MS. My mom lives there and it is organized by her running group. Sounds fun. Head over here to take a look at it.

I did my first real training run at lunch today. Five miles with intervals in the middle. Here’s the map:

This run has reminded me of something: I HATE TO RUN!