Next up...

Next up is the Tri The Ridge sprint triathlon next Saturday. This should be interesting since I am neither a cyclist or swimmer. Lee wanted to try one, so we are going to do our best. So far, I have had 2 sessions of riding the bike and then running and 2 sessions of swimming 300 meters. I am riding my wal-mart special trail bike. Fortunately, Lee has a friend that is loaning her a road bike and a ‘triathlon suit’. I’ve got a speedo jammer that usually wear under my regular bathing suit at the beach. I guess I will swim in it and then pull on some running shorts over it for the rest of the journey.

Someone recommended that we take 5 gallon buckets to put in the staging area. They said we can flip them over and sit on them while we are changing. I thought that was a good suggestion. I also plan on taking my fuel belt and some Clif bars. I think I may cut the fingers out of my batting gloves from softball because I notice that long stints on the bike seem to bother my hands.

Other than that, we are going into this blind with our only goal to finish with a smile on our face....

Glad I ran today....

Alabama 34
Clemson 10

The sun will rise tomorrow. My wife, kids and dog all still love me. I’ve got food to eat and water to drink. All in all I am way too blessed to get upset about my team losing a game. That said, it is a lot easier for me to make those statements since I stayed home and ran this weekend instead of dropping $800 to go to Atlanta for the game!

“A good memory is one that can remember the day's blessings and forget the day's troubles”

Weight Loss...

I have been reading Bart Yasso’s book about his running life. I’ll write more later, but basically it recounts his life in running and how he got started. He credits running with helping him overcome the demons of alcohol and drug addiction. I can understand that, because in a few short months running has helped me overcome some of my unhealthy lifestyles. Just to give you an idea of where I was, here is a picture of me from July 4, 2007. It was three months after this that I started changing my ways. I probably weighed about 277 pounds here....





After we started running, both of us experienced more weight loss than we ever expected plus we got our bodies in better shape than expected. Running has definitely changed my perspective on life and allows me to feel good about what I accomplish. Here is a picture of us last June. I was about 195 in this picture...



When I was running the 10K last night, I was struggling a little the first mile because I went out a little too fast. I was able to reflect on where I was and where I am and not only did that help keep me going, it strengthened my resolve to never go back to where I was. Each race is like a statement that I am not going backwards. I don’t know how healthy that attitude is, but I’m happy to have it right now. Fear can be a great motivator. My hope is that continued success can slowly change the fear to confidence, but I think I will always have some fear of returning to my former self.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -

George Santayana

Race Results...

Wow, what a great 10 hours...

The Anderson race was a lot of fun. Big crowd, lots of music and food and great organization. Lee had a good 5K and I enjoyed watching the finish. The winner posted and awesome 15:02. Somehow I lost Lee between where I was yelling for her and where she took her chip off. Once we finally met up, I handed her the car key and headed up to the starting line for the 10K. They had over 700 in the 5K and about 330 in the 10K. I was hoping to be under 52 minutes and just missed it at 52:02. It was still a PR for me. We got home about 1:00 in the morning and then showered and got in bed a little after 1:30 for a nice 5 hour nap before heading out to the Stars and Stripes 5K this morning.

The Stars and Stripes is part of the US Cycling event in Greenville this weekend. It was run on the time trial course the cyclist will use. It was an out and back course that was 1.5 uphill to start and 1.6 downhill to finish. No one was calling out splits and I didn’t have a watch on or my iPod so I had no idea what my pace was. I knew I was pacing some quick runners because I had seen them before. The wind was in my face the whole way out and then of course disappeared as it was to my back on the downhill return. I kept a decent pace on the way back and really picked it up (for me) the last 1/2 mile or so. I finished with a new PR of about 23:30 (still waiting to see the official results). Lee brought home a new PR too with a 26:30 time.

Now I am ready to head to the pool for a while and then get some tailgate food for the Clemson/Alabama game tonight. If the Tigers do as well as we did today, it should be a great weekend.

Pre-race thoughts....

I went to Anderson to pick up our registration packets for tonight’s races and also to drive the course. The course is mostly long, moderate hills. The start is downhill about a mile and it is an out and back course, so that tells you all you need to know about the finish!

Packet pickup was very organized and I liked that they gave me my chip ahead of time. I have been very disappointed in some races where you go to early pick up and they give you everything but the chip.... What’s the point of early pickup if I have to stand in line before the race anyway?

Of course, once I got home I looked at my bib and noticed I was a female. Now, I am on hold with the race folks trying to get that corrected. I think most women would be upset to have me classified as one of them, I just hope I don’t get some smart aleck guy on the phone that says they did it on purpose!

:)

Odd day...

Today feels really odd. I have the day off but I am not going to run because of the race tonight. Lee and I were talking about how to eat today given the fact that we have a late night race. I am going to eat like I normally do, except that we already have plans to meet my family out for Pizza tonight. I think I’ll take a zantac before dinner just to make sure I don’t get some acid working on me during the race!

I want to get the kids to run some. I haven’t figured out how to get them involved on a regular basis yet, but I think it will be easier once it cools off. I hope we can pick a 5K and let them do the Couch to 5K program or something similar.

Finally...

I finally signed up for the half... I signed Lee up for the 5K. It looks to be a fun day with all the races finishing in our downtown ball park with our picture on the jumbotron and name being called out over the PA system. I hope I am not crawling at the finish.

:)

Ran anyway...

I wasn’t going to run today since I have a 10K tomorrow night and a 5K on Saturday morning, but I just didn’t want to go to the gym this morning. I ran 5 easy and should be fine for tomorrow night. The Anderson Midnight Flight does not allow headphones, so I have been running all week without my iPod. I have been really surprised how easy it has been. I have run with my music since the beginning, so I wondered how I would adjust. My A.D.D. brain just flips from one topic to another and I lose track of time. It is really pretty pleasant and I think I may continue without it for a while.

I got Bart Yasso’s (Runners World Magazine Guru) new book My Life on the Run and Bingham’s Marathoning for Mortals for my birthday. I started Yasso’s book first and it is a great read so far. I had read excerpts of it in Runner’s World and it piqued my interest. I’ll write more on it when I finish reading the book.

OK, I think today is the day that I finally sign up for the Spinx half...

Playing in the rain....

Wow, talk about being sorry you slept in.... I ran 5 miles at lunch in the rain. I don’t mind running in the rain too much, but I was running on East North Street and it is amazing how much dirt and grime the cars throw up when it is wet out....

We need the rain though, so I guess it is a small price to pay.... :)

Lazy this morning...

I was planning on doing a 6 mile bike ride and 5 mile run this morning in prep for the ‘Tri The Ridge’ sprint triathlon on 9/6 but I didn’t get my lazy tail out of bed this morning. Hopefully I will have time to get 4 or 5 miles in at lunch today, otherwise I will hit the gym tonight. I haven’t quite gotten back into the school routine yet. I enjoyed sleeping late in the summer and still being able to run before work.

I guess I need to get down to the pool and swim some too. It would be pretty embarrassing to not make it out of the pool and onto my bike during the race...

Who am I?

I guess I should tell a little more about myself...

I live in Greenville with my wife and two kids. I grew up in Easley and graduated from Clemson, so you can see I have spent most of my life in a 30 mile pocket of NW South Carolina.

I love the beach, football, fishing and running.

We have a dog and may be getting another one soon....

I am IT Consultant but in previous lives I have also been a director of operations and a sales rep among other things...

I used to be a PC guy and now I run a MacBook Pro with VMWare Fusion that allows me to also run Windows to support some of my clients. I don’t know why I felt inclined to mention that, but I did want to come clean to all my old Windows-centric friends...

My long run to date is about 10 miles.

I still don’t understand how you fast runners do it.

I was shocked when I heard the words “I only ran 3 miles today” come out of my mouth.

Well, that’s a few tidbits anyway. I’m sure I will reveal more as time goes by....

Here I am running my 2nd 5K last March at Furman....

Yoga today, races this weekend...

It amazes me how much I can sweat while standing still. I have really enjoyed yoga so far, even though it is a very humiliating experience at times. It is obvious that my balance needs a lot of work. My ankle strength needs this work too.

In a few short weeks I have seen a big improvement in my flexibility, especially my quads and hamstrings. My core must be improving some as I have noticed my form is better when I am running. I have always had a problem moving my arms in line with my running motion. My normal motion is to move them more diagonally and across my body. Since starting yoga, I have noticed that I have a much easier time straightening out that motion.

We are racing this week.... Midnight Flight 10K for me on Friday night (5K for Lee) and then the Stars and Stripes 5K on Saturday morning. This will be quite an interesting experience to see how my time is affected on Saturday. I am glad to see so many races coming up, it seems like we could do one a week if we wanted to.

I still need to get off my tail and sign up for the Spinx half. Maybe I’ll do it tonight....

Tomorrow, I hope to ride 6 miles and run 4 if it isn’t raining.

Yoga...

Yes, Yoga not yogurt! I started doing Yoga twice a week. It has made a big difference in my running. Not only has my form improved due to increased flexibility and core strength, but I don’t get nagging pains anymore!

Karen is my instructor and she does a great job in learning what her students goals and limitations are. If you are a runner and always seem to tweak something, have nagging pains or want some increase in your core strength then you should check out yoga.

You can look at Karen’s place here: Yoganize

I’m not ready to post any pictures of me in proud warrior pose yet, but maybe one day.....

Starting to blog...

Well, everyone else seems to blog about their favorite things, so I guess I might as well join the crowd.

A little about me.... On October 1, 2007 I realized that my weight was just completely out of control. Well, that isn’t totally true. I didn’t realize it, I just finally decided to deal with it. On October 2nd, I walked in to Weight Watchers and tipped the scales at a svelt 271.6 pounds. That was actually down about 8 pounds from my peak. I also started walking every morning at the track at our local elementary school.

Walking got boring and started taking too long as I increased my distance. After joining a message board for Guys on a Diet (GOAD) on the Weight Watchers site, I got to thinking about this running thing. Some guys there advised me to start slow and just run for 10 or 20 seconds and then walk. I felt pretty stupid doing this, but it wasn’t long before I was running 1/4 mile at a time. Slowly I built up to where I was running, well ok more like walking fast. I ran my first 5K in March of 2008 with a time of 29:16 and have been going strong ever since. I drug my wife along for the journey even though she swore she would never run a whole 5K (Now she runs farther than that every day!)

So with a combination of Weight Watchers and Running, I lost 78 pounds by the end of April 2008. I have maintained that weight loss since then.

So far I have run several 5K’s, two 8K’s and one 10K. This weekend I am running a 10K and a 5K.

I am now working on the Spinx 1/2 Marathon on October 25th. My ultimate goal would be to run the Marine Corps Marathon in October of 2009.

Here is our happy family with our age group trophies from the Harbor Walk 8K in Georgetown, SC last June... The kids did the 1 mile.....