Off to the races... Slowly

So, after 4 weeks of pre training and preparing my body for the beat down I am about to give myself, the day finally came. I officially started my training regimen today with a 3 mile jog.

To say I was nervous about my ability to do this would be a massive understatement. I haven't run 3 miles in probably 20 years. Walk? Yes. Combo walking and running? I've done that too. But to jog for 3 miles straight just seemed impossible to be honest.

Nonetheless, I woke up early after working last night and decided no need to wait so I went over to the gym. Did some light stretching, although I need to get better at that, and hoofed it upstairs to the treadmill area of the world. After staring at the screen for a few minutes and wondering if I could really do this, I picked my program(a 5k run) and started amping the speed up.

I didn't want to push too hard or go too fast at the start and not be able to finish so I settled in at 5.6 mph. The first mile sped by with the help of some good music(I believe I got some Polyphonic Spree and Arcade Fire mixed in) and so I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Mile two, more of the same. A nice little pace, not too much panting but I do need to figure out how to get the water from the bottle into my mouth as I jog. After getting through miles 2-2.5 I decided I wanted to be done. No, I did not quit, I turned the speed up so I could finish strong. 6.2 mph for the last half mile.

For those of you familiar with the conversion between kilometers and miles, yes, I actually did the whole 5k(3.1 miles) and felt pretty good overall.

Areas of improvement: I need to drink water more consistently throughout my days. The runs always seem more buoyant that way, the muscles feel more loose. I also need to pick a little more upbeat music to stock the iPod with. Adele is great, but she will lull you to sleep as you're jogging.

All in all, 3.1 miles, 33:48 was the time. Weight after running 206.5 lbs. Beard growth almost one week.

Tomorrow is exactly 4 months from the race and I will get there and, for once in my life, am in no hurry.

Time and Time Management

So, here we are again, me jabbering away on my keyboard. I need to do this more often to help keep my head clear and that topic right there brings us to our topic for the day: TME MANAGEMENT. Or in my case, lack of time management.

I'm not the only person around who struggles with the lack of good time management skills. I have my on days where productivity and I are BFF and I have days where tomorrow seems like the best time to take care of the stuff that a few phone calls today could have done.

It happens to the best of us, we are only human after all. In the situation I am in right now, with training for a marathon, time management issues truly need to become obsolete. I have to budget myself each day and keep to that set schedule. It's the only way that I'm going to accomplish the goal I have set for myself.

That's a simple enough concept, right? Also, I appreciate those of you who have read my posts and as part of my new time management frontier, I will be writing more, I promise.

But let's get into another issue I have sometimes. It's more of a thought process, actually, as opposed to an issue. Like I said, we all fall prey to poor time management. Every one of us has done something unproductive when we could or should have been doing something that would better our situation. Hell, I laid on my couch the other night and put my feet up on a stack of clean and folded laundry as opposed to walking it 15 feet into the closet. That is just the tip if the iceberg though. There are plenty of other things that get disregarded daily for no reason actually.

One of those things is a daily relationship with God. I am not going to sit here and give a sermon about how everyone should love and honor the Creator, but I will sit here and tell you that I have spent too much time away from Him to know that my time with Him was better than my time when I was doing anything in my power to stay away.

As some of you may be aware of, I am a recovering alcoholic. For years I used alcohol as an escape from whatever it was that I felt I needed an escape from. Tough day at the office: drunk. Long week of school: drunk. Sun came up early today: drunk. Brother dies: drunk(for close to 4 years).

As a recovering addict, I am not blaming any of these situations on why I drank. The bottom line is that I drank because I wanted to and it made me feel temporarily better and accepted at the time being. It became who I was and I lost track of what I should have been doing. I, luckily, still have my health and am regaining it ever so slightly on a daily basis. After almost 15 years of tearing myself down, I am finally trying to build myself back up. That's where this Marathon comes in to play.

I spoke to someone the other day who asked how my training was going and I told her that it's still a little arduous. Still plugging along at 5 on and 5 off, getting about 2.5-3 miles a day knocked out, but a little frustrated as to why I can't run forever just yet, but that's where regaining it slowly needs to stay forefront in my mind. I still did more today than I did a month ago, and when I look back a year, 2 years, 5 years and so on, I am lightyears ahead of that Jeff.

Anyway, she told me she was proud of me and said she is aiming for 2013 to run her first one and I told her that I was proud of her, which I absolutely am. It's great to have goals, I just feel, from personal experience, that I cannot put goals off any farther. For too long I have told myself that tomorrow I will do this or that and I can no longer do that.

Life is too damn short. Don't believe me, ask any number of people I know who have lost their brothers or sisters before the age of 35. It sucks that I'm not the only person in this club because, at least then, I could say I was the exception and not the rule. People are taken from us daily, and what's to say that that person that gets taken tomorrow won't be you or me?

I have changed my focus in life a little. I have a magnet on my refrigerator that I look at when I stare in there hoping for food to appear that says, 'Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as I they are going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all of the care, kindness and understanding as you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.'

Life is about giving, not taking. Smiling in order to make others smile. Doing what you can to make the world a better place. Too many people out there aren't doing this and we wonder why it is that it's such a jungle out there.

Sorry for the little rant, I just get tired sometimes of falling into the trap that I have been placed here specifically to acquire things and not to make my neck of the woods a better, happier, and more productive place. All of that starts, by the way, with simple time management(see what I did there? Wrapping it up with a neat little bow.)

The more time we spend being productive with our time(helping ourselves so we may help others, doing things that need to be done, TCB, etc) the better off we will all be. We will have more time to tell those around us that we love them, or to catch a movie or ballgame guilt free because we know we have accomplished everything set in front of us for that time frame.

One last story, from late last night that got this ball rolling. As Jenna and I walked out of work last night around 3:20ish am, we discussed plans for lunch today. She asked what my day looked like and so I laid it out for her, in a partly joking manner.

Alarm set for 8am
Gym at 8:25am, 35 minutes of training
Leave gym at 9am, drive 10 minutes to Waterloo and have breakfast
Finish breakfast at 9:30, drive 15 minutes downtown to get my monitor monitored
Leave monitor place at 9:50, 5 minute drive to bank
Wait in line at bank and deposit money between 9:55-10am
Home, shower and wait for class to end for her
Eat lunch
Then throw some laundry in and run misc moving errands

Like I said, I jokingly gave drive times and exact times for stuff, but I'll be a monkeys uncle if I wasn't at the gym around 8:30 and deposited my money in the bank at 9:58 this morning. It felt good to be that accomplished early in the day. For the time being, I think I am going to plan my days this way until it becomes second nature. I will let y'all know how it's working out for me.

Speaking of which, I have exceeded my allotted writing time and need to get back to business. Time for lunch.

Have a great day and thanks for reading.

Love you guys.

Here Goes Nothing.

Well, here we go!

It's funny, I have considered loads of things to write here for my first ever blog post: Should it be something poignant? Something funny? Something crass? Something basic? How much information should be included? Where should I start? You know, the usual interior rantings of someone known to think way to much into things.

I have decided to start here and go with the flow.

The Basis and Reason Behind This Blog:
Running. Marathon running at that.

Now we are onto something. As Mom would say in class, find the thesis first, then focus your writing(I am paraphrasing obviously as I have no real recollection of the exact words that she said in my increasing old age, but there was always something about picking a theme first).

Anywho, for those of you out there that know me well, you know I have a tendency to ramble. It's in my nature. You would think I was never allowed to express thought as a child seeing how I constantly have one tangent after another and never seem to know where the off switch is.

So.....Running. I have never been much of a runner. Ever. Not distances at least. Short spurts here and there were always okay but I never had the endurance to go for a long way. I would always get tired and end up walking. Ask the guys on the baseball team from high school. Big Tank and I were always at the back of the pack on our runs through the neighborhoods surrounding GPHS, looking for shortcuts.

The idea of running a whole marathon, all 26.2 miles of it seems absolutely impossible to me right now, and I think that's what makes it also sound like a fun idea.

I'm planning on using this blog as a means to keep everyone up to date on my training as it progresses; to get feedback and support if it's necessary; to let everyone know how the beard is coming in, etc.

But mainly, I just want to write. There will be days I talk about the music I am listening to, or the movies I have seen recently. There will be talk of shoes, and addiction, and recovery and anything that pops in my head really.

I look forward to this journey and hope you all enjoy it through and with me.

So, since this is a blog about me and running, let me tell you where I am right now. I have started my preconditioning for my race which will be held on September 17, 2011 in Dayton, Ohio. I will get into the details on why someplace so far from home in a future post, it's not that great of a story.

Anyway, my technical training starts on May 16 and by that date I need to be able to run 3 consecutive miles which is something I have never done before. So right now I am building up my stamina and body endurance to be able to handle the rigors of running a marathon.

I started a week ago, on April 15, by doing some basic run/walk intervals. Jogging for 5 minutes. Fast paced walk for 5 minutes for a total of 30 minutes. So far, it hasn't been too hard on me, and I can feel my body responding and growing stronger and wanting to go faster and I am really enjoying that part. Like I said, have never been much of a runner nor have I ever really enjoyed the act of running. I have always envied those who could just take a run to clear their heads.

And that's what I am working on. My head has lots of clearing to be done and I have a lot of miles ahead of me to clear it.

Current state, can do my 30 minutes pretty easily, it usually nets me around 2.25-2.75 miles depending on pace. I haven't lost any weight in the week I have been running, still hovering around 205.

These will get better. Stick with me. There will be pictures and raffles and prizes galore.