Run #13: I Just Don't Believe It

 I feel his pain. I once had a bad haircut, too.

Let me start with a confession: it's been a bad week.

I canceled Monday's run - I don't remember why now, but I know I had a really good reason.  I think I was just too tired.  Of course, last night I did lift weights.  Tonight, I didn't even get out of the house until after 11:00pm, so I decided to abbreviate the run.

But, I still set a pretty ambitious goal: maintain 6.2 mph for a full 20 minutes.  And I did it.

Why 6.2?  Because that's the rate I will need to maintain in order to meet my goal of doing the 5k in 30 minutes.

Well, after tonight's run, I simply cannot IMAGINE maintaining that pace for an additional ten minutes!  It was so, so unpleasant.

And since I set the treadmill to stop at 20 minutes, what was my surprise when instead of mercifully stopping at 20 minutes, it went into "cool down" mode, forcing me into a brisk 4.5 mph walk that slowed by 0.5 mph per minute for 5 minutes.

So, all told, I was on that treadmill for 25 minutes and went 2.36 miles (401 cal burned).

At one mile in, I started to get a pain under my ribs on the right side - you know, the Angry Klingon attempting to perform a little amateur surgery.  Then a little while later, his buddy, Angry Klingon II jumps up on my shoulder and starts digging in.

And I'll tell you what - this would probably be a tad easier if I wasn't carrying around so much weight - but I've been running and lifting for A MONTH now, and have not lost a single pound.  Sure, my waist is a little smaller, and my shoulders a little broader, but I still have a Santa Gut and weigh the same old 220.

So, what don't I believe?  All these friends of mine who tell me that after a while I will really start to like running and become "addicted."  Yeah, uh huh.  And maybe I'll become addicted to sticking toothpicks in my pupils repeatedly.

Speaking of eyes, I really need to get me one of those fancy John McEnroe headband things, because despite my eyebrows getting thicker as I age, they (hopefully!) will never be bushy enough to prevent all that sweat from dripping off my forehead into my eyes.  (If they were, they'd look like some kind of crazy hair dam.)  So, it's time to bring back a little taste of the 70s!  (I use the term "taste" loosely.)

Anyway, I have a new strategy for this whole thing.  Instead of running 3.1 miles and trying to reduce my time to 30 minutes from 31:55 by increasing my speed, I am going to try to run 6.2 mph every time and increase my running time by one or two minutes each week, until I am at 30 minutes (and hence, 3.1 miles).

Gotta try some new way of tricking myself into accomplishing this stupid goal.

Because, as you know, I hate running.

Tonight's Run: "Just Dance"

We got a new Wii game tonight, so I danced energetically for three hours with my wife and son instead of running.  I do not feel the least bit guilty.

Goodnight! :)

Run #12: This really CANNOT be good for you...

I've got my own "spare tire" to burn; only mine was established in 2002.

I mean, seriously?

How can something so reprehensible possibly be beneficial?

I hurt SO much right now.

I beat my record again, too.  Ran the full 5k (3.1 miles) and did it in 31:55.  Two nights ago I did it in 32:48, so that's 53 seconds better.  I intended to do it in 32:00 minutes or less, and met that goal.

I know it seems like a set up - the fact that I keep beating my record - but I assure you I am trying my VERY best every time.  Each time I run, I foolishly insist on bettering my previous run.  STOOPID.

I have to stop doing that before I kill myself.  I have to just aim for the 32 minute range for the next couple of weeks, THEN try to speed up and approach my ultimate goal of 30:00. 

My right leg hurts.

Tonight's running set list?

1. Black - Pearl Jam
2. Epic - Faith No More
3. I Want it All - Queen
4. Jet City Woman - Queensryche
5. Runaway Trains - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
6. She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
7. Gone Pecan - Sonny Landreth

Queen gave me a nice boost when I needed it, and the songs, overall, did help keep my mind (mostly) off the fact that I despise, loathe, detest, abhor and HATE running.

One of my coworkers, the nice young lady who runs marathons, mentioned today that you don't even start to warm up and burn fat until after the first thirty minutes of running.  (As far as encouragement goes, that's like telling me that I won't even start to see any weight loss until after the first 30 months without a donut.  Really?  Just shoot me now.)  Now, that 30-minute claim may be true when you're 5'2" and 90lbs, but when you're packin' around 220lbs, you better believe SOMETHING'S burning after the first TWO minutes of that torture.  How else can you explain all that pain? 

Of course, with all my extra fat, it's hard to tell that any of it is actually burning.  It's like those piles of tires that catch fire and burn for months and months without seeming to put a dent in the big rubber mountain. 

Although I was able to catch my breath every couple of minutes tonight, my WHOLE body hurt for so much of the run.  Miserable.

I cannot wait until Thanksgiving afternoon, when I will officially be DONE with running.

HATE it.  I will run again on Friday night.

Run #11: Urine Trouble, Now!

"Ramming Speed!"  (Of course, this is right before he crippled the Defiant.  Makes sense.)

Word to the wise: if you are attempting to run a 5k, and you have an inkling for a tinkling, don't embark before you visit the loo.  There's nothing like the urgency of a full bladder to help you pick up the pace, but there are probably healthier (and less disturbing) motivators.  This public service announcement brought to you by Mr. Painful Nether Regions.

That said, I am pleased to announce that I completed another 5k tonight, and did it in record time - 32:48 - slicing 1:16 off Friday night's time.

Tonight, about 1.0 or 1.5 miles in, I hit a groove.  Well, I'd loosely define it as a groove, if you consider a groove to be the general feeling of "What the heck, I don't really care if I die."

I started out at 5.3 mph, and quickly increased speed until half way through when I reached 5.6 mph.  Then, kamikaze style, I started speeding up even more, as the angry 250-lb Klingon riding on my shoulders shouted "RAMMING SPEED!" and jabbed his angry blade into my back - so I went up to the nutso speed of 6.2 mph.

Why is the Klingon so angry?  Why, why WHY?  Is it because he, too, needed to go potty?

So, I was cruising along, and at 2.5 miles, I thought I was going to die.  This is not hyperbole, as in, "Gee, I feel like I'm gonna die;" this was me having a vision of myself actually having a heart attack and dying alone on the floor of the empty gym with no one to call 911.

An empty gym is great until you realize it means dying alone.

So, I said a prayer, praying that I would not in fact die.  The answer to my prayer was: "slow down."  (Thanks, Father!)  So, I reduced speed to 5.3 again, bloated bladder be danged.  Then toward the end, I started to pick up again, until, for those final 0.20 miles, I was going at extreme ramming speed - 6.3 mph - in a last ditch attempt to show a good finish time.

Those last 0.07 miles seemed to tick away SO slowly, even though they SHOULD have been flying by, given my gazelle-like rate.

When I finished, I had a serious head rush and wanted to collapse.  And I didn't even have to go to the bathroom anymore!  All the way home, everything was sharp and bright.  If this is the "runner's high," I don't like it.  I prefer my dull, non-dizzy, non-head-pounding self, thank you very much.

I don't want to do that again.  It hurt.  I can barely walk now.  I need to slow down.  I've got WEEKS to get my time down to 30:00.  Time to stop murdering myself.

I completely HATE running.

Run #10: Going the Distance

 My body doesn't care what I think.

Running is actually pretty cool!  Just kidding.

It still sucks.  I've been running for three weeks now, and it just stinks.

But I do have some good news: I ran the full 5k tonight - all 3.1 miles!  That's 0.5 miles more than Wednesday night.  And I didn't slow down.  In fact, I started at 5.1 mph, then gradually worked my way up to 5.6 mph by halfway through, and then maintained 5.6 all the rest of the way.

Time?  34:04.  (555 cal burned.) That's more than two minutes better than my time last Thanksgiving Day (when I ran the 5k cold turkey).  Now I just have to shave off 4:04 over the next 9 weeks.

I am actually really pleased with myself.  And, amazingly, at no point during tonight's run did I think I was going to die.  It was hard, yes, but not to the point where I wanted to slash my wrists or gouge my eyeballs out and extract my brain.

From now on, I will run 3.1 miles each time, and keep trying to reduce my time to 30:00 minutes - a little bit at a time.  I think I can . . . I think I can . . . I think I can . . .

I think I . . . still hate running.

Run #9: More Pain

 In case you didn't know, this is a bat'leth.  Ironically, it resembles the sweat pattern on my belly.

New best: ran 2.6 miles @5.6 mph = 27:50 run time (464 cal burned).

Awful, just awful.  Running is SO stupid.  UGH!

If there were some other way to train for a 5k, I'd be on it in a heartbeat.  Like sleeping, or perhaps slouching.

My right leg is killing me.

A well-intentioned commenter yesterday suggested that after 15 minutes of running you hit a "groove."  Hmm.  For me, I hit a groove at about 2 minutes, and again at about 13 minutes, then once more at 23 minutes.   Each "groove" lasts from 20 to 25 seconds.

Those grooves barely qualify as scratches on the hood of that Ferrari I posted a few days back.

My groove is more like a GRAVE.  After 20 minutes, that angry Klingon returned, this time the dishonorable p'tahk struck from behind, burying his bat'leth in my left shoulder blade with extreme prejudice, attempting to send me into that grave.

After my 5k, I am DEFINITELY switching to something like the stationary bike or something.

Also tonight, I discovered that as long as the music is good, it doesn't need to be Dragonforce or other fast stuff.  As long as it serves to take your mind off the misery for a while.

I'm now 0.5 miles from my distance goal.  As for my time goal of 30 minutes, that's going to be nuts.  But I suppose it is POSSIBLE, given I've only been running for 2.5 weeks and have another 9.5 weeks of training to go...

But I totally HATE running.  HATE it.

Run #8: Torture

 No, this is not me (I wear more clothes).  But this is how I feel.

I cannot express, in a mere blog post of a couple hundred words, how much I absolutely hated that last run.

It was so truly horrible.

I ran 2.0 miles in 19:22, maintaining 6.2 mph the whole way.  I chose that speed because that's the rate at which I will need to run the 5k on Thanksgiving morning if I want to complete it in under 30 minutes, which is my goal.

WAS my goal.

There is NO WAY I will be able to do that.  I must have been crazy.

Tonight, halfway through, I just wanted to stop running and let myself slide back and crash down onto the treadmill on my face and let the thing abrade my cheek endlessly.  That would've been preferable.  At 1.25 miles, I just wanted to cry.  At 1.4 miles, I started to hallucinate; the little leg pad on the weight bench ahead of me started to look like a face - an old bald bearded guy with a long, long face.  Very weird.

At 1.7 miles EVERY part of me HURT.  Not just lungs, back, shoulders and neck, but my LEGS were DYING!  This was SO miserable.

I really don't even know how I ever did that 5k last year - with no practice.  I don't know how I'm going to do it this year.  Certainly not in under 30 minutes.  There's just no way I can keep up that pace for that long.

A week ago Sunday, a friend told me she's been running for a long time, and she still hates it.  She's smart.  (And not terribly encouraging.)

Why have I chosen this insane path for myself?
Oh.  My.  GOSH!  I hate running!!

Run #7: Speed

Built for speed, baby.  Just like me.  (As long as it's only one mile.)

After running 2.5 miles last time - and nearly DYING! - I thought I'd try some new way to nearly die - going for speed.

Today I beat my record for a two-mile run. I did 2.0 miles in 18:31.  I started out at the ridiculously breakneck speed of 7.0 mph.  I was only able to keep that up for the first 1.0 miles (which I ran in 8:34), then had to slow down for a while (all the way to 4.0 mph, for 0.15 miles), then gradually worked my speed back up to 6.5 toward the end, breaking into a 7.0 pace for the last 0.10 miles (although I kicked it up to 7.2 for the final few seconds, trying to come in under 18:30 - didn't work).

My head hurts.  I am still kinda chunky.  How can I sweat three and a half gallons and still weigh the same as before?  (I guess it could be the weightlifting I'm doing on non-running days, miraculously turning my fat into muscle, which I hear is heavier).  But, does that mean this jiggly belly thing is muscle?

Didn't think so.

I HATE running.

Run #6: Ouch

Get a load of this little guy.  He wants to enter my stomach.  (He'll have to wait.)

 
2.5 miles @ 5.5 mph = 27:18 (446 cal burned)

I believe this is the longest I have ever run at that sustained pace - in my LIFE.

Yes, I set the absolutely INSANE goal of 2.5 miles for myself tonight.  Annoyingly, I just couldn't allow myself to fall short, so I went ahead and did it, much to my body's chagrin.

Now, I know you experienced runners are thinking, "Ha ha, 2.5 miles!  I remember when I was taking those first baby steps, now I'm just barely starting to get warmed up at 2.5 miles!"

Well, bully for you.  Go read one of those blogs that make me sick.  See right hand column ->

As for me, my right leg hurts pretty bad.  I hate running.

Half way through, I wanted to give up.  The music helped, but not much.  I started thinking, "Next time I'll just go for a shorter distance. ...  Next time? ...  Huh, more like never again! ... When I get home, I'm going to eat that cinnamon roll I denied myself earlier.  But then, when I get home, I probably won't want it anymore. ... Stupid mind games. ... You can't fool yourself!  Stop lying to yourself - this SUCKS!"

At 2.0 miles, I wanted to cry.  Seriously.  "This is crazy!"

Oddly, the last 0.15 miles was not so bad - I think at that point I was having an out-of-body experience to escape the pain.  When I was done, I just wanted to go home and cry.  (No, I didn't actually cry.)

All this stupid run did for me was make me hungry.  All the way home I saw ads and billboards that made me want to eat.  When I got home, I had a big glass of water.  And I no longer wanted that cinnamon roll!  Arrgh.  I'm having it for breakfast, dang it!

I so, so, SO hate running.

Run #5: The Power of Music

Remember this guy?  That was some powerful music.

I have discovered that a good playlist can go a long way - at least 2.2 miles! 

Yep, I met my goal for tonight, increasing my distance from 2.0 to 2.2 miles.  It took 24 minutes (I ran at 5.5 mph) and I burned 393 calories, according to Dr. Treadmill.  At the end, my heart rate was 176, which seems totally wrong.  Heart rates shouldn't go up that high, IMHO.

As for the music, I decided to create a RUNNING playlist on the iPod.  I carefully selected some tunes that I thought would set a good pace, get the blood flowing and the fists pumping.  I have never been a Rob Zombie fan, but I discovered that Scum of the Earth is the ideal tune for running at 5.5 mph.  Other selections included Black Sabbath, The Cult, and EMF.

The EMF album (Schubert Dip) was released in May 1991, the month before I turned 20.  I have a picture (well, I have no idea where the photograph is now, but I have a mental picture of that picture) of myself, leaning against my old 1980 Dodge Challenger, that was taken right around that time - and man was I in incredible shape.  Slim, muscled, toned, tanned - and yes, 20 years old. 

A pretty good vision to have in my head as I run - better than that image across the room in those floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

Anyway, the music helped a lot tonight.  Wednesday, I look forward to hearing more of the playlist (which includes Guns n' Roses, Faith No More, Metallica, Cinderella, Def Leppard, Pearl Jam, Primus and Queensryche).  Really digging back into my long-hair days . . .

I have a feeling the music thing will only carry me so far, though.  I think that even better than music, would be to do the run while completely unconscious.

Until I figure out a way to do that...

I really HATE running.

Run #4

Ahhh.  That feels a little better, after a meal fit for three kings.

I'm no doctor, nor am I a Sports Medicine Expert (that would just be silly, since my best sport is Slouching) - but I'm pretty certain it's inadvisable to run after a huge Mexican lunch and a very huge Italian dinner (hey, they practically FORCED that entire 10" pizza, baseball bat sized breadstick and chocolate molten lava dessert down my throat).

But despite the obvious discomfort (the same kind of discomfort you would feel if a very perturbed Klingon shoved a d'k tagh under your ribs and wriggled it around to express how much you have dishonored him) - I still managed to meet the ridiculously ambitious goal I had set for myself: 2.0 miles in 20:00 minutes.

That means I maintained 6.0 mph for a third of an hour!  Amazing!  I mean, can a cheetah even do that?  I know, huh?

By half way there (10 minutes), I was really struggling.  I tried to tell myself, "You're half way there!" - but that just depressed me.  So, I tried to think of times when 10 minutes seems like nothing.  Didn't really help.  So, I decided to put it in the perspective of the fact that I am doing this so that I can live another 40 years or so - and compared to that, 10 minutes is nothing.

By the time I got around to that somewhat unconvincing bit of philosophical trickery, I was at 1.33 miles, with .67 miles to go.  I am starting to notice a pattern: from 1.33 miles to 1.5 miles, I seem to hit my stride and for that brief window, I don't feel like death is extremely imminent - only that it is just around the corner.

Which it very nearly is, because by the time I am at 1.65 miles, I am once again asking, "Why why why why why why WHY????"  And that angry Klingon has returned with a vengeance, stuck me in an airlock and opened the outside door to space.

This run was the first one where, instead of my back, neck and shoulders hurting and my legs getting tired, I found that my back, neck and shoulders hurting and my legs getting tired was obscured by the fact that my lungs wanted to report me for abuse.

I'm still trying to decide if that sorta-good feeling I have about 20-30 minutes after the run is because of something good I did to my body, or if it's just because the agony has come to an end at last.  It's like some sort of weird physical Stockholm Syndrome - even though it hurts me, I find myself sympathizing with the treadmill's agenda.

And once again, I've got this stupid goofy sweat-grin across my belly.

I hate running.

My next insanely suicidal goal is to increase my distance by 10% to 2.2 miles, and take it at a little slower pace, like 5.5 mph.  Then I will keep inching up the distance in increments of 0.2 miles until I am at 3.1 miles, then keep shaving off time until I can do 3.1 miles in 30 minutes.  And I want to achieve that by Thanksgiving, so I can run the Turkey Day 5k in under 30 minutes.  I did the run last year in just over 36 minutes, and that was with zero training (cold turkey), running for the first time since I was a kid.

I used to think running was only worthwhile if there was something life-threatening chasing you.  Well, I've realized that DEATH is life-threatening, and it's chasing each of us all the time.  I want to stick around for a while, for my wife and son.  So I will run.

But . . . I really hate running.

Those OTHER people

Got any friends who look like this? Didn't think so.

I know people who like running.  Some of them are even good friends.  They tell me that one day, if I keep doing this to myself, I'll start to "like" it.  Huh.

I don't understand them.

They do things like "Ragnar" and "Marathon" and "Iron Man" and other very macho-sounding words.  Does not sound the least bit appealing to me.

It's all so unnatural.  If humans were meant to RUN, our bodies would look more like cheetahs or greyhounds or ostriches.  Or those weird little lizard-things that skim across water like Dash from The Incredibles.

(Hey, did someone say Cheetos?  Mmmm.)

Anyway, THIS body was made for lying down, sitting, kneeling, and walking (within reason).  And for white-boy dancing.  But especially for slouching - which I am doing right now.  I'm very good at it.  I can do it for hours.  Perhaps I'll start a new macho contest called Slouch-nar, where teams of dedicated slouchers push the boundaries of...something...and then put little Slouch-nar stickers on the back windows of their cars to prove how cool they are. 

I hate running.

I will run again tomorrow night.

But I hate running.