Back in the saddle...

Oops, I did it again. (I apologize for the lame Britney Spears reference. Totally unintended, promise!) It's Tuesday afternoon, and I was not able to keep my vow to post Sunday night or Monday morning. My apologies to all you faithful readers out there, anxiously waiting by your computers with anticipation...(I do  hope you can get the sarcasm here. Not that I am sorry, but that you have nothing better to do than to wait for...oh, you get the picture!)

So, let's jump right in, shall we? The stats:

Weight Sunday 4/14  275.8 

Weight Sunday 4/7    273.8 (down 2 lbs from previous week. Yay!)

Total weight loss to date: 14.9 pounds in 6 weeks

Mon 4/15  run/walk 4.1 mi. (time not kept-2 different outings-see last week's post)

Wed. 4/17 run/walk 4.65 mi.  01:09:00 -Windy as shit. Legs starting to feel good again though.

Fri.  4/19 run/walk 3.1 mi. 00:45:27  Rec center day. First really good feeling day in over a week though.

Sun. 4/21 run/walk 3.1 mi.  00:43:55 -Outside with my sister in-law, Rachel. Felt good. 

Distance for week: 14.95 miles. 

As the week was going on, I kept feeling like it was gong to be another "meh" week. However, each day out  was an improvement. And the weight loss was a vast improvement over the prior two weeks. A big shout out to my lil' sis Rachel for joining me Sunday morning. She's just recently started running to prepare for her employer's involvement in the Rochester JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge 5k in a few weeks. The run was good and almost a return to my previous best time. I'm sure she was holding back seeing as how she's 1/3 of my weight and half my height. (Had to dig-ha, ha.) But it was a nice run. It was interesting to do the whole "can you hold a conversation while you're running" litmus test. Admittedly, that was kinda hard.

Anyhow, it was a good week for finding my way back into it. There were no profound discoveries this week. No big connections (that was last Monday and Tuesday.) Really, this week was about getting back to basics. Trying to understand where my body and mind are at at this moment, so I can best use them this weekend. My wife and I are running the Flower City Challenge Wegmans 5k on Sunday April 28th. It should be fun. I've been following a solid run/walk pattern of 4min/6min runs separated by 3min walks. Lately I've been trying to up the later run stretches to 5min/7min. Seems to be working out. 

The body is an interesting machine. I still don't feel like I have found a "comfortable" place with it yet. That is, in terms of the mechanics of it. Lot's of good questions are popping up though. How does my foot hit the ground, and how does that affect how my legs feel? What is my posture like and how can that adjust to optimize efficiency, alleviate pain and fatigue, make for a smoother run? How do I breathe? When does it get difficult? What's the rhythm? Am I a mouth breather, a nose breather, or both? 

Then there's the mind. The old slogan for The United Negro College Fund says "the mind is a terrible thing to waste..." Robin Williams said, "the mind  is a terrible thing..." At the beginning of this process when I was asking my buddy Thom about how to approach training and the duration of running a marathon, he told me that my legs and body will be strong. In fact training now with the weight I'm carrying, by the time race day comes along and I am 60-70 pounds lighter, my legs will be like iron (in a good way.) Then we talked a bit about aerobic training vs. anaerobic training and the idea that you should condition your heart and muscles to rely on oxygen for fuel. Great. Working on it. Then, he said the muscle that will give me the biggest grief is my brain. Holy shit, is he right. Even when things are working well, and the run is good, there's my brain second guessing me. "Great, you feel good doing 3.1, but can you sustain this for 26.2?" Or, "Wouldn't this be easier and more pleasant if you just stopped and walked?" Or most of the time, "Are you fucking nuts? Why do you want to do this to yourself. Stay home. Watch Avengers (again.) Eat a bag of popcorn you fucking idiot..." I keep trying different things to occupy my brain, but haven't settled on any one formula yet. Some days it's listening to music. Other days it's news or human interest stories on NPR. Other times it's just silence and nature. It doesn't help that in my adulthood, I've recently come to the realization that I suffer from (and always have suffered from) a certain level of ADD, and can get easily bored and distracted. I guess in a way, the focus needed during running has been a good mental exercise for helping me deal with that issue. 

In any case, I guess what it all boils down to this week is that with all of the personal growth and discovery I have been making on this journey, I still have yet to really find my groove when it comes to the actual practical application of getting out there and running. That's not a complaint or a gripe. It's an observation. Lucky for me, I enjoy being a "student." I am as much about the process as I am about the goal. (Just ask anyone who works with me when I direct a show.) Do I want to move forward? Yes. Do I want to see results? Yes. But the things I am learning along the way, be they profound ("I'm connected to cavemen...") or mundane ("how do I breathe?") are as much of what this is all about as those 26.2 miles in October.

So why run a marathon?

I have no fucking idea. :-)

Say it with me...

All roads lead to Chicago!

A Loss for Words...

     I went through my day yesterday (Monday) reminding myself that I needed to sit down later that night and write my blog. I thought about the week I had pertaining to my training and eating. It was a difficult week, having sustained a minor injury and a miniscule weight loss. As I got into my car to begin my 35-minute commute home, I turned on the radio. I usually listen to Dr. Laura on Sirius XM just for kicks (I don't always agree with her, but it's fun to listen to anyway.) Sometimes to change it up and have a good laugh, I might switch it over to Playboy Radio or Opie & Anthony for a few minutes.

     I turned on the radio and it was still set to the CNN station that I tuned into the night before when I ran out to the supermarket. I left it on as I drove along not really paying attention. My ears and brain started to click into the words being spoken by Wolf Blitzer. "...explosions...city...finish line...onlookers...Boston..." I remembered that the Boston Marathon was happening that day and I immediately zeroed in and paid more attention as the report went on and I was able to piece together that there had been two explosions at the Boston Marathon yards away from the finish. Scarce details came forth and I immediately texted my buddy Thom who I'm doing Chicago with, to ask if he knew anyone running in Boston. He wrote back to say he knew some people running and they were all ok. As details began to materialize and the nature of the explosions became clear, I tried to think if we knew anyone in Boston. At times like this, social media is a godsend. I checked in with Becky's cousin at BU. All ok. Checked in with a friend from high school. All ok. Good. But still...

     I am just starting this journey to becoming a marathon runner, but in my short time in that world (and just barely touching the tip of that world,) one thing has become clear. For me right now yes, all roads lead to Chicago. But for the hardcore, avid marathoner, all roads lead to Boston. It's the grand-daddy of all races. The oldest distance race in America. Not to diminish the scale or significance of running Chicago, but the hardcore marathoners run a race like Chicago, or Philly, or Atlanta, in order to qualify for Boston. there are only 23,000 runners (compared to 45,000 in Chicago.) Every one of them meeting a specified criteria of speed and time in order to be allowed to run in Boston. For the true marathoner, it's the pinnacle. A crown jewel. Like climbing Mt. Everest. I've heard people talk about it like a pilgrimage. The way a Muslim aspires to visit Mecca, a Jew to Jerusalem, or a Catholic to the Vatican. It's a race that many admire and glorify, and comparatively few ever get to run. I know I never will, but I'm developing that reverence just the same.

     I had a rough week training and weight-wise. Last Tuesday I did 3.1 miles in 00:43:51. My best time yet. Then the week got away from me. I couldn't get to the rec center until Friday after work. I felt good though. I wanted to push myself so after my initial warm-up walk, I set the treadmill at a 4.7 pace. I was going along nicely, feeling good when all of a sudden at the 2.1 mile mark I felt a searing pain in my left calf. I cried out and almost fell off the treadmill. I got what I thought was the worst cramp I have ever gotten. So, I went over to the blocks and stretched it out. I walked around the rec center a bit. Tried to take in some fluids. I massaged it. It was really tight but I got back on the treadmill and tried to continue. Within a minute of starting again, the pain was back. That was it. I was shot for the day. I left pissed and defeated. Saturday should have been a long walk, but by that morning, the tightness and pain were still present. Even if I went out on Sunday, I was losing a day no matter what. Clearly, it was more than a cramp. I definitely pulled the muscle. I was so frustrated. I have come so far, but I still have such a long way to go. I have no time to lose a day or two or three. Add to it that at my Sunday morning weigh-in I was only down .3 lbs from the prior week. So, Sunday morning I begrudgingly went out for the long walk. My father in-law came along (he has been a distance runner in the past and is trying to get going again as well.) We did a good paced walk of about 4.3 miles. Felt good to be out, albeit my leg was still tight and sore. But the walk did it good.

     That was the end of the week. Only 3 days of exercise and a small weight loss. Call it a "meh" week. And then Monday comes. I get up Monday morning to go out on a walk/run before work. It's a new week, leg is  feeling ok. Try to rev the engine up again. Get back in the saddle, ya know? Can't slip into a funk. Can't back off. As I go out, I can tell that my legs feel like lead weights trying to run through water. FUCK!! I think. It feels like 4 weeks ago. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get them going. So, about half a mile in, I decide to walk the whole thing. I did 3.1 miles, but came off it frustrated. 

     And then Boston happened. Of course I feel so bad for all the people injured and the families of those who died. And I can't even begin to make sense of the senseless violence and evil in the world and why someone would be compelled to do such a thing. But what keeps coming back to my mind is the runners. My heart breaks for them. They who have worked their whole life for this moment. This chance for personal greatness. I'm only beginning to understand the personal significance of that moment. Whether you've been running since you were a child, or you're 41 and only started 5 weeks ago, you've been preparing your whole life for this moment. Everything you've done has led you to this event. This moment. This purpose. And to have that all taken away from you because of some evil person or persons. To come so close to the grail, the ring, Nirvana, whatever, and to have it be taken away. And not because you failed. Not because you gave up. But because some evil bastard wanted to hurt people, destroy life. It just makes no sense to me. And all afternoon, I felt some strange connection to everyone who ran. The ones who finished, the ones who did not. I guess it was that sense of brotherhood again. So Monday night, I went out with my daughter and I ran. I ran a mile without stopping. I willed my legs into a state of lightness. It was my personal protest to the evil in the world. It was my way of saying to whoever did this thing that they cannot stop us. They can't stop us from running. They can't stop people from living their lives and doing the things that give them joy. It was my reminder to myself that I can't be stopped by a hurt leg, or disappointing weight, or fear of disaster, or the thousand other things that can happen and get us down.   

With that said, I think I'll close this post with what comedian Patton Oswalt said on his Facebook page last night: "When you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’”

So, why run a marathon?

Because no matter who or what tries to stop you, you must continue to do that which is important to you.

All roads lead to Chicago. 

Small gains...Big victories

       So, it seems that although I am having unprecedented success at maintaining my exercise schedule and eating regimen, I seem, of late, to have trouble staying on target for my blog posts. We got back from our trip to Ann Arbor, MI late last Thursday night, and then the weekend and subsequent week got away from me. To all my faithful readers out there, I sincerely apologize for the tardiness of this post and hope to stay on track with posting Sunday nights/Monday mornings from this point on. 

So, without any further ado, here are last weeks stats:

Weight Sunday 3/31  276.9

Weight Sunday 4/7    276.1

Total weight loss to date: 12.6 pounds in 4 weeks

Tues 4/2  run/walk 3 mi.  00:46:00

Thur. 4/4 run/walk 3.03 mi.  00:49:58 -legs were like lead, had to stop several times to stretch

Sat.  4/6 walk 4.65 mi. 01:19:18  walked with Beck. Had to work to keep up with her pace.

Sun. 4/7 run/walk 3.1 mi.  00:45:05 -started doing alternating intervals of 4 min run and 6 min run separated by 3 min walks. Going well. (Actually shaved 00:01:14 off my 5K time today, Wednesday)

      I know the weight loss was not as big as prior weeks, but I still have to remind myself that we went away on a trip and I managed to lose. My eating was not terrible by any means, but there was more sodium, some caffine, some processed things. However in the past on a trip, and especially visiting my family, I would have been up 5 lbs. The fact that I was able to come home down at all was a small gain, big victory. 

      Also the fact that I got up early on vacation twice to go out and run was a huge accomplishment for me. A trip would have been the perfect excuse to say "oh, I can skip it today, I'm on vacation ..." But you know what, that's a bullshit excuse, and one that I have use many times before. But as I am learning, this journey is, among other things, a journey of NO MORE EXCUSES. "It's Easter, so just today I'll eat whatever I want..." Bullshit. "I'm driving on a road trip, so it's easier to eat a burger in the car or a bag of chips..." Bullshit. (Becky actually fed me yogurt while I was driving. We must have looked ridiculous, and had a good laugh)  "I'm visiting grandma. I have to eat whatever she puts out or she'll be offended..." Bullshit. And man, you do not want to offend dear Florence Meltzer by not eating her food she puts out, the "nosh'odai" as we call it. (Probably wrecked the Yiddish spelling.) Gotta hand it to the "little hurricane" as my aunt calls her. The woman is 87 years old battling cancer, had just had a chemo treatment that morning and still managed to put out a spread. Grandma did start to get offended until I reminded her that I'm training for a marathon and trying really hard to watch what I eat. The scene then played out thusly:

   Grandma: No, no. That good that you're doing that. So...how much weight have you lost?  

   Sandy: Well, about 11 pounds in 3 weeks.

   Grandma: Oh, that's good. (pause) You can't see it but...

   Sandy: Um, well, uh, ya know it takes time for it to--

   Grandma: (indicating my wife standing nearby) Now, her though..Becky, you really have lost 

                      so much weight. You can really see it!

   Becky: (trying to be gracious about the compliment while giving me my props) Well, thanks      

               Grandma. It's been about 4 years and a lot of work. But anyway, Sandy's doing it. He's 

               gonna get there...

   Grandma: I know, but you can't see it on him, but you can really see it on you!

      And so on. Woman, if you thought there was any chance I was gonna partake of your nosh, you blew it! No, in all seriousness, Grandma tells it like it is, right? Becky read something the other day that said something like it takes 4 weeks for you to feel a difference in your body; 8 weeks for you to see a difference; and 12 weeks for everyone else to see a difference. I just passed the 4 week mark and I have to say that I do feel a difference. I feel lighter, taller. I feel a little smoother. My pants are starting to not fit right (annoying but satisfying!) The other day my dear friend Stephanie told me she did think she could see it in my face. We had a good chuckle about that and about when people say that. Steph has fought an ongoing battle with her weight as well and followed up the compliment with "WTF? Right? Like that's the part we are most concerned with? Really? Why does it work from the top down? It should work from the bottom up!" I started to laugh as I imagined how different conversations would go. 

   Grandma: So...how much weight have you lost?

   Sandy: About 11 pounds.

   Grandma: That's good. You can't see it though. You're ass looks the same.

   Sandy: Um...well....(awkward silence)

   Grandma: But Becky...her ass looks great! Becky, you can really see how much weight you've  

                     lost in your ass!

    Results. We are a goal and results oriented society. We check the scale. We check the stopwatch. "I need to see the numbers drop. The weight go down. The time go down. The speed go faster..." I was bordering on feeling pissed, defeated on Sunday. I lay in bed and for the first time in weeks, I didn't want to go run. I had that momentary "WTF am I doing, do I really want to do this?" I couldn't see the big victories. And I wasn't appreciating the small gains. My daughter Maggie came into the bedroom, sat down on the bed and said "come on Daddy, let's go to the rec center." I looked at her. 11 years old, trying to motivate her old man.  I thought about my grandmother who even though she's battling cancer, gets up every morning and puts on a nice outfit and some make-up. Who jumped off of the couch multiple times to get her grandkids and great-grandkids a drink; a napkin; a fork. "Jesus," I thought to myself. "If she can keep moving, keep doing things, then I sure as hell can." I know her example was part of what helped me go out and run in Ann Arbor.

   And so, it is a potent reminder that we need to be sure we see the forest and not just the trees. Life is about small details and big pictures. In the film Any Given Sunday, there's a great speech delivered by coach Tony D'Amato played by Al Pacino. (A segment of it is making the rounds in a commercial for Jeep...) There are some quotable ideas and lines but the essence is the following lines which I think are applicable on this journey:

  "We're in hell right now gentlemen. Believe me. And we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell one inch at a time... You find out life's this game of inches...The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second...We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that's gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!"

Down .8 lbs is still down. Getting up on vacation to run even though it was slow and hard, is still getting up. Small gains, big victories. Inches. Seconds. It all adds up. And it keeps me going.

So, why run a marathon?

So grandma can see it in my ass ;-)

All roads lead to Chicago!

    

I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world...

Well, worry not fearless readers. Although I'm late with this post, it's not without good reason. First off, as stated last week, I'm not dead yet. I'm sure some of you may have feared the worst, but actually I'm late due to the fact that the wife, kids, and I traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan this week to visit my grandmother who is waging a battle against cancer. In fact I'm sitting in a room in a Microtel as I'm writing this. Little by little, I am discovering what it means to become a runner. Case in point, a trip like this would be an excellent excuse to not run on the days I'm supposed to. Not eat the way I'm supposed to. But as I'm discovering, this whole process is about changing my lifestyle. Changing my habits of behavior and mind. And so, I got up this morning and went on a lovely run in beautiful Gallup Park along the Huron River today. But more on that in next Sunday's post.

For now, here are last weeks stats:

Weight Sunday 3/24   281 lbs.

Weight Sunday 3/31 276.9 lbs.

Total weight loss to date:  11.8 lbs.

Hello 270's! Been a while! Nice to see you, but hopefully won't be staying long!

Tues. 3/26  35 min run/walk 2.25 mi
Thur. 3/28  45 min run/walk  3 mi
Sat.  3/30  1 hr 15 min  run/walk  4.5 mi (ran 2)
Sun  3/31  1 hr 15 min  run/walk  4.5 mi (ran 2)

I tried a new route Sat/Sun. One of those days was supposed to just be a long walk, but I decided what the hell. It felt good. It wasn't easy by any means, but it is getting easier. The run stretches were 2 sections of 1 mile each and I was able to run those non-stop and consistently (albeit at a pretty slow pace.) Got a long way to go, but I am moving in the right direction one baby step at a time.

So, on my Thursday run last week, I had a truly profound moment. A moment that signaled my arrival into the brotherhood (and sisterhood) of runners. A moment that every runner experiences and is never quite prepared for no matter how inevitable it is. It's overwhelming when it happens. All encompassing. A return to a more primal self when all we could do was run to get from place to place, without the modern conveniences and comforts we so take for granted. Yes true believers, as I ran through a wooded park with nary an establishment in sight, I...fledgling runner, wayward traveler on the road to Chicago...had to go to the bathroom. And not number 1. Yes, the other. Whilst running.

It started innocently enough. I had arrived at Northponds Park that chilly afternoon, determined to get in my 3 miles in under 45 minutes. As I got out of the car and began my warm-up walk, I felt that ever subtle but distinct twinge in the bowels. At that point I was 1/10 of a mile in. I stopped and looked back at the public restroom building on the southern edge of the park that runs along the route 104 service road. I was in quite a conundrum. To turn back or not turn back. That was the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous bowel urges or to take off these slimming spandex pants, and thereby relieve oneself...(Sorry. I direct Shakespeare ya know...) So, I decided I could tough it out and make it around the pond (Northponds is exactly 1 mile around, and after all, I did have my big boy running pants on!)

So, with determination in my mind and heart, I set off. It wasn't so bad. I was actually able to distract my thoughts and after a few minutes the urge had subsided. Well, any of you local readers who know Northponds Park know that on the far north side around the 4/10-half mile mark, there is a hill. It's not a big hill. But even so, hills suck ass. For me the best way to tackle a hill is to take it aggressively. I up my pace a little, pump my arms and legs a little harder. I grit my teeth and grunt. And when I get to the top, it feels darn good. Most of the time. This time however...not so much. I reached the top, the theme song from Rocky pounding in my head. As I reached the apex, the pinnacle, there it was. That feeling returning with a vengance as if to say "I'm back asshole. Nice going!!" I was not going to make it all the way around. I panicked! "What do I do?" I thought looking around as if by some miracle of wishful thinking a porta-potty or another restroom building would materialize out of thin air where there was none. But alas, my wishes fell on deaf ears. The gods did not drop a toilet down from the heavens. I had no choice but to high tail it into the thicket of trees and look for a spot. I found one that seemed masked enough from the running path and the road to my north. And there, in the cool embrace of nature...I shit in the woods. Like many a runner before, and many to come, I dropped said spandex and made my involuntary contribution to the ecosystem. Ah, sweet relief. There was that momentary bliss that naturally follows but that was quickly eclipsed by a second wave of panic. I had no toilet paper. No wipes, nothing. I could use my underwear but that would mean having to stand up and risk being seen by passersby as I stripped my shoes and pants off to get at said underwear. What should I do? The last time I was in this predicament I was 10 years old and ended up with poison ivy on my ass for 3 weeks. I tried to reach into the deep recess of my mind and strained to recall critical information I learned when I was a cub scout for a week (something about all those brown shirts in a room chanting made this little Jewish kid just a tad bit uncomfortable.) Hmmm, look for dried leaves, Maple or Oak is best. And ones on a branch are better than ones on the ground. Better chance that an animal hasn't defecated on them. Oh, and stay away from ones that are shiny and are 3 leaves clustered together (alas, this information was imparted to me after the poison ivy incident of 1982.)

There I was, squatting down in the woods, looking for something to wipe my ass with when it hit me. Here I was a modern man, used to all the conveniences and creature comforts of modern life taken back to a primal self. I was, in that moment of relieving myself in the woods, no longer Sandy Nagar, 21st century man. I was an animal. I was our ancestors. I imagined that this must have been what it was like to be a neanderthal or a caveman. You got from one place to another by walking. If you wanted to get there quickly, you ran. and if you needed to relieve yourself, you stopped where you were, dropped down and did it. And nearby would be someone else also doing it, then running off. Or maybe an animal would be sitting nearby, your actions indistinguishable from theirs. For once upon a time, we were nothing more than animals walking the earth. Running across it. There was no distinction between us and animals. There was no worry about that project, that deadline, my cholesterol, my heart rate. There was the run. Get from here to there. That's it.

As I grabbed a clump of maple leaves from a nearby branch, I remembered a section of Song of Myself by Walt Witman from his work Leaves of Grass:

...I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth. (And then...) The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world.   And with that, I continued on my way. Finishing my run. No records shattered. Not even a personal best. But better for it nonetheless. Oh, and by the way...it should be noted that as I passed the restrooms on the southern side of the park, they were locked, a CLOSED FOR THE SEASON sign tauntingly fixed to the door...   So, why run a marathon? Because I am man. Primal. An animal. All roads lead to Chicago!