As you will no doubt be aware (and if you're not, just read the post before this), in 2011 I ran the Honolulu Marathon (though I use "ran" in about the loosest possible sense there). I trained, rarely as hard as I should have, for six months, and then I did it. It was arguably one of the largest accomplishments of my life to date which, frankly, is sort of pathetic.
When I committed to run the marathon, I weighed in the mid-180s, which at the time was more or less the least I had weighed since college. I was working out regularly and dieting pretty substantially (in the sense that I was on a mostly paleo diet, not in the sense that I was cutting the hell out of my calorie intake). That changed when I began running; I felt like I had to add carbs back into the mix, and lo and behold I let any diet lapse - and started to put weight back on, because while I was running, I was not doing the amount of running necessary to eat any old thing I wanted.
By the time the marathon came I had probably put back on ten pounds. Whether or not this contributed to my knee issue on the last few miles isn't clear, but it can't have helped. After the marathon I basically didn't want to think about running for a while. So I didn't. I didn't really think about exercise either. I continued eating whatever. And within less than a year of the marathon, my weight had gone back up to 210, only about ten pounds shy of my all-time high from 2009. My legs did not like this at all. Neither did my lower back, which began to ache almost constantly.
I changed. I had to. It was inexcusable for a 30-year-old man with no health problems preventing him from exercising to wake up in the morning feeling like he could barely move from back pain. Since December 1, 2012, on which my official weight came in at 209, I have lost 33 pounds, two-thirds of the way to my goal of losing 50. Progress is steady. As far as I'm concerned, I will NEVER again in my life weigh 200 pounds, or even within spitting distance of it.
Anyway, you probably know all that if you follow me on Facebook, and if you don't follow me on Facebook it's amazing that you found your way here, but that's cool. The point was to give a little backstory, just in case, before I launch into the reason we're here again: marathons.
To be perfectly honest, I don't even remember what motivated me to do a marathon in the first place. Ads for "Team 2 End AIDS," the training program I worked with in Chicago, were plastered all over the El, and I had been seeing them for months before one day I just said "Sure" and decided to do it. I guess at the time I was in something resembling shape, and was looking for a challenge, and I think a lot of people kind of idly have "Do a marathon" on their bucket list. So I guess that's why. I do know that when I finished the marathon (as I've written before) I was of two minds. Half of me said, "Well, check that off the bucket list, and now I never have to do it again." The other half of me said, "I really want to do that again."
The other half of me - the half that was sick of putting up with treating my body like garbage, the half that motivated me to lose 33 pounds and to keep going - won. As it should have. It's about time I found some damn willpower. And so that's where we are right now: I'm officially announcing that I will run another marathon.
There are a few caveats to that. First of all, I don't have a specific marathon in mind. When I started thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that targeting a specific date was not ideal - while in theory that seems like a powerful motivator, one thing that I learned from the Honolulu experience is that it encouraged me to do just enough to get through it (and at 8:42:12, I really did just get through it). There are a variety of reasons this isn't really good enough, but key among them is time. If you're going to take nearly nine hours to finish a marathon, the Honolulu Marathon is virtually the only major race that won't kick you off the course. I've been somewhat idly going through a list of major marathons that I find interesting, and almost all of them close their courses at seven hours or less. Many close at six. The Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in DC course, which is one of the most interesting to me, closes at five and a half.
The point being, getting "just there" isn't really enough. I need - well, I want, anyway - to get to a point where I can really run a marathon, not just drag my butt over 26.2 miles, which is part two of the caveats. (Plus, if you'll recall, I might not have managed to finish last time without the mental pickup from one the T2EA coaches, and certainly if I do this any time in the near future that won't be an option.) I'm certainly not there now, and I don't know how long it will take. There are training regimens that suggest you can get ready in a few months, but I really want to build steadily. And, ideally, get myself to a point where I don't just do one and collapse, but am in sufficient shape to at least consider doing more. I don't know that I'm going to turn into a "50-stater," but let's just say it's not something I'd be averse to. If, and only if, I can actually get into the right kind of shape. And I do mean the right kind - at the very LEAST I want to break six hours the next time I run an actual marathon. If I can't do that, I probably don't have much business wanting to run one.
Third and finally, "will" is of course subject to health. As of right now my legs seem fine - especially after having lost 33 pounds, and you'd think losing another 17 (or more) would only help - but if it turns out I'm just not built to hold up for long distance running, this whole thing will obviously have to be abandoned. But I won't know if that's the case until I try.
So, here we go again. Still losing weight, starting to run again. I did a 5K with Alma last weekend; it was definitely more in the "just getting through it" camp, but I didn't want to die afterwards either. I'll certainly keep posting on Facebook about things, and I'll try to make sporadic longer posts here when I actually have something (semi-)interesting to say about the whole ordeal. At some point, maybe, I'll have actual, legitimate, interesting race stories to publish. But for right now, let's just see how it goes.
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