Running - Track Work and Stronger Legs

Photo courtesy of Photos8.com

If there were a magic number for me this week, it would be 67855...

More on that in a bit. Recently I reintroduced myself to running. It's been about 18 years since I fell away, and the miles are not as easy now as they were in the days of Grunge. But I keep at it, with each 1/4 mile and every flight of stairs being a celebration of life and a new opportunity to lose weight in an amount - as one friend put it - "equivalent to that of a Backstreet Boy." I intentionally park out in the toolies at work, which puts me 8 minutes and three flights of stairs away from my cubicle. After three weeks of stairs, walking, and running, I'm feeling results. Not a visual change, for whatever reason, but I feel healthier. Sleep is easier and I have more energy. Stairs - the evil arch nemesis of anyone with short legs - make me less winded with each passing week. Once again I feel like I'm in control of something good. Thoughts about food, activity etc. always bring the question, "How will this benefit my goal of losing weight?" Pizza, my culinary arch nemesis, was Sherry's wish for dinner tonight. Typically not able to eat less than six or seven pieces, tonight I was able to muster the willpower to fill up on yogurt, a peanut butter sandwich, and one piece of crispy bacon pizza. And a glass of Merlot while I write this. I have no idea exactly how I managed to avoid eating another 5 pieces of pizza and put them in the fridge instead of my mouth, but I suspect it's probably a God Thing.

Our local YMCA has an inside running/walking track above the basketball court. It's a short one, with 19 laps equaling one mile. That means a lot of the same view, lap after lap. It's bearable if you have music. It's also covered and warm 365 days a year. To date the boys and I have been going to the local junior high to run their clay track, switching between walking and running in quarter-mile increments for a total of 2+ miles per session; knowing this wouldn't always be possible in the coming months, I looked closely at the YMCA track to figure out how I could keep track of 19 laps equaling a mile (I'm terrible with numbers). Quickest solution I could think of turned out to be simpler than I thought. I rounded up. I decided that I would walk 5 laps to warm up, then 5 laps to run, and so on. Slightly longer than a quarter-mile, 5 laps around the short track helped me keep tabs on progress.

The first night I tried it two days ago, the track worked great. Yes, my legs got tired. Let's face it; they're hauling my weight tagged above the two-dollar mark around the track on legs that haven't seen a 10k run in nearly two decades. First thing readers are asking is probably, "How is your heart reacting to all of this?" Well I'm happy to say that, no matter what the exercise level, my heart is beating within the target ranges posted at the track. Woot! That in itself was an eye opener to me, the fact that I could return to something I enjoyed so long ago and still see my heart working the way it's supposed to. It increased my motivation to continue.

In the past, my regimen was usually running one day and walking the next. Since I switch off every quarter mile at this point, I decided to run the yesterday as well. And with the session there was a surprise; The quarter-mile run turned into more than five laps - at the same heartbeat. I was stunned; had I turned some kind of physical corner? I wasn't sure but I didn't stop running. With each session of running I kept adding laps, and then settled back to five. The final lap count for the night: 6, 7, 8, 5, and 5 more. 31 laps at that track is roughly 1 .5 miles of running, with another 30 laps of walking inbetween. Total for the night: 3 miles. It's a number I haven't done in a long time.

Now I understand that to hardcore runners this may seem petty and small. Three miles to some isn't even a warm up. But for me this is a huge deal. I had almost given up on being able to exercise. I'm 45 and heavy. I thought the ability to run had passed me by. Thankfully I was wrong, but getting it back wasn't easy. A guy has to start somewhere. I started, and continued. It feels great and I intend to keep going. Back in the day I ran like it was a job; this time around I'm having fun and taking out this ability for a spin to see how it handles.

I hope for many more nights of 67855.