Keep Moving Forward...

So I took a week off of running this past week.  I didn’t want to.  I never WANT to anymore.  But sometimes life happens, like this week.  Well, not life entirely.  Also heat, humidity, and sleep deprivation.  As I move along on this journey into the world of running, every week and every run teaches me something new.  Last week, I learned about running while you are sick (don’t do it).  This week, I learned about running in the heat (don’t do it) and more importantly, sometimes, it’s okay to not run.  I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself over the last year with regards to running, and I have made it a point to religiously run at least 5 days a week, minimum of 2.5 miles per run.  Lately, I’ve been disappointed if any run is less than 5 miles.  As runners, especially new runners, I think we all put a lot of pressure on ourselves.  It’s bad enough if you’re just trying to get into shape, but if you add weight loss into the mix, then it becomes an unhealthy obsession.  I’ve fallen into that trap.  Any day I don’t run 5 miles is a bad day.  So you can imagine what a terrible week I’ve had when finally, due to long work days, family obligations, zero sleep and 90+ degree weather, I just didn’t have it in me to get up and go.  Don’t get me wrong, I could have made time to get up and go 2 miles, but if I couldn’t go 5, I didn’t want to go 1.  Which is silly, really, when you break it down.  Because at the end of the day, and running is better than no running.  Having realized the folly of my thinking, today I have made myself the pledge that I will squeeze in what I can when I can, and it will be okay if I don’t run a half marathon every time I lace up my shoes.  I have also realized that summertime running is not the same as springtime, autumn or winter running.  The time of year, I am finding, greatly affects my performance.  The fact of the matter is, 92 degrees and 70 percent humidity is stifling.   I am very fortunate to live in Florida, where 3 quarters of the year are conducive to great running weather.  I have, however, unfortunately entered that 4^th quarter wherein it is almost impossible to grab a run of any decent length at a reasonable hour.  Our winters are mild, sometime lows dipping below 20, but highs always in the mid 40’s at the lowest.  Fall and spring are phenomenal.  But summer?  Summer is an oppressive beast, pressing on your chest when you try to breath and beating on your skin as you fight to pad out mile after mile.   It’s hot, it’s miserable, and frankly, it isn’t even fun.  So to combat it?  Just get up and move.  Just a little bit.   If you can do one mile, than do one mile.  If you can do two miles, do two.  Just move.  Push through the hard summer months, but be careful, and don’t go too hard.  Just keep yourself moving.  I learned this week that it’s more important to run a little bit than a lot, and that every run doesn’t have to be a long one.  I learned that you should do what your body is telling you it CAN do, not what your mind tells you it wants to do.  Don’t get frustrated when you can’t go as far as you want or as fast as you wish.  Just keep moving.  In the end, running is a lot like life in general.  We can’t do everything we want, and we can’t always go as far or as fast as we think we should, and sometimes, it’s not our fault.  But we do need to keep moving. 

Going the Distance (or finding it easier, anyway)...

I got an early birthday present.  It’s called freedom.  Actually, it’s called the Garmin Forerunner 305, but really it’s freedom.  I had been running almost exclusively on the treadmill for months before I made the transition to road running.   There were several things I liked about the treadmill, the biggest being that I could set my pace and I could have real-time information on my distance.  For more on treadmill running, see my post here.  What I didn’t like about treadmill running is that after a few miles, even my “distraction kit” of SportsCenter, iPod and Amazon Kindle couldn’t keep my mind occupied to quell the boredom.  Add to the doldrums of indoor running a few beautiful late winter days in North Florida and a wife who wanted to try running some trails, and you’ve got some motivation to get off the belt and hit the road.  When I first started running on roads and trails, I found it to be a tough transition.  I couldn’t pace myself well, so I would start out too fast and have nothing left to finish with.  Also, I had no idea how far I had gone until I got back and drove the route, or I would plan a route ahead of time on Google Maps.  Beside the minor inconvenience this caused (I know, I know, this is how people have been doing it for years, and 10 years ago there wasn’t even Google Maps , and I’m a spoiled Gen Xer, blah, blah, blah, but this is 2011 and I’m still a little miffed we don’t have flying cars), I found more often than not, one of two things would happen:  not knowing how far I had gone, I would measure my route after getting home and be disappointed that I had not run farther, knowing I had more in me or I would pre plan an ambitious long route and leave (again starting too fast) only to find that I didn’t have the stuff to finish after all.  Enter the Forerunner.  It was my wife who first brought up the idea of wanting a good training watch, because her watch didn’t have a stopwatch.  At the time, she said “I don’t want anything fancy, just a stop watch so I can time my runs.”  We looked around and decided on a women’s Timex Ironman series.  It was a good watch for a good price, with lap memory and a stopwatch.  But while we were looking, I stumbled upon the existence of GPS watches.  I was mesmerized.  In a previous post about shoes (you can read it here) I mentioned I had really wanted Nike + shoes so that I could sync them with my iPod, which would in turn give me an idea of my pacing and my mileage.  Unfortunately, the Nike + sneakers weren’t in the cards, since the running store I go to, Shaw’s Athletics in Tallahassee, doesn’t carry a Nike + shoe with the stability I need.  Since  I trust Shaw’s with my life, and won’t wear another running shoe unless they tell me it’s okay, the Nike + aint gonna happen for me.  So I was intrigued with the idea of a GPS watch, which could give me all the information I had wanted, plus MORE!  My wife started experiencing the same issues I was having with outdoor running, as she was making the transition to the road as well, and I mentioned the GPS watches to her.  Surprisingly, she suggested that maybe she’d get me one for my birthday (don’t ask when my birthday is – no one but my family knows, and I’d rather they’d not have found out).  Even more surprising, she said she’d get it for me EARLY, so I could start using it ASAP.  So I diligently began to research GPS watches.  After scouring review after review, store after store and blog after blog, I had my heart set on the Forerunner 305, which you can find on Amazon.com as well as some of the big boc retailers online like Target and Walmart, though it's no longer available in stores, at least not stores around me.  The reason I settled on the Forerunner 305 is that it has all of the features I might think I need, including a heart rate monitor, and you find it new at a reasonable price (around $130 on Amazon).  It’s been out for a couple of years, and Garmin has released several other options since the 305, but from all of the reviews I’ve read, it still appears to be the best device they’ve come up with yet.  It has outstanding GPS reception, maintaining good signal in some pretty thick trails in woodsy North Florida.  I can record my route, I get real-time feedback as far as pace and distance are concerned, and I can make sure I don’t overdo it with the included heart rate monitor.  What this  means for me, more than anything else, is that I can put it on, get out and go.  I don’t have to pre plan routes or drive them afterward anymore.  I literally just go outside, turn it on and run, and as long as I remember how to get home, I’ve got no worries.  And even then, it has a rudimentary map and remembers your start location, so you can find your way back if need be.  I can quickly glance down and see if I need to slow it down or speed it up before it’s too late and my body gives up.  And I can watch my distance and get that extra boost of encouragement by seeing that it I push just a little more, I’ll go just a little bit farther.  It really helps me when I feel like stopping to be able to tell myself “just one more half mile, bud.  You’ve got a half mile in you!” and the next thing I know, I’ve gone another 2 miles.  The only minor issue (and this is minor for me) is that it takes about 45 seconds to a minute to find the satellite when you first turn it on.  But once it gets the signal, it keeps it.  All in all, it has completely changed my whole running experience for the better.  It even motivates me to get up and go to begin with some days because it’s such a neat toy I want to get out and play with it.  After my run, it syncs with my computer and I can look at my pacing and my mile splits (my pace for each individual mile), my heart rate over time, which I can compare to my distance and my pace, and even my elevation throughout my runs.  It’s what I use to update the “My Recent Runs” box on the right side of this page.  My wife loved mine so much, I got her one for an early Mother’s Day gift.  Now, if you are completely new to running, I’m not saying go out and buy one.  But if you’ve been at it for any time, and are going to make a hobby  of it, I absolutely recommend getting a GPS watch to help you along your way.  And if you’re going to get a GPS watch, you can’t go wrong with the Forerunner 305.

*Garmin has not contacted me or offered me anything at all for this post; I purchased the Forerunner on my own, and another for my wife, and it has changed my running experience so much that I wanted to share it with you. 

Just Who Are You Trying To Impress, Anyway?

My wife lies to me, regularly.  She tells me, straight-faced, such outrageous fibs as “you look great” and “you’re so skinny” and “don’t you look handsome.”  I know these to be lies because we do, in fact have mirrors in our home and, despite the fact that I wear glasses, my corrected vision is still 20/15.  So I know she’s either a bold-faced liar or she needs to make a trip to the optometrist herself.  Considering the fact that in all other aspects of her day-to-day life she seems to see just fine, I’m inclined to believe the former over the latter.  Because the alternative would be to believe that she in fact does think I look “great” or “handsome” or “skinny,” and this can’t be true.  I’ve seen myself.  I have pictures. They’re not pretty.  Or “handsome.”  But then again, if she allows me to live until July, we will have been married for 12 years.  She must have stuck around for some reason, and I can say with absolute certainty that it aint money (there is none), and it aint my personality (I have none).  So maybe it is my boyish good looks, if by “boy” you mean warthog and by “good” you mean horribly disfigured.  Now if you’ve made it this far in the article, you are no doubt asking “what in the word is the point of all of this self-depreciation?”  Rest assured, there is one.  The point, friend, is this:  We all have a warped sense of how we look and feel about ourselves, despite how others view us.  Some of us )you know who you are) are inclined to believe we are far more important and pretty than we really are.  You may know these people as “Kardashians” or by their earlier name “Hiltons.”  Most of us, however, believe ourselves to be far uglier, fatter, and stupider than we actually are.  We don’t give ourselves enough credit.  We spend so much time worrying about what others might think that, more often than not, we don’t listen to what others actually tell us they think!  But at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, it doesn’t matter.  No don’t get me wrong:  I do care what people think of me.  I want to be thought of as nice, kind, intelligent, not the stinky guy, etcetera.  But I can’t worry about what people think of how I look, because that’s probably the part of myself I have the least amount of control over and the most warped perspective about.   I can control how I treat people, how I talk to them, and what I say.  I cannot, barring surgical intervention, change the size of my nose or my ears or the look of my skin.  Even in running, at a certain point, there is no more weight loss, there is no more changing of the shape of your body,  there is no more change in the way your clothes fit.  At a certain point, even running, you will just be.  And that is just fine.  Because hopefully, the change you get from running, more than your physical appearance, will be on the inside.  You will feel better internally.  You will feel better about yourself, despite how you think you look.  You will feel more proud of yourself.  And all of that will keep you going, mile after mile.  Because at the end of the day, you’re not doing this for anyone else, just you.  True, it will help you become a better person, but you’re doing that for you, too, aren’t you?  Don’t we all want to be better people?  At the end of the day, you’re not trying to impress anybody but yourself.  I ran 10.3 miles today.  8 months ago, I couldn’t run 1 mile.  Should you be impressed by that?  No.  I don’t want you to be.  It’s really not a big deal for you.  There are thousands of people that run farther and faster than I ever will.  But it’s a big deal for me, because I am proud of myself for having done it.  And that’s what I hope to inspire in you.  The thought, the idea, that YOU CAN DO IT.  I don’t get anything out of it.  But you will, if you strap on those shoes and hit the road.  You’ll be proud of yourself.  And you’ll impress yourself.   Because you’re the only person you have to impress.  Everyone else in your life was impressed by you a long time ago, or they wouldn’t still be there.  Have fun!