Starting over… again

It seems like it’s been forever since I wrote a post in general, much less one with any content related to why I started writing in the first place. In fact, I’ve only made 3 posts this calendar year. Yikes, how time flies!

So here goes… let’s see if I remember how this thing works.

I’ve been down this road before. The road where I’ve made great progress toward maintaining a healthy lifestyle, then some event happened, which led me to throw it all away out of laziness. The first time through, as I’ve mentioned before, I was down under 200 lbs and then lost all motivation when my trainer left the gym he was working at. I gained close to 70 lbs, become sedentary and very unhealthy.

When I finally made the realization that something needed to be changed, which is what has to happen for any such change to take place, I went at it full force. Through running and working out, with a little help from diet, I managed to get back to just under the 200 lb plateau once more. That was around April of this year.

Then something happened. This time, though, it was something within myself, rather than an external influence, that derailed my hard work. This time it was an injury of sorts. Not the ‘I fell on the trail and busted my ankle’ kind of injury, but more along the lines of ‘boy your feet sure are designed funny’ kind of injury.

As I was training for my second run at the Martian Half Marathon, when I was running my 12 mile preparation run about two weeks before the race, I noticed a twinge in my left knee. It was really only soreness, but it persisted for a few days after the run. I went through the rest of my training, and ran the race without much of a second thought. My trainer Ryan ran it with me this time, and I was quite impressed with both of our finish times. For me, it was my first sub 2-hour half in 3 attempts, coming in at 1:56:49, and Ryan coming in around 2:03:00.

For a few days afterwards, as my body recovered from the race, my knee became a non-issue. But during my first couple of runs following the race, as I attempted a 6 mile run, about halfway through I was forced to stop, and had to walk most of the way home because of the pain in my knee. I ended up making a call to a podiatrist that L had used previously.

In addition to the pain that had stopped me in my tracks, radiating from my left knee, a pain had also developed in my right foot. The preliminary examination from the podiatrist revealed that my body wasn’t exactly designed for running. The bones in my foot weren’t aligned properly to absorb the shock from running, and the doctor was surprised that it had taken a year and a half of running for the problems to develop. There was hope for me, however, and the podiatrist was committed to work with me until I was able to run again.

It took two or three visits, trying different things with very little in terms of results, before I was finally fitted with some orthotic inserts. These inserts, according to the doctor, were the next best thing to a magic pill to make the pain go away. When I got them, and had some time to let them correct nature’s design flaw, they did help. Eventually, after a couple of follow up visits, the doctor gave me the ok to start running again.

The problem was, by that time pretty much the whole summer had passed. I had let my injury sideline me probably more than I should have, and my weight had crept up a bit. I had gained back about 20 lbs of the 70 I had lost.

I made one half-assed attempt at getting back into it late into the summer, starting to work out with Ryan again, taking a mountain bike trip into one of the local parks, and playing softball, but I wasn’t really committed. As L finished her degree program and started working 12 hour shifts in the real world, eating healthy became a non-priority, so the weak attempts at working out had no effect on my weight.

So here we are today, starting to get into the winter months in Michigan. I haven’t checked my weight in weeks now; I’m a little bit afraid to see how far I’ve fallen from my peak. I also haven’t run consistently in weeks now. I think I had a 10 mile week once in September or October, but that’s been about it.

So here I am, starting over again. There’s good news though; soccer season is underway, and I’m back playing two nights a week.

I went for a run today. A 5k route in the neighborhood. I went with my friend Michelle; I’ve mentioned her before in various capacities throughout the course of my ramblings. No watch, no heart rate monitor, no Garmin. And no pressure. I felt good out there, considering. I think I may learn to like this running thing yet.

Anybody can tell you, it’s not easy to get in shape. If it were, I wouldn’t be living in the fattest state in the country, in a fast food nation where more people eat dinner in their cars than at their dining room tables. So here I go again, making one step at a time in the right direction. Hopefully it sticks this time.

~ by fatboyrunning on November 10, 2009.