Wow, that was a lot longer than I had anticipated. I have been swamped at work for the last several months and am now re-surfacing. Over those months I have put on all of the weight I had lost...plus a few extra just for good measure. At the end of March I had the opportunity to travel to Utah to visit with family. My father, who has been a heavy man as long as I have known him, had knee surgery back in December and had been doing physical therapy to help in the healing process. At some point he switched from seeing a physical therapist to doing his own thing at the gym. He has lost a bunch of weight and looks better than he has in years.
For the first time in my life I was heavier than my father. Now, I have been the tallest member of my family for quite some time, but this is the first time I have been the heaviest and I have to admit, it shook me. The problem at the time was I knew I still had over a month of 80 hour weeks ahead of me before I could really get serious about resuming my training schedule.
That time has now passed, and I have handed off the biggest part of my workload so I now have no excuses (yes, I know thats all they were) to not get my fat ass back into some sort of shape.
Yesterday I woke up early and was in the pool by about 6:00 a.m. I was bound and determined to swim a mile, and was only slightly concerned about how many times I would have to stop and rest in order to make that distance. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to stop because of fatigue* and was able to finish the mile (actually 1800 yds) in 36 minutes.
My ability to pick back up the swimming so quickly got me to thinking...perhaps I CAN start over and gear up for a marathon. I called up the accursed DG and he assured me that I absolutely had enough time to prepare for the Portland Marathon on October 7th. I had been half hoping he would slow me down in my enthusiasm. In fact, we talked about even grander plans...
I have not registered, nor do I intend to register immediately. The next big hurdle will be to actually go out and try running to see how my ankles will like all of this new weight. I plan on doing just a mile 4 days a week for a couple weeks, starting slow and gradually increasing speed to a slightly faster pace (though it is still really slow for most people!)
My first run will probably be Monday, though I may try to squeeze some time in tomorrow evening.
Curse you D!
*I did have to stop after 300 yds because my swimsuit had become untied and was sliding down as I did my flip-turns, and I didn't want to get arrested for indecent exposure!!!
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