1. I will not be setting any world records in the mile or marathon anytime soon.
2. I now have a brand new benchmark for “slow”… I can only get faster!
3. On the plus side, I’m definitely almost as fast as a three year old riding a Playskool tricycle.
4. I think I look exceptionally bad-ass with two days stubble and a run’s worth of sweat dripping down my face.
5. Upon removal of my running shirt, bad-ass illusion is replaced with that of a sweaty, mutant Pillsbury Doughboy.

Feeling good… and I hope you are too.

So I got out and ran – for 64 minutes. Nice and easy. All is good!

I haven’t run the past two days because we’re absolutely BURIED in snow here in Edmonton (we’ve gotten about two feet in the last 10 days). However, I’ve been doing at least an hour’s worth of snow shovelling pretty much every day. Most days I’m shovelling our walks and driveway twice a day, so I am probably getting 90 minutes exercise from shovelling each day.

And there is just SO much snow out there. I ran less than two miles on Saturday and it damn-near killed me. It felt more like a gym workout than a run.

So, there you have it – I’m still at it. I’m not going anywhere.

And the best news is that the daily snow dumps and bitter cold weather we’ve been having is supposed to break tomorrow.  In other words, back to our regularly scheduled show.

Thanks Bruce!

I headed out expecting to have to plough through a couple of miles of snow like I did yesterday – and yesterday was a tough two miles.

But, tonight, I only had to plough through about 400 meters of heavy snow. The rest wasn’t too bad. Tonight was also the second night I took my heart rate monitor along for the ride and I was bound and determined to keep my heart rate low.

Mission accomplished. My average heart rate was 154 – a very good LSD heart rate. You can view the data and graphs here. And the reward was a substantially longer 43 minute run – about 20 minutes longer! It wasn’t very far, and it was really slow, but that’s not the goal at all right now. The goal is time on the feet. The pace and distance will improve by a dedication to base training. I remember very clearly being here before – when my friend and coach, Andrew took me down this path a few years ago toward two marathon personal bests.

I think Lydiard would have been happy with my effort tonight. I’m going to be alright.

Ok, “only” is a poor descriptor – especially when I ponder the fact that, at my peak training three years-ish ago, I was a minuscule 162. Now, 162 is probably not a weight I’d ever maintain for long so that’s not going to be my target weight.

My target weight – for now – is to be 180 by my birthday in June. That works out to a weight loss target of 24 pounds in 24 weeks.

One pound a week is very do-able, I’d say.

I’m horribly out of shape. I mean horribly out of shape. Like, really, really horribly. But I don’t care.

I’ve run three times in three days. Each one 22 to 23 minutes long. Each one blazingly slow. Those last three sentences should give you a glimpse into my current focus. Run often – every day if at all possible. Don’t worry about fast or far. Just put in the minutes on my feet – progress will look after itself.

I’ve been here before. I know how this works. I know what to do.

Today’s run (the 3rd one) was run in a negative split and I didn’t feel like a truck ran over me after it was done. That’s progress already!

Happy New Year!

No shoulder pain. No …other bad stuff. Just 30 minutes of good, non-stop running. Not so much as a tweak or an ache. It all felt good.

I’m going to give credit to years of running – especially the high-mileage year leading up to my layoff for today being so easy. It would seem that, I was born to run.

While that was going on, I began taking copious amounts of supplementation – especially magnesium and calcium (LOTS). After only a couple of weeks doing that, things started to feel better.

I also started hitting the gym (am going 4 times a week for about an hour each day).

It turns out, the gym is exactly what I need to be doing since the final diagnosis is that I’ve got some pretty bad disc degeneration in a couple of places in my spinal column and THAT was causing all kinds of other problems – the scariest of which was numbness and tingling in my hands and arms.

The latest is that I’ve nailed down the precise spot in my neck that is causing the majority of my pain and numbness and I finally have medical people (the Doc, Chiropractor/Active Release Guy and massage therapist) telling me this is SOLVEABLE. This is the first time in years that anyone has KNOWN with confidence what was wrong and has told me it could be FIXED. What a relief.

So, the plan is that I am going to continue strengthening my core, back, chest and shoulders (and everything else to a lesser degree) and let the professionals fix the rest.

I’m feeling strong and hopeful for the first time in a long time. I even look better – the strength training is adding some muscle and improving my posture. I’m actually pretty amazed how quickly my body has responded!

AND I think I’ll even be back running within a couple of weeks.

I don’t think I’ll quite be ‘kicking butt’ – as Jon so eloquently put it – any time soon, but I am going to work hard at getting strong again. We’ll take it one day and one step at at time.

I’ve been in the gym twice since my shoulder finally allowed me to. I’ve been exceedingly sore for the couple of days after each workout.

Sore does not equal pain.
Pain is retreat. Pain is burdensome. Pain is depressing. Pain is debilitating.
Sore is growth. Sore is victory. Sore is joy. Sore is pleasure.

I’m not in pain. I’m sore. And I couldn’t be happier about it.