WOW! October 2009 was my last post? That is REALLY SAD! AD – No teasing please!
No promises here but I will attempt to start blogging again as I participate in a local Sahuarita “Biggest Loser” competition. It is 12 weeks long. I will attempt to do one post a week to keep you up to date on my endeavor. This will be the first such post but hopefully not the last. After the 12 weeks, we’ll see where we go from there…
First, to catch you up… (its either this or you go back and re-read 3 years of blogs!) After my marathon in the fall of 2008 I ran a half marathon 2 weeks later. The combined stress of those two events plus the severe overtraining I was doing culminated in a shredded ileotibial band in my right knee. Following physical therapy, rests periods, reduced mileage, and a year of frustration, I all but stopped running due to the pain. After peaking somewhere in the 285lb range my running had dropped me to 183 lbs at the time of my marathon. I had lost just over 100 lbs and for the first time in a LONG time my BMI was classified as normal.
The year after my marathon and subsequent injury wasn’t without running. I still did another half-marathon in SLC but my weight did start to climb again as my mileage dropped from around 40 miles/week down to 10-15 miles/week. By the fall of 2009 however I was lucky to be running 1-2 times/week if at all. When my wife and I went on our cruise to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary that August, I was weighing in at 205.
As my career started a transition in the winter of 2009-2010 my amount of free time shrunk drastically and I focused for the next year and a half on that career change and relocation. The problem was, I let my weight go unattended and it climbed and climbed.
So, that brings us to today! A coworker has participated in some of these competitions in the past and notified me of this one starting. Knowing full well that competition is the key to my success, I figured it is now or never. Next March I cross the dreaded 40 year old mark. I hope by then I will be back in shape, ready to tackle my next marathon and that elusive 4 hour mark that I so narrowly missed on my first attempt.
As for the weigh-in for the competition, I weighed in at 246 lbs (242 at home with less clothing). 60% of my blood sweat and tears weight loss, lost! But just look at the whole new motivation I have to try again! I look forward to your encouragement, words of wisdom, mocking accountability, and probably quite a bit of general apathy as my running has NOTHING to do with your happiness.
