The Runner I Am

I read a blog post today from RunLadyLike titled Be the Runner You Are, and it brought me back to some thought I had during my long run on Sunday. I haven't posted much about it here on my blog, but I'm in the final few weeks of my training for my upcoming half marathon. If you've followed me on other social media, you have seen some of the struggles and triumphs I've had over the last month or so. This is at once humbling and uplifting. I'm pushing my body to do things that I'd hardly imagined I could do, but at the same time being forced to accept my limitations.

Starting just before the new year I've been hitting distance records on most of my long runs. I did a 9 mile run and it felt magical, like I'd hit a sweet spot and really felt that the sky was the limit for my running. Then a week later when faced with my first 10 mile run, it was a disaster. After 7 miles I felt like I couldn't move another step. I walked and prodded my way to the end and instantly felt defeated. Then I thought more about what I'd done, posted about it on Twitter and got some tremendous encouragement from the community. My next 10 miler was a little better and last week's 11 miler felt even better. I can finally picture myself completing 13.1 and I finished that run really excited about crossing the finish line in just a few short weeks.

Here's the thing. I've always had a time goal in mind for my half. I know that the only goal should be finishing and all that talk, but I'd thought that I could keep a certain pace and make my goal of about 2:45. Its not a fast time by any means, but I would feel comfortable with it. While I was running my 11 miles on Sunday, I realized that the pace that makes it comfortable enough for me to go that distance without burning out is much slower than that. My pace will put me much closer to 3 hours. I struggled with that a bit when I first realized it. Man that's slow! But, its me. Its me moving my still quite heavy body 13.1 miles. Its me logging 88 miles for the month of January (after tomorrow's 5 miler). I'm a better runner than I was 18 months ago, 12 months ago, 6 months ago, 3 months ago. From the beginning of my running journey I've said I want to build distance and then worry about speed. So why am I worried about how fast I do the longest distance I'll ever try? Uh, I don't know! I'm not!

The runner I am is one who fuels himself with positive thoughts. I will run 13.1 miles because I'm putting in the work to get my body ready to do it. There is a lot more that I need to get my body to do, including be less body, but that will all come with time and more positivity. For now, I am the runner I am, and that runner is going to move his 270 pound body 13.1 miles along the Ft. Lauderdale beach 6 days after his 40th birthday.

Thoughts on Lance and Doping revisited

The first post of any significance on this blog was triggered by the first threads unravelling on the blanket surrounding Lance Armstrong's then alleged doping. Last night,  much of the sporting world watched as he sat down with Oprah for a "no holds barred" interview during which he confessed to having doped during every one of his 7 Tour de France victories. As I sit here organizing my thoughts about what I say, the overwhelming emotion is disappointment. However its not disappointment in the actions Lance took through his career, its disappointment in how he is behaving today.

Long ago I came to the conclusion that Lance and many others had cheated. In my last blog entry on this topic I urged Lance and others to come clean about what they had done and let the narrative move forward. I certainly can't take any credit for it, but it was heartwarming when I saw how many actually had. Last night I was hoping to hear Lance stand up before the world, give a sincere apology and recount how it all happened and why. I did not. Instead I heard a man who only seems to regret going too far and getting caught. The only regret I heard was about giving a lame speech on the podium of his last Tour and coming back to the sport after his first retirement because "we would not be having this conversation if I hadn't."

I'm finding it hard to find a word to describe Lance's actions, though the word sociopath has been repeatedly used by his critics. Its hard not to agree. He openly stated that he doesn't feel like he was doing anything wrong at the time. Doping was a part of their preparation like filling up his tires with air or filling his bottles with water. I can understand the elaborate lies and aggressive behavior towards critics as a method to protect his story and control the narrative about his life. I can't understand doing all of that when you don't even think you're doing anything wrong. How can he not feel badly about behaving like a jerk?

Lance worked too hard during this interview to downplay his role as the leader of a team that required doping. He said that he was doing it, and he can understand how others would feel like they needed to be doing it if he was, but that there was never a culture of that stated you had to be doing it to be a part of the team. Oprah made a good point in stating that it was merely a semantic argument, but it shows the psychology of this man who is still fails to understand his influence over people and the responsibility that comes with that influence. If Lance was careful to never explicitly tell riders "you dope or you are dropped," that doesn't change the fact that it was the message that was delivered. When you look at the methods he used against people like Emma O'reilly and Frankie and Betsy Andreau, using his bully pulpit to demolish their reputations when all they did was tell the truth, its hard not to believe that he hadn't used those same tactics on the team internally.

In watching deposition tape where he is vehemently denying doping under oath, Lance described himself as an "arrogant prick." Watching last night's interview, I came away with the same feeling today.

Lauren Fleshman wrote a fantastic piece on her blog yesterday asking Lance to move on. I don't think that he deserves to be a professional athlete any more. I hope that Lance can fully repent. He still has influence and can continue the fantastic work he's done in giving cancer patients hope, in helping raise awareness of the disease and raising money towards its research. I hope that he gets good advice and learns to let the "myth" of Lance die. Its a false story and can only be rescued by full contrition to all that were crushed in its building.

Why Lie?

The news of Lance Armstrong's upcoming confession raises a lot of questions about the motivation of someone to deceive. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Lance's actions and I'm sure we'll all be trying to unwind the various threads of the stories for years to come. Then late today the story of Manti Te'o broke and that got me thinking about deception and how deeply we can go to deceive others and to deceive ourselves. If you haven't heard the story yet, you can read the full article on Deadspin. In short, there were inspirational stories all through the football season about this player's girlfriend losing her fight to cancer and how devoted he was to her. A beautiful story about true love and perseverance. The problem is, the story is a lie.

Now I don't know whether Mr. Te'o was the victim of a cruel hoax or using this story to increase his fame. In the end though, both of these stories are examples of the distance to which men will travel to propagate deceit. There's no denying that Lance Armstrong did a lot of good things for a lot of people. He became a symbol of hope for those stricken with cancer. His story was inspirational and I can easily understand his justification in preventing that image from being darkened. What would happen to his foundation? What would happen to all of those people who were personally affected by his struggle? Would someone fighting the terrible disease give up their hope if Lance's image was shattered? Being faced with questions, its not a large leap to see that Lance would want to keep his image. 

But how do you resolve his deceit with the vehemence of his denials. He shouted to the world about the "witch hunt" of his accusers. He sued his critics in court, won and collected millions of dollars while insisting on his own trustworthiness. All the while, he knew he was lying and many of his closest advisors knew he was lying as well. Why?  I think George Costanza said it best.

There comes a point where you need to completely deceive yourself in order to deceive the world. How can a man knowingly lie to the world? Its easy once you've knowingly lied to yourself. We've all had those moments in our life where we've worked hard to persuade ourselves against the truth, and once that's done, we turn to persuading those around us. We convince ourselves that we're happy in a dead end job, or we accept failure as a rule of existence and then live our public life with that acceptance.

So where is the lesson that we can take from these men. Personally, its one that I have found has been the key to the happiness I've found in my life in the last few years. Don't lie to yourself. Accept yourself for who you are and what you can do. Build from that base, and only then can you improve yourself. When you live on a base of lies, eventually that will crumble.  

Looking at Manti Te'o's story, it becomes hard to believe he didn't know his "girlfriend" wasn't real. But, its a slippery slope when we start to lie to ourselves, ignoring the glaring truths. I started this blog as a tool to help myself be accountable. As a younger man, I would have just written what I thought would make me look good. If I skipped a run, I'd make up a story about having done a few miles. But all lies crumble in the end. You can't run a half marathon on a training log full of lies. Just like Lance Armstrong couldn't build a legacy as a great man on a pile of lies. It negates much of the good will he's built.

Go Big or Go Home!

A sane person would look at their life, decide what changes they want to make in it and then plan those changes so that they build on each other to ensure success. I've never claimed sanity. Instead, I've recently piled on a bunch of things that are all hitting at the same time. The upside ... by next summer they'll all be complete (mostly) and life will return to normal (somewhat). Downside ... I'm exhausting myself for the next couple of months and building some nice potential stress levels at the same time.

Look at that face!!

As most of you know, I'm training for my first half marathon which is 6 weeks from today. I'm running more than ever and having to get up pretty early on the weekdays that I do run. Now, a sane person would make sure that they are getting to sleep early each night to ensure enough sleep time. But in a completely unrelated life decision, my wife and I brought home a new puppy 3 weeks ago. Now, I love this puppy. She's adorable and super smart already. On top of that, she's giving our 3 yr old dog a run for his money and I swear he's behaving better with the little one around. But, if you know anything about puppies, you know that they require constant attention, including walks in the middle of the night. So now instead of getting a full night sleep each night, I'm up every 3 - 4 hours with our sweet little newcomer.

This has all made it that much more difficult for me to pop out of bed and hit my training hard in the mornings. So far, I've only missed one run and that was on New Years after a bit too much partying NYE. I made myself late for work one day too, but next week as the girls go back to school, I'm going to have to get up far earlier to get everything out of the way and get to work on time. At least its only 6 weeks until the race.

Of course, that is only really impacting me. On top of this stuff, my wife and I just signed a contract to build a new home for our family. So I get to spend the next 5 months stressing over design decisions, and the weather, and financing and packing and moving and... well you get the picture. I can't complain as I'm super excited to have the chance to get a home like this, where I'll have a basement and one day finally build my man cave. But it comes at a cost, for sure. That cost could be what remains of my sanity, if any remains.

Someday I'll own this dirt

On top of all this, I have a couple of non work projects that I've been mulling around in my brain for a while now. Its always been hard for me to keep an idea for a long time. If I don't pull the trigger when I'm ready, then they tend to fade away. So I'm trying to keep them simmering while I get through the first half of this year. I might bring in some partners or just delay and let Evernote hold the thoughts for me for a while.

So, if I seem a little nutty over the next few months, please understand why.

2012 In Review

Once again, its time for a look back and a look forward post. Since today just happens to be 1/1/13, seems like a good time for it. This year has been a pretty good one for my family and I. While I didn't hit all of the goals I set out for myself for the year, I did continue to make progress in most aspects of my life and feel that I've set myself up nicely for what is to come.

My two major goals for the year were to lose 50 more pounds and to increase my running. I wanted to run 500 miles, with a stretch goal of 700. I went .500 on these. Fitness wise I feel that I've come a very long way this year and I'm really happy with what I've accomplished. On 12/31/11, I ran my very first 5 mile run. I was ecstatic at the time but I also knew that it was something that I wanted to make a normal occurrence. I set a goal for the first half of they ear to get up to 15 miles a week and to run the Peachtree Road Race.

Our Victorious Relay Team!

I ran 5 miles or more 25 times this year and maxed out at 8 miles. I ran 4 10K races including the Peachtree and also a leg in the Atlanta Marathon Relay. I ended the year with 501 miles total. I could not be happier about the progress that I made in running this year. I'm well on my way in my half marathon training and know that the progress will continue. There were struggles and periods of the year where I wasn't progressing like I hoped to, but I'm glad that I was able to buckle down in the last part of the year and really get myself moving. There was only one week of the whole year where I posted 0 miles.

As for my other goal, the weight loss just didn't happen. I can come up with a lot of reasons why, but they are all excuses. My decision making when it comes to nutrition was nowhere close to where it needs to be. 2011 was a great year for weight loss, 2012 not so much. So I'm going to repost that goal. My wife and I have been talking about ways we can encourage each other and we have some ideas on how we can make better food decisions this year. It still is the hardest thing for us to achieve, but we're going to continue the fight.

Some other areas that I feel went well in 2012. I connected with a fantastic community of runners on Twitter through #runchat. I changed from being a Twitter lurker, looking for stories about cycling and football, to being an active participant. Social media is about conversations and it becomes much more fulfilling when you are involved in those conversations. I've been thinking a lot about ways to use social media to help my own motivation and accountability. I'm still churning around some ideas in my head, but hope to solidify some plans for that shortly.

On the whole, this year I felt much more creative in my thinking. It may sound trite, but I do credit a lot of that to the time I have to think while I'm running. Ideas at work and outside of work have really crystallized for me. Most have not seen their way to execution yet, but I plan to be able to share them with the world in the coming months.

The year ahead is going to be packed with big things for the family and I, including 40th birthday's for my wife and I, a new home for our family and continuing to grow and nurture our little family. I look forward to sharing as much of it as I can on this blog. I want to thank those of you who read and support me, especially those who aren't family members. I wish you all a happy and healthy 2013, may we all live well and prosper.

Fitness Process and Goals

So a number of weeks ago I wrote a post on Process, Systems and Goals and promised to discuss some of the things I've been using in my life. Today I'm sharing the first of those posts. In keeping with the recent theme of the blog I'll start with my fitness and health.

I'm not going to go to deep into my personal situation, as I've covered that already. I'm going to share what I try to do each day to control the two important aspects of wellness for me, nutrition and exercise.

On the nutrition front, I've lost almost 60 pounds over the last 18 months by making some fundamental changes in what I eat and when I eat it. Now, I'll be totally honest and tell you that this is one area where I continually struggle. I am not always (hardly ever) 100% faithful to the process, but when I am I know it works. The process itself is fairly simple in theory. Eat less calories than you burn, eat often enough that you never get overly hungry and avoid poisons such as sugar and processed foods.

The best way to do this is to use some sort of nutrition diary. When I first started I used the Livestrong website, but I've since switched to MyFitnessPal for tracking what I eat. Its important to track everything you put in your mouth when you are starting out because most people fail for lack of knowledge as much as for lack of effort. I find that I do best when I eat 5 times a day. A mid morning snack helps me from being too hungry at lunch time. A late afternoon snack helps me from being too hungry at dinner time. Why is that important? Because when I get too hungry, that's when I make bad eating decisions. The key to good nutrition is making good decisions each and every time you're faced with the question of what to eat. I found that for me, making the right decision is a lot easier when I'm not overly hungry.

So my key nutrition points

• Avoid sugars and processed foods
• Eat 5 times a day
• Be aware of the value of everything you put in your mouth

Now the other half of the equation is exercise. Motivation and accountability are always the parts that I've struggled with when it comes to exercise. When I was a kid involved in sports, those things were easy, because playing soccer or basketball was fun and you had practice every day after school so you were always in shape. As an adult, it wasn't as easy.

For motivation I found myself a goal. At first it was to run a 5K race. At the moment my goal is a half marathon. The goal gives you that lingering thought at the back of your mind to incent you to get out of bed, to lace up your shoes and get moving. In addition, I made my goal public. By announcing it to friends and family I knew they'd be asking me about it and it gave me even more motivation to keep at it. Nobody likes to explain why they didn't reach a goal that they've announced.

I took the accountability step one further and started this blog. At first I wrote about all of my workouts and tried to believe that people actually read it. I joined some online communities that turned out to be very supportive. Its great to find other people who have gone through the same struggles you are, who can help provide support and understanding. I joined the community at Runnersworld.com and then later found a Twitter group called #runchat. Through these two groups I found a lot of great support and advice to help me maintain my motivation and achieve success.

Finally, I use a system to track my progress. There are several websites that provide this type of tracking. Dailymile.com and strava.com are two I use regularly. They take the data off of my gps watch allow me to track it and share it with my friends. I can look back at previous performances and set long term goals, such as the goal I'm about to achieve, to run 500 miles in 2012.

My key exercise points

• set a goal for motivation
• share your goal with others for accountability and support
• track your progress
• Have Fun!

I'm not perfect and I have a long way to go in these areas, but following these points have really helped me make a ton of progress over the last year and a half.

Tryptophan 10K Race Report

This year my family decided to not travel anywhere for Thanksgiving and instead to stay home and enjoy some time together. I had some vacation days to burn at work, so I took the full week off and we had a little "staycation." Earlier in the year the local running store announced they'd be hosting a half marathon on Thanksgiving morning. In my planning it fleetingly entered my mind but I realized that would be too soon for me, but when I heard a few weeks ago that they'd added a 10K to the days plans, I knew that was a race for me. The fact that it was just a few miles from home was perfect for me. Apparently I wasn't the only one, as there was a really good turnout for this race. There were over 300 people in the half, 164 in the 10K and almost 1000 who were running the 5K. They even had a little expo on Wednesday with packet pick up and a bunch of vendors. From my point of view, it was quite a success. 

My family was debating on whether or not to attend, but in the end the lure of the Macy's parade on the TV was more interesting than sweaty people down the street and I can't say that I blame them. I did take the girls to the packet pick up and they had fun looking at all the funny running stuff. I struggled a bit deciding what I was going to wear for the race, as the weather was in that in between zone of the mid 40's but I settled on short sleeves with a compression undershirt, my hat and gloves. It was the right choice, though I may even have been able to go without the undershirt. I took my gloves off around mile 4 and stuffed them in my pocket.

My training for the last few weeks has been going well, mostly because I've slowed myself down and not tried to push my pace at all. I ran 6 miles last saturday at a pace of around 13 minutes per mile and I didn't really have any goals in this race other than to go the distance without putting myself into any great difficulty. As this is the beginning of my 12 week plan to prep for a half marathon, I feared that a hard 10K experience wouldn't be very helpful at this point, so my goal was to take it easy, enjoy the distance and to finish before the first half marathoner.

With this in mind I lined up with the rest of the runners at the start. The half and 10K started at the same time, but we started about a half mile up the road from them, which I think was probably annoying for the faster half marathoners but I enjoyed seeing them run by me. I lined up in the middle of the pack, but stayed to the side and most people moved past me within the first half mile. I kept my pace comfortable and tried to calm my competitive mind. I found myself at the back of the pack and shortly before the first mile I heard some really fast footsteps coming from behind me. 

For the next two miles I worked on trying to stay comfortable and not push myself, tempering my pace by my breathing and occasional glances at my watch (which I realized I forgot to start about 2 minutes into the race, so I didn't have a reliable time). I was trying to stay around 12:30, not pushing too hard up hills to maintain energy. More and more half marathoners were passing me, including my super fast friend Natalie, my twitter friend Jennifer (who somehow recognized me from behind) and others I recognized from my weekly runs on the greenway. I walked a few steps through the water stop at mile 2 and soon started to see the other 10K runners heading back after the turn around. 

We turned around and headed back and it was nice to be free of the half marathoners passing me. I was feeling pretty good and I started to look ahead of me for people to aim at. The next mile and a half I was trying to stay around 12 minutes but I let myself go a little bit down the hills. It was all about maintaining and I was feeling really good, but I've felt good at 4 miles before so I knew it could still come off the rails. Then we came upon the 5K runners. Oh wow, were there a lot of them. I went from running alone chasing someone 100ft in front of me to being surrounded by people, all of whom were running just a little bit faster than me. I thought to myself, don't get sucked into running too fast and burning out, as there's still a mile and a half to go. I wished I had a sign that said "hey, I'm running twice as far as you!" but I just kept my pace.  I did pick it up a bit, but made sure to monitor my breathing and noticed after a quarter mile or so I was about 11:30 and feeling pretty good. Looking back, I think it did help me to have all that company as I think I paced a little more quickly than I would have without it.

About a half mile from the end we split back out again from the 5K runners and I started pushing. There were two people ahead of me that I wanted to catch. In the end, I caught one but not the other but I felt strong enough to really push hard the last quarter mile. I ran past my neighbor Romeo just before the last turn and that gave me a nice burst and I looked up to see the clock at 1:12 and change as I crossed the line. I stopped my watch as I came across the line and took stock of my feelings. I knew my PR was 1:12:48 from the Buford race in June, and I felt right away that I was feeling better than I had after that race. I walked around a bit, grabbed a water and a banana and reflected. This was the first 10K that I felt good after the finish, physically I mean. I recovered quickly and never felt light headed or overly winded. 

I walked back up to the corner to stand with my friends and watch the first half marathoners come in. The winner crossed in 1:17, so I barely made my goal of beating him. His wife Natalie, who is super fast, won her age group in 1:33, a PR for her. I ran back to the car to get my jacket and stayed around to cheer for the next hour or so, watching tons of people conquer a distance that a year ago I never though I could do, but in 12 short week, I'll be running myself. My twitter friend Jennifer finished in 1:57, which I found out later was her first sub-2 hour half, which is awesome. 

All in all, I felt really great after this race. 10K has always been a humbling distance for me, and finishing 152 out of 164 isn't exactly awe inspiring, but I did set my PR by 15 seconds, with an official time of 1:12:33. I plug that into the McMillan race calculator and it says my half time equivalent would be 2:41, which will be just fine with me. I'm feeling strong and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do in the next 3 months.