Running

Man runningA while back, I used to write here about running. I had trained for the Loveland Half Marathon and the Flying Pig Marathon. (Ended up running the half event due to injury.) For a time after the last Pig event, I ran less. Training for Loveland’s replacement event, the Autumn Blast in nearby South Lebanon, damaged the cartilage in my good knee. I say my good knee because, training for Loveland, I pulled something in the left knee that never really quite healed. There may or may not be surgery in my future, but for now, it’s manageable. The other knee?

Turns out all I needed was fish oil capsules. Thank my brother, who had knee surgery a few years ago.

I started to run as a way of dealing with diabetes. I saw a famous politician onĀ The Colbert Report once explain how he received a diagnosis of Type II diabetes. To deal with it, he trained for a marathon and sent it back into remission. I came close one time, getting off all my medications after doing a high-metabolism diet. The problem was it was a gimmick diet. Pounds lost on gimmick diets tend to come back. With friends. It’s this yo-yo effect that exacerbates and sometimes triggers Type II diabetes. And so I went for two meds to three to…

My wife has gone through several rough illnesses. Since we married, she’s been pushing me to pursue my goals. Time, she reminds me, is limited, so postponing races because, oh, I didn’t get back into training is a bad idea. So I did it. I started training for the Flying Pig half marathon. Now, what’s a legitimate excuse to postpone?

Illness. Four of them. My stepson had a serious injury that turned septic. Then I got the flu. As in that one strain this year’s vaccine missed. Which passed to my recovering stepson. Then my wife. We all got leveled pretty bad. So there was two weeks I was either at the hospital keeping vigil or was sick or was minding sick people. So yeah, illness can throw off your plans.

Now, you might say, “Hey, isn’t that Pig thing in May?”

Yes, but you have to be able to run five miles comfortably by the end of December to build up to that 13.1. So I retrenched. I’m going to run the Autumn Blast instead. I’m doing a staggered walk-run program until I can do two miles easily. Then it’s speed, hills, fartlek, easy runs, and an endurance runs every week. What’s fartlek? Varied running during a workout. A few minutes of sprinting, a few easy, a few stretch runs, all at random intervals.

It’s not easy. We have a long vacation in the middle of all this that will disrupt progress. And August and September promise to keep me out on the road for long stretches. But it will all be worth it. My sugar is easier to control. And I feel better. It’s Tuesday night as I write this, and while my hips and knees are sore, it’s the kind of burn you get from a good work out. I feel better, more alert. Who knows? I may actually develop concentration again.

1 thought on “Running”

  1. The fish oil will help with your concentration too! It sure did for me. As for diet, what helped and my husband is Trim Healthy Mama. Don’t be put off by the name – it works for men, too. In 3 months, my husband lost 30 lbs, I lost 15, and we never felt deprived. Good luck!

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