As I am away, dealing with the death in my family, I have called upon a few of my REAL LIFE friends to help me out with guest posts. I have shared my weight loss story on here countless times, but I'm not the only one with an amazing story. I find inspiration in Adam, and I am blessed to be able to call him "friend".
Without further ado, Adam steps up:
When Tricia asked me to author a guest post on her blog, I was first excited. Excited about being able to share my strange sense of humor with her massive following. But, after I thought about what I would post, I got a little concerned. You see, the posts on my blog (TheBoringRunner.com) do not contain proper grammar much of an inspirational message or work appropriate content a call to philanthropic action. No, my posts are mostly about my running, my family, and my poop – not necessarily in that order. But, Tricia ever the guiding hand, suggested that I talk about my 45 pound weight loss and transition from a 10 minute mile runner to a 6 minute mile runner.
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Seriously, have you ever tried a cheeseburger and fries with a side of sour cream? I haven’t had it in ages, but let me tell you. It is……delicious. Throughout college, I existed on that combination as well as hamburger helper and oven baked french fries. They were baked, so they had to be good for me? Right? The result, as you could probably expect, was that not only did I gain the freshman 15 but I pretty successfully gained it each and every year that I was in college. As Charlie Sheen would say: “Winning!!”
It wasn’t until a random first physical I had ever had in my life, where I found out that my blood pressure was 170/100 and I had sweet Delicious gravy coursing through my veins, that I decided that I needed to take action. I didn’t have 100s of pounds to lose, but I knew that if I didn’t do something quick, I’d never see a naked female ever again completely spiral out of control developing into a person that I would not recognize. Some people’s catalyst for action is slow to come, mine was quick and decisive. (Never mind the fact that I had started to assume that all sizes were starting to run small.)
How I came to lose the weight and become increasingly faster is actually a story one in the same. I found that the more I ran, the more weight I lost. Little subtractions to diet (diet coke & no more sour cream on my fries - among many other little things) and increases to running paid huge rewards. I started out slow (slow being a relative term I discussed here). I didn’t have any fancy gear or gadgets. In fact, I wore my mowing clothes – grass stains on the “tennis” shoes and paint stains on the shorts – not wanting to spend a lot of money on something that I was convinced was a fleeting “hobby”. I would run for time. Run for 10 minutes, run for 20 minutes, whatever I was feeling like at the time. No GPS watch, just a simple $5 gas station Timex. But, it got me started, and that was all I needed.
Eventually, after 6 months of running off and on, I did get interested in distance and racing. I even had a friend who signed up for a marathon. Always one to dive in head first, I signed up too. The most I had ran up to that point was 5 miles. I Googled marathon training plans and started to follow the Hal Higdon Beginner plan.
My legs burned, my knees creaked, but I got through the plan and to the starting line with no fewer than 3 injury breaks. It wasn't the best scenario, but I finished and loved every minute of it (except for miles 18-25 those sucked). After that race, my first race, I was hooked. I started to read about running, think about running, and even started a boring little blog that morphed into a blog about running.
Just like with weight gain, speed also did not come all at once. No matter what the food network and Paula Dean make me believe, there are no 40 pound meals and there is no one training plan that will get you running twice as fast. I've found that the key to my success is plain old boring consistency. Spontaneousness is fun in the bedroom, but consistency is key with running. I've realized the best gains in fitness when I listen to my body, take a day or two off when I need to and not let little issues turn into full blown injuries.
For me, consistency might mean a schedule that is always in flux, but one that doesn't have me taking weeks off at a time because I pulled this or that muscle. I started out not varying my pace and just focusing on getting in the miles. And I got faster. Much faster. I went from a marathon pace of 9:09 to a marathon pace of 8:00. (26 minute faster marathon!) Now I run different speeds on different days which help me to not get bored and keeps it interesting. Each week, I'll do one long run, one "tempo" run, one marathon pace run, and one day at the track doing speed work. Anything above that is extra credit. Simple for my little man brain but effective to train all of the body's running parts.
I egotistically like to think that my "story" has a place in most people's lives. The story of the slightly pudgy kid who took up a hobby to get not-pudgy. It didn't take any sort of major action - just getting the motivation to start.
Finally, for the record, I do still think about putting sour cream on my french fries. It doesn't taste any less good now than it did before. I just know that if I am going to do that, I need to run an additional 10 miles - and who has that kind of time!?
TheBoringRunner.com