I've done quite a bit since my last visit here, so I'll recap as briefly as I can: I completed my personal 28-day challenge mentioned previously. Lost a bunch of weight. I ran the Nashville Half-Marathon. I picked up heavy things and put them back down. Gained a bunch of weight. Experimented with a wheat-free diet. Stopped any sort of "dieting" whatsoever. . . and of course I participated in the raising of my girl and all the joy that entails, and went to work, and cooked meals, and did a lot of dishes and so forth.
One thing I've been struggling with is creating the personal time that I need to feel like a complete human being. I feel that I get pulled in so many directions by the demands of family and work and life in general that I don't have time to get the rest I need, or meditate, or walk in the woods, or finish a project I've started, or begin one! Or write, for that matter.
And for that matter let me describe how in the past eight months I've learned a lot about myself, and in strange ways sometimes.
Since I started this whole blog with a diet I'll start there, but my discoveries extend beyond food, and my writings will too. Considering how easy it is to access information on this thing we call the Internet I was led down a rabbit hole of notions regarding diet and healthful ways to eat and be. I discovered a lot, and I also found out that so much is bullshit. For anyone interested I am happy to extoll my knowledge of biochemistry and biology and what we "should" be eating and what we "should not" be eating; but I prefer not to approach it from anything resembling proselytization - for eating is so much like religion in so many ways. This has all been a path to self-discovery, and so I'd like to share with those interested.
The 28-day Challenge described here was successful insofar as it was pretty easy to stick to, and it did achieve it's stated goal of weight loss. Really, it wasn't so much of a challenge at all, probably due to the cheat day built in to each week. We still ate our fair share of french toast, burritos, and ice cream. It was also easy to go without fruit due to it being the middle of winter. Since I have a principled objection to shipping nectarines from Argentina to be enjoyed out of season I didn't think twice about fruit for that twenty-eight days and for several months afterward. Some might object to that notion, but without a doubt my European ancestors we're not enjoying nectarines and orange juice in the middle of winter and they did not die out for lack of fruit. Around that time I started going running with Ryan two or three times a week - easy three to four mile jogs to loosen up for the half-marathon a few months hence - but I certainly wasn't doing the "recommended 5-days days a week 30-minutes a day" fitness regimen recommended by the AHA and others. Nonetheless, my weight dropped from 158 to a low of 151.5 pounds in just twenty-eight days without really trying. By this time I was ready to gain some weight back.
The Nashville Half-Marathon that Ryan and I intended to run was slated for the last day of April, meaning that we had just eight weeks to quadruple the distance of our easy three-mile jogs. Unfortunately, due to a ruptured blood vessel in his leg Ryan was forced to drop out from participating in the race. I would have to go it alone. My training for six weeks consisted of running just once per week, sometimes less. The other six to ten days between runs were spent resting. My running days consisted of sprinting 100, 200, 400, or 800 meter repeats as fast as I could until I had run just one-mile, or 1600 meters; so for instance I'd run sixteen 100-meter sprints, or two 800 meter sprints. It doesn't take long to run two 800-meter sprints, so my running days we're less than ten minutes each, albeit intense, hence all the rest days built in. The only other training I did was stretches for my hip flexors and I would spend several minutes each night in a deep squat position to regain some hip and lower back flexibility. In mid-April I went for just one six mile run on the hilly roads of Percy Warner park. One half-mile into the run and up a steep hill I began to think I didn't have a chance of finishing a full thirteen miles, but the run got easier as I warmed up and I ended up completing the six miles in just 44 minutes. I thought seven and a half minute per mile pace on Percy Warner's hills was good enough and proceeded to sit on my ass for the next two weeks. I hoped that my $100 entry fee to the race wouldn't be wasted.
When I filled out my entry form for the race I estimated a nine minute per mile pace and estimated I'd be running for close to two hours. Daunting, I thought. On race morning I took my scooter downtown, ate a spoonful of coconut oil and some Rice Krispies and enjoyed being in such a throng. It was pretty intense. The mood of the crowd was joyous and it was a beautiful and cool morning. And the run started. I ritually jogged for ten minutes at a time until my watch alarm went off, then I'd walk for two minutes to recover my heart rate and start running again. I repeated this endeavor religiously until the finish line. At times I found myself wanting to continue running after my alarm went off but I forced myself to stick to my plan. At mile eleven however, my calves felt as if they were going to fall off. I was wearing some brand new minimalist shoes that I had received in the mail the day before. The shoes, in retrospect, helped my run by weighing absolutely nothing but they hindered me after a time by having no mid-foot or heel support to speak of, forcing me to land on the balls of my feet with each step. That sort of gait is not foreign to me, but ten miles of it took it's toll on my calf muscles who were not ready for that kind of distance. I struggled through the last mile and a half until I could actually see the finish line.
Then I sprinted the last 50 yards or so to the end - the most comically slow sprint of my life to be sure. My official time was 1:58, so my estimate was right on; although considering the two minutes of walking every ten minutes my actual running pace was faster than expected. I ate two bananas, an apple (my first pieces of fruit in months), drank a quart of some sort of sugary liquid and laid down on a bench. For two weeks my calves would not allow me to ascend or decend stairs properly. I have barely run at all since.
