It’s that time of year, the time for recaps. Maybe in December 2019 I’ll have a decade-end recap too.
I restarted running on September 6, 2009, and since then I’ve made a lot of progress. As you’ll see if you read through the first couple of posts, I didn’t set out with any particular goal in mind, other than to stop being disgusted with myself. I’m setting some specific goals for 2010.
The thing that I am most proud of is the simple fact that I stuck to it. That fact alone has a big, positive psychological impact on me. Here are some of the stats.
| Month | Mileage |
|---|---|
| September 2009 | 11 |
| October 2009 | 29 |
| November 2009 | 54 |
| December 2009 | 101 |
100 miles in December! At the beginning, it took every bit of determination I had to simply run for 60 seconds straight, now I can look back on it and laugh.
I also managed to lose some weight too. When I started in September, I was 214lbs (on a 6’0″ frame), which is obese by Body Mass Index (BMI) standards. As of today, I am down to 185lbs which is back in the normal range for BMI. More important than just the weight is the fact that I am a ton healthier as well. I have much more energy, I sleep better, I eat better and I honestly just have a brighter outlook on things. I have entire page dedicated to the more holistic view of why I run.
I started using the Couch to 5K program in September to get myself going and it really helped me a ton. I managed to “graduate” from C25K by running my very first race, the Mason Mini 5K on November 8th, exactly 9 weeks after I started, and the day before my 41st birthday. While I didn’t set any speed records (30:22), that race really got me hooked on running and motivated me to continue to improve. One week later, I ran another 5K, the Race for the Lions at St. Ursaline. I did improve my time a bit (29:34), but more importantly, I had a great time running and continued to keep motivated.
As Thanksgiving approached, I started to consider running the Thanksgiving Day 10K in downtown Cincinnati. I have to admit, I was afraid to do it for fear of failing and demotivating myself, but I went ahead anyway. I ended up with more training time than I had anticipated, because my older son got H1N1 so we had to postpone a vacation. I completed the race in 1:04:24 and felt great, so mission accomplished.
The 10K really got me excited about training for a longer race, so I’ve decided to run the Flying Pig Half Marathon in May. I’m currently considering whether to train with a group, or just continue on my own. Assuming the Half Pig goes well, I plan to run the full Chicago Marathon in October. At the beginning of this post, I stated that I restarted running in September. The restart was because my initial forray into distance running was started and inspired by watching a friend run the Chicago Marathon many moons ago. I didn’t have the discipline to stick with it, so starting again this year is partly to prove to myself that I can.
I look forward to running even more in 2010.