About 6 months ago I was sitting watching television. It is rare that I sit in front of the television while doing nothing else, usually I am reading, sleeping, eating, or giving witty responses to certain crackpots who send me email. However, on this particular day I was sitting there doing little else but displaying my infinite wisdom as a fantasy Jeopardy contestant. Usually, I do pretty well, if nobody else is around. So there I was, watching television, and I looked down and realized that the end of an era was upon me.
Now, I have never been a fat person. I have been the opposite of fat for the most part, two dimensional, skinny, whatever. People have expressed concern that I would blow away in the wind. Once I got food poisoning, lost 25 pounds in a week, and the most frequent response was : “where did you find that much to lose”? Reminds me of the joke : “I got food poisoning today. I don’t know when I’ll use it”.
If you get food poisoning, I don’t recommend that you EVER use it.
So when I looked down, the fat that has decided to take residence around my middle was rolling all over itself. I stared at it. I couldn’t believe it. Folds! I may have uttered an audible profanity. Actually, I’m sure I did. Normally the abdominal area was muscle, not particularly well defined, but muscle nonetheless. I guess I deluded myself into believing that this is what was still there. Sure, it was still there, and more of it than ever, but it was obscured by *f-a-t*. Ug. Mr. Bellybutton – where are you? My once fairy tale relationship with my metabolism is apparently over. The honeymoon just up and died right there. From here on in, and I expect it to get worse, I will have to beat the ever slowing beast into submission through (ack) looking after my diet and physical unpleasantness/exercise.
It was clear though, that I had to change, and I don’t like change but I’m going to keep eating carrot cake if it kills me.
So I did nothing about it for a long time. Now, I cannot be called a fat person, but perhaps the term : “thin – fat person” applies. The solution seemed obvious, I would have to actually carry through with my New Years resolution of the last 5 years. Yup – EVERY year this has been my New Year’s resolution. Every year for the last five I haven’t done it.
In my first year of College I used to run. Around the school. To the border and back. Around the neighborhood. This was usually to relieve stress, which it did in part. I gave it up partly because I did not own a pair of shorts, which caused obvious problems. Try jogging in jeans and you will wonder along with me (now) as to what the f*ck I was thinking. In high school I used to run because they made us. I could do a 2.4 kilometer run in 9 minutes. I thought that was good at the time, but I never knew if it was for sure because nobody else in the class actually RAN the 2.4, they walked it, which was usually good for a pass (oh… 15-16 minutes). I rather preferred to sprint because I was good at that. 50 meters in 6.5 seconds, my best I think.
So now that I have found the problem (fat), and designed a solution in part (exercise – ie. running) I went about figuring how exactly I should do this. No, not HOW to run, but how far, how much, etc.
So I put off that for a week.
Then it took me a week to actually do something with the information I had gathered.
I should point out that while the internet is a fine place to learn how to tie a tie (didn’t have a clue how and nobody to show me) I am sure that it isn’t a place to learn to run. Sure, the information may be there, but the incentive ultimately had to come from me.
So I waited another week.
It was obvious that I needed a pair of shorts in order to do this. My crazy and stupid and crazy days of running in the middle of the night in jeans while it was 5 below outside were long gone. So I bought a pair of shorts. Fantastic. I was now prepared for my new running career.
Remember the part when I said that I could run a 2.4 in 9 minutes. That was in grade 10, the last year of physical education that I took. Grade 10 took place in 1990. That’s 10 years ago for you math experts (I checked it with a calculator). Now imagine that you have not worn a pair of shorts for 10 years. How white will your legs be? That flash in the sky last week – that was the sun reflecting off of my legs. Bloody hell, with the UV index being low like it is, I’ll be white until next summer. Damn!
Now, lets get down to what I really wanted to talk about: The running.
One website outlined a few rules/tips to remember:
1. look where you are going (duh!)
2. pace yourself
3. you won’t believe how quickly you improve (complete bullshit)
4. don’t run in the dark (double duh!)
Obviously, there were a great deal of other “helpful” pointers, none of which I will mention because they are not particularly relevant to this particular discourse.
This hasn’t exactly been the best experience, at least not starting out. However, I recognize that the best way to learn anything is through mistakes related to the way you went about obtaining your goal. Not wanting to deprive myself of this potentially rich learning experience, I proceeded to violate rules 1 through 4 on my first day.
There is a park just up the hill from where I live that is cool, inviting, has a lake in the middle of it, lots of forest, and will hold my interest much better than the crappy cement scenery in my neighborhood. The violation of rule number 2 was not a big deal. Sure, I forgot I was no longer a sprinter, and suffered the consequences but this is what I expected would happen. I was ready for soreness, cramps, lung bursting pains and all that fun stuff. The violation of rules 1 and 4 were perhaps my most profound of mistakes, since they came at the same time, and they came in the heavily wooded Mundy park in Coquitlam.
When I heard the huffing and puffing of the person running behind me I looked over my shoulder to have a look. Perhaps being inappropriately distracted and somewhat foolhardy anyway does impair your peripheral vision system, but when the tree and myself came rushing up to meet each other, I was certainly not the winner. Luckily, I got the full brunt of the impact on my shoulder, and didn’t have my head collide with it in any way, shape, or form. The collision spun me around and I landed on my back. I stayed there for a while.
The worst part was the laughing.
This girl running behind me asked me if I was ok (as I lay on the path) but could not hold back the giggles. Damn – probably not the best time to meet a new person, in obvious pain and laying on your back after running into a stationary tree (its not like IT hit me). She was still laughing when she ran away. Ouch.
This was a strange and stupid way to start. However, it was not the last interesting event. Later on, while going back to my car I stepped on a rat that was the size of a small dog. Why it didn’t get out of the way I am not sure, but I didn’t stick around to ask it.
The next time I went running (this time around the neighborhood) didn’t go to well either. While I didn’t run into any stationary objects, I did manage to collapse on some guys lawn. I became intensely dizzy and nauseous after about 15 minutes (the pace yourself part again), leaned on a telephone pole for support, and collapsed on his lawn. Not unconscious, just conscious of gravity. He came out and though I had gotten drunk and passed out on his lawn. He understood when I explained it, but boy was he grumpy! As it turns out, and this isn’t new information, when I do exercise I unconsciously hold my breath. Thats bad news. Its not too bad during something like pushups but try running! Enter : the grumpy mans lawn.
Tonight I ran for half an hour. Sure, not a lot really, but better than the last two times. Considering much of it was uphill (I live on the side of a hill) and then downhill again I am surprised I lasted that long. I didn’t run into any trees, parked cars, or buses. I remained conscious the whole time! My new running shoes are like springboards, and they don’t leak (rained like hell tonight). Maybe I’ll give this thing another try. Target is to beat my grade 10 time which isn’t overly ambitious for sure, but is a target for now. We’ll see. Keep breathing dammit!