Monday, April 8, 2013

Getting started with this blog

Hi Folks,

I set up this blog in 2010, but never posted anything in here, because I wasn't taking the necessary steps to prepare myself for the marathon. You may think that four years is a little extreme for marathon preparation, but from where I was starting, I needed the time.

Here's a little history... my oldest daughter (currently 22) has run several Chicago Marathon's already, and has settled in to an every-other-year routine. As I struggled to ride my bike with her on a training run, she asked me to run a marathon with her. Sure, I was over 250 pounds at the time, but this wasn't a totally unrealistic request, as I had run a couple of marathons in the past, and even one ultra-marathon. I had inspired her to live a healthy life, eat right and exercise, but then I gave up. And now it's her turn to inspire me. So I told her that I would run a marathon with her in 2014, which happens to be just a couple weeks after my 50th birthday. I figured that would be a good goal.

As life would have it though, I didn't immediately start taking the steps I should have been taking. Instead of eating right and training, I went the other extreme. I gained weight, with an all time high of 275 pounds, and didn't move a muscle, if I could help it.

Then, this past January (2013) I found the Raw Food Boot Camp. As extreme as it sounded, I knew that this was my only hope to lose weight and be able to run in October of 2014. I've had tremendous success so far, as this way of eating has helped me drop 54 pounds so far in the 11 weeks that I've been doing this, and I've felt strong and healthy, and have gone from completely sedentary, to walking for two hours a day, on a treadmill, with the incline set to 7. I do break the workouts up into two one hour sessions, but still, I'm very proud of my success so far.

I'm planning on doing some "races" this summer, just short distances, and probably more of a jog/walk kind of pace, but I'm going to build a base for myself. After I get to my goal weight, which will hopefully be around August, I'll start increasing my actual running. I don't want to do that too soon, because I've got hip problems, and I want to make sure I've taken unnecessary stress from extra weight out of the equation before I do serious runs.  But I think with that kind of plan I should be ready for 2014!

Here's a picture at the 2010 Chicago Marathon after my daughter had run it. In 2014 we'll both be wearing that medal!


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