Three Is A Magic Number

It's been three days now since my third marathon, and I have to say that I feel pretty good.  I definitely found the right balance between training and staying healthy and uninjured.

The Marine Corps (Forward) Marathon was very well organized, with water, sports drinks and often a snack or two available at every other mile.  The course was very close to what I was already running - at some point, you can't run around this base without having done it before - so I knew what to expect.  And the temperatures were cold - in the high 40s at 5 when I left for work, and probably in the low 50s a couple of hours later, so I ran with a sweatshirt without a problem.

Around mile twenty, I was dragging my feet a bit when the right shoe snagged a rock, sending me sprawling to the ground.  Today, my left knee and right elbow are still very sore, and I am sure that if I had not tripped and fallen that I would be feeling even better.  I am glad that I was able to get right back up and keep running, though.  We did have a couple of twisted ankles on the course.

I ran the second half faster than the first, although I can't tell you what my pace was because I wasn't keeping track.  I knew that I was doing very well, but didn't want to push it just to get a PR - again, not injuring myself was a big priority.

It turns out that I crossed the finish line at 4 hours and 22 minutes, 19 seconds.  That's a PR!!  My first marathon was 4 hours, 24 minutes, so I definitely have a good, maintained pace on flat terrain.

I felt good enough to PT with the Chiefs and First Class Petty Officers the next morning, even though my legs were sore.  I did a chest workout that Monday afternoon as well.  I took Tuesday off, and today I did a cardio workout and will hit my back and biceps this afternoon.  I will likely try a few miles on Friday or Saturday.  All in all, I am very, VERY excited about not just finishing the race, but how my training has paid off in being able to function afterwards.  I feel very positive about the possibility of finishing a 40 miler.  

The Insufferable Runner

A great Facebook post by a friend today pointed out an article by a blogger (author unknown) who writes for Wait But Why on "7 Ways to be Insufferable on Facebook".

Pretty sure this blog falls under Region A - statuses that serve the author.  I could (and do) claim that when things calm down a bit here I am either stalking our mini-fridge (or worse, the Chaplain's full-sized refrigerator next door) or something equally unproductive, so a bit of writing practice helps pass the time.  
But, for the most part, this is about me running.

Time to make a change and try to steer this towards a positive angle.  I have been toying with the idea of running for a cause for a few months now.  The Marine Corps (Forward) Marathon is just ten days away, and it will be the bellwether to tell me if I have the chops to run 40 miles before I proclaim this feat to the world.  I ran a slow 20 miles yesterday, and feel pretty good today, which is making me think that I can actually do this.

The kick-off for my fundraiser will start when I get back home from deployment. More on that later.  

Concerns: minor stiffness and aches in my left leg, mostly in the retinaculum (the tendon that crosses over the top part of the foot) and in my knee.  Also, my shoes are near their breaking point - there is a large hole in the left shoe, on the side, about the size of a quarter.  I don't want to buy new shoes out here, just to get them filthy with moon dust.  I can ride it out for another month.

Good stuff: moderate soreness during the day, but literally none the day after for long runs greater than 15 miles.  My 9 mile runs are fairly pain-free.  

Extra: My weight is steady at around 170, and I've been holding now for over 4 months, with only minor variations.  Body fat is going down according to my taping results, so that means that my upper body workouts are adding some muscle, and I'm not losing it from running.  Very happy about that.  

Even more extra: got to get back into a regular posting schedule.  While I'm working on it, seriously...check out Wait But Why.  I really like the graphics that accompany his blog.

Ego Trip

One of the hardest decisions I am currently making regarding this run is not whether to run – I've already passed that hurdle – or what to do if I can't run the whole way.  

The hardest thing for me is to share it.

The whole idea of a run to me is enjoying the solitude.  I do enjoy the occasional run with another human being, but my ideal run is long, quiet, and being completely alone.  

I don't have any presumptions that I will be joined by anyone along the way.  I have had an offer or two, but have always politely declined.  This run is all about me.  And the choice I am still considering (as of today) is to keep it that way.  

Outside of the random reader who stumbled onto this blog (my sincere apologies), maybe five people outside of the interwebs know about my plans.  Two or three know my intended route.  Only I have thought about more than that.  And I could run, anonymously, ignoring the honks and waves from passing drivers, enjoying the scenery and then later the agony, and getting completely absorbed with myself and my inner thoughts.  And part of me would be very happy with that knowledge, passed along to no other person.

If I execute this blog to completion, posting about my thoughts and feelings regarding this run and other distractions, and moreover, publish it for the world to see, do I lose that intimacy?  What do I gain from letting anyone into what is essentially a long workout?  What do they (you) get out of it?  And worse yet, in the moment of my proving myself to myself, what if no one cares?  Is what I know enough?

If a man runs 40 miles and doesn't blog about it, does it make a sound?  What if I ran in the forest?  What if I ran in the forest and saw a tree fall, heard the sound, and then fell into a giant hole, never to be heard from again – did the tree still make that sound?  Is there a blog about falling trees somewhere?

Pseudo-philosophical questions aside, the question still deserves asking: am I willing to make this run by myself, for myself, or do I need some external validation?  I am still asking this to myself, even as I type another post.  I've wrestled with pulling the plug on this project on more than one occasion, out of disgust with my own ego trip.  And yet, I find my way back here, typing again.  Maybe the writing and running are just different forms of catharsis.  Maybe I am just a vain narcissist who likes writing smug blog posts.  

I'm off to find a blog about falling trees.  I've got to give that person some love.

The Jealous Runner

I was browsing Facebook when I saw an old friend from my days stationed at Great Lakes.  He had a short post: "25 miles done.  Halfway feeling ok."

I immediately looked where he was posting from, and then Googled ultramarathons in that area.  Sure enough, there was a local ultramarathon called the "Ice Age Trail" that was going on that day.  But I wasn't satisfied - I asked if that was the race he was running.  He liked my post.  I still wasn't satisfied.  

Later on he posts, "More later but 50 miles in the books.  Roughly 10 hours 16 minutes."  Question answered - my first friend to run an ultramarathon.

Turns out that this wasn't his first, but his SECOND ultramarathon.  Two fifty mile runs, as I imagine him gently striding through his own fortieth year on the planet.  And I find myself intensely jealous.

Of what?  There are plenty of square miles on the earth, and by no means am I the first person to contemplate running longer than marathon lengths.  But why this reaction?  I love this guy, who has gone with me to rock concerts, and awful Matrix sequels, and introduced me to Rockabilly (or was it hillbilly punk?).  I should have nothing but admiration for his efforts.

And yet I think I already know the answer to that question.  Not only is he running further, he's not boasting or bragging.  Two quick lines on Facebook, is all.  And this wasn't even his first race.  I have a blog dedicated to one run, a year from now.  Hell, I had an idea to dedicate every mile of my run to a different person, posting it all to Facebook and this blog.  Why the fanfare?  What am I looking for?  What am I running for?

I have to run on that one for a bit.

One Step, One Day, At A Time

I have found myself recently in territory that I haven't traveled in some time.  One Friday morning, my supervisor pulls me aside when I first got in and asks to speak to me in private.  In the hallway, he tells me that the promotion results came out, and I didn't make the cut.

I was in zone for a promotion to O5, a full commander.  I was the only one in zone in my community, and it was a small window of people chosen to be looked at for promotion this year.  I knew it was going to be tough.  I thought that I had a competitive record, but it was not a perfect record.  I even deployed with the dreadful anticipation that I would not get picked up, and was therefore already looking to improve my chances.

None of these things, however, eased the pain of that news.  I scanned his face, thinking he was pulling one over on me.  Now weeks later, and I still want to believe that.  But it was no joke; I checked online as soon as I could to verify, and he was telling the truth.   

I've been told that there are phases to getting news like this.  Of all the emotions that I have gone through, the one lingering is bitterness.  I am still very bitter about the results.  For one, it makes me think that the United States Navy doesn't want me.  Their own system filtered me out, along with the rest of the undesirables that Big Navy did not think could lead their Sailors.  Of course, this is nonsense.  Not the system, which should work to weed out non-leaders, but the idea that an organization is deliberately, and with great prejudice, denying my stated abilities.  Big Navy is like any other large machine.  We are designed to be used as the critical cogs to help the machine run, but ultimately, we will be replaced and not a shit will be given.  Someone once told me another good analogy, one of shark teeth.  A shark's teeth are pointy and dangerous, but if they get stuck on something the tooth is discarded, and another one moves to take its place.  The shark smoothly sails on, none the wiser.

The other sting is to my ego.  Prior to this, I had no trouble with promotions, although I had only one promotion under my belt.  I was already an O3 when I started active duty, thanks to all of my schooling.  I didn't have a perfect record for O4 either, but I made it in the first round.  I guess in my hubris, I began to see people that couldn't be promoted while they were in-zone to be unworthy, dirtbags that the Navy was weeding out - which caused a nasty feedback loop with my other thoughts.  

The blow to my ego was rough, but now I have had time to heal and think and meditate...and run.  In the end, I will keep on trying, keep on pushing ahead, keep on working on my fitness reports and making good career choices and forging forward, no matter how painful it gets.  I like to think that this resilience will work for me during my runs, as well.  I'll let you know as I continue to put feet to pavement, and words to print.

Autopilot

Today I was thinking and running, and realized that I wasn't really giving my feet any commands whatsoever.  My motor cortex was operating smoothly, without any higher thought processes, and one leg followed the other in an easy pace.  

I watched my legs for a bit, marveling at the mind's ability to partition that complex movement and choreography, while allowing me to just enjoy the ride.  I realized that if I am I'm dreaming at night, it's hard for me to start running.  My legs feel like they're encased in quicksand.  The motor cortex is inhibited during R.E.M. sleep, so I wonder if my daydreaming brain, the one that looked on while my legs cranked away, just doesn't know how to run?

It's an odd feeling to become so self-aware, so in the moment, when you realize that your body is moving, and will continue to move, without any further objections from me.  It's a different kind of self-awareness, free of the self-examination, self-judgement and self-criticism that I feel when writing, at least to my imaginary audience.  It felt good, and it was a good run. 

The Loudest Silence

The safety guidelines for running on base preclude me from wearing any type of headset or personal speaker system.  Don't laugh, I actually have a personal speaker system that I can hook up if I could.  I agree with this rule, and give very withering looks to the people in flagrant violation of base policy.  Honestly, there are so many heavy construction and tactical vehicles running around, it really isn't very safe to run with something in your ears.

That being said, I have to put some miles on the pavement.  Running on a treadmill allows me to plug in the tunes, but proper gym etiquette forces me to vacate the machines after every half hour, and there are only so many working machines in the closest gym.  In order to really log some time, I have to go outside.

The problem is that I am quite the talker - to myself.  The other day I actually got sick of listening to myself, talking to me.  I'm constantly going through scenarios, discussing issues, bringing up problems...and it just so happened that on this day, even I didn't want to listen to myself babble on.

I think the idea, when I first thought of running long distance, was to be actively meditating, a type of running with some Tai Chi or Chi Gong mixed in.  What I have found, however, is that when I have a captive audience, I tend to  want to talk.

It might be the pace - at the pace I usually find myself, I have no problem talking.  I am breathing heavily, but not so much that I can't speak.  This physical ability to speak somehow allows my mental thoughts to be voiced in my head.  I don't philosophize when I'm running for time, out of breath and holding the stitches in my sides.  

I also don't think when running to music.  I may run through a fantasy or two to music, but fantasizing and thinking are two different activities in my head, and only one of them exhausts me.

Even though it might be a safety hazard, I think I'm going to need my tunes on a forty mile run.  I might throw myself down a hill otherwise.

Pesky PRs

Personal Records, or "PR" as they are called in the running world, are pretty important to a lot of people.  How else would you rank your progress (against other runners)?  

I just tried to think of my own record for the whopping two marathons that I've run in, and it took me a while to remember the times, although I am pretty sure that these are arbitrary numbers.  My first marathon was my best time, reaching the finish line in about 4 hours and just under 30 minutes.  4:24, maybe?  Already I am trying to inch down to more respectable numbers.  My second marathon in Raleigh took me almost five hours.  I crossed the line with the five hour pace guy, forgetting that I had been in the porta-john for about 15 minutes after the starting pistol went off.

And yet, I don't feel like a failure for running more slowly.  They were two totally different races – Raleigh was FULL of hills, hills that I ignored in my workouts.  I was in good shape, but probably not as good a shape as I was in after just four months into my first deployment.  So I took that time gratefully, and without regret.

Still, any running magazine I read talks about the PR, and how to improve it.  I just read a Facebook post for a group dedicated to "making you faster, and reducing your times!"  Now, I am all for people to improve their fitness levels and even go faster if they want.  But that is not what I want.  I am very happy finding that sweet spot in my stride where I can run on and on.  Which, coincidentally, is exactly what I am going for.

I feel bad for runners who, in pressing their bodies to the limit, have injured themselves and can't run anymore without surgery or intensive therapy.  I can relate, having to reduce my weightlifting ever since injuring (and re-injuring) my supraspinatus tendon.  Never again will I be able to lift the magic weight of 315.  Man, I felt like a monster benching that much after years of just enjoying lower weights to maintain a good pushup number.  I've had injuries to my knees and ankles as well, but luckily I have been able to continue running after a short rest and some ICE.  I don't want this run, or the training leading up to it, to keep me from continuing to run more, later.

Treadmill Troubles

We don't have the best equipment out here when it comes to cardio.  Out of the three treadmills in our gym, one is out of commission and a second one has a belt that is continually slipping.  

On the other hand, by 9 AM, the outside temperature is already in the high 90s - 100s.  The sun is blazing and I hate sunscreen dripping into my eyes.  So if I schedule a short run later in the day, I'm usually hopping on the treadmill.  

Two problems that I have found using the treadmill, even for an hour or so of running:

1.  I am a forward leaning runner.  While there are a lot of ways to define this, basically it just means that I try to keep my center of gravity slightly forward.  This running style has saved my knees.  I have noticed, however, that working out on the treadmill causes the balls of my feet to heat up to the point it gets uncomfortably hot.  I'm not sure if it is my running style or my running shoes, but I have limited my running on the treadmill to an hour.

2.  I actually prefer to run outside, and when I am running outside I don't watch the clock.  I have general distances I want to run, and whenever I'm done, I'm done.  On the treadmill though I find myself getting away from that natural stride in order to cover more mileage in a shorter amount of time.  There are times I have run on the treadmill, and end up with minor knee soreness for a little while that day.  I generally don't get knee pain when I run on the street, regardless of the time I spend there.  I wonder if this is a factor of changing my stride or running speed artificially.

Looks like I'll have to continue getting up early to run as dawn breaks, to avoid the heat as best I can, and limit treadmill runs to less than one or one and a half hours.

Poor blogging form this week, only one post.  I apologize, it has been a very busy week.  I respect someone who can blog three or more times a week, every week.

Moleskin + Nipples = Happiness

I have made a tremendous discovery in the last few months that I would like to share with the world...

...but first, a public service announcement.  If you are queasy about nipples, this post is not for you.  That's right, we're talking nipples today, as if you didn't read the post title and get all excited.

No, I am not posting pictures of my nipples.  I will take requests, though.  This is not meant to be a titillating post (pun intended) either, but if this is how you get your jollies on the interwebs, who am I to judge?

Here's the problem that I know is shared by many other runners: when I run for a length of time, my shirts start to rub up against my nipples.  If this goes on too long, those poor guys get chaffed.  If I run long enough, chaffing turns to outright open sores, which leads immediately to...

...BLOODY NIPPLES. 

I can handle blood.   What I can't handle is the excruciating pain of my sore nipples getting hit with whatever shirt I happen to be wearing, each agonizing step bringing my pain-nips in touch with an object, making them cry out again with agony.  At this point, there is no joy in Mammilla-ville.  Even if I remove my shirt, the very air against my teats creates more pain.  Complete and udder agony.  Get it?  

Thanks to Thesaurus.com for helping me with the last paragraph, by the way. 

In the past I have used anti-friction creams, powders, and even put band-aids on the trouble spots to avoid this.  But I am a hairy brute, and the band-aids usually fall off after a period of time.  I was seriously wondering what I would do for extended runs, until today.

I was looking in the drawers one morning and found some moleskin that a previous tenant had left behind.  Being an inventive chap I decided to give it a try and cut out two small squares.  My after run analysis?  If I had to condense this post to just five words, those words would be:

MOLESKIN IS BLISS FOR NIPPLES.

I have tried this on long runs of 24 Km, and up to about three and a half hours of running (that distance), so I hope I have this bloody nipple thing licked.  Get your mind out of the gutter, you sicko.

The Color Brown

When I was deployed to Iraq, I tried my hand at writing to pass the time.  I came across these haikus, and thought they were still pretty funny - and valid, here in Afghanistan:

The Color Brown (#1)

Brownish sand and dirt

as far as the eye can see.

At least Mars has hills.

The Color Brown (#2)

It's been two months now.

The same color as doo-doo.

This is getting old.

The Color Green (#1)

Little green bushes,

Why are you growing here, small?

Rain won't come, yet hope.  

The Color Brown (#3)

Here's a brown puddle,

in the middle of the sand.

Defiant, proud, wet.

Namaste!

As promised, I said I would discuss some of the other exercises that I am doing to help prepare myself and most importantly, prevent injury.  In my opinion, the best "other" exercise that I have been practicing daily - or almost daily - is yoga.

In 2009, I was lucky enough to be deployed to Al Asad Airbase.  I had a room of my own, and inherited an old television that showed three or four Armed Forces Network channels.  Lo and behold at 0630 every morning, I discovered a program called Namaste Yoga.  I have always been fairly unflexible, and decided to give it a try in the privacy of my room, where noone else could see me practicing yoga.  It turned out I liked the program, and it definitely helped with my flexibility.  I ended up working the show into my daily schedule.  We also had an XO who WASN'T afraid of yoga, and would got the entire Group outdoors to practice once or twice.  He would get us into a pose and then pronounce, "Yep, you're doing YOGA."

For those not familiar with the series - it was on Fitness TV in the States, and you can get the DVDs from Namaste.tv - it was developed and narrated by a woman named Kate Potter.  Ms. Potter is a Canadian yoga instructor and she has the best narrating voice.  I would love to sit in on one of her classes.  Add to that a great production value, and you have a really good yoga class at your fingertips.  The production for the series was in British Columbia - Vancouver, I think - and the people in charge of picking locations found some of the most beautiful areas to film.  

I have seasons one and two here with me now.  I purchased them for the deployment, and have been using them almost daily ever since my computer arrived.  There is something about yoga first thing in the morning that helps my body get ready for the day.  And I definitely feel that daily yoga practice increases my flexibility and has had a direct impact on the fact that I am pain and injury free, even after the longest runs.  

The trick will be to continue the practice when I get home.  Like so much other exercise and good health sense, after I came home from the last deployment, I stopped practicing yoga.  I tried to follow the yoga classes on Fitness TV, but the timing was off - and we hadn't bought our first DVR yet to record the shows.  I should have bought the DVD set right away, but I blew it off.  No excuses now - and even more incentive to get the latest DVD.  If I continue yoga, there is no reason why I can't continue to train with distance running without injury.

Namaste!

Giving More Than 10%

Technically, I am posting this on Wednesday morning, but it is still Tuesday back home :)...

Confession time: After I ran the Raleigh marathon in 2010, I stopped working out for a solid three months.  In the back of my head I knew that I was still in great shape, and that my fortieth birthday was four years away.  I had only planned on one marathon a year until 2014 to keep me "limber".  Not surprisingly, that plan did not work out as I had hoped.  

By the time I got to Afghanistan, I hadn't run more than twice in four months.  I hadn't run more than three or four times a month in the six months prior to that, and I certainly hadn't been a consistent runner since 2011.  I had joined the nefarious "3 mile club" – for Navy Physical Readiness Tests, a participant only has to run 1.5 miles.  The PRT is a twice a year event, which means that every sailor must run a minimum of 3 miles a year – if they are running.  I won't go into the politics of stationary bikes or elliptical machines, and I have been at the very bottom of fitness categories, so I won't judge.

The bottom line is, I was concerned that trying to do to much, too fast would end up with me being injured.  Experts say that a person shouldn't try to increase their distance by more than 10% a week.  I was certainly on my way towards following that advice for the first month here.  I started off with a gentle 1.5 mile run, something I knew even a fatbody like me could handle. And that was only after a couple of weeks of walking to and from work and chow – at the time, a not inconsiderate 4 miles or so daily.  

I got a cold about a month in, and that set me back a week, but then I ran a circuit and felt very good.  I had done that route a few times without injury or soreness when I decided to pull out a map and find out how much I had been doing.  I was surprised to find out that I went from roughly 2 miles to over 5.  However, my legs, knees and ankles felt great so I continued to experiment with different runs, taking breathers in between the longer ones.  Within two months I've gotten to 9 miles without serious strain on my body, not even soreness the next day.  After I got up to a half marathon in May (four months in) My left patellar tendon has started to complain a bit, so I made sure to include a short run day (around 10K) and I will definitely make sure to include a rest day.  I'm also looking at knee strengthening exercises, besides just hitting more pavement.  There is one more thing that I've been doing which I'll write more about on Thursday, yoga.

Running in Hell

I've had the running schedule planned for two weeks now.  I was running every other day, right up until Saturday...until today.

I got an opportunity to travel to Qatar today.  My goal was to log a long run in, but the moment I got off the aircraft my lungs were on fire.  Literally, when I breathed in liquid fire came in instead of air.  The streets are cleverly concealed pits of black lava, which makes me wonder if their tires here aren't made of a rubbery asbestos material.  I tried to walk down a paved jogging trail, but the material my boots were made of could only take so much before sublimating into charred husks.  

Needless to say, I will probably have to wait until nightfall.  Of course, the last time I was near this place was June of 2009, getting off of a plane to refuel at close to midnight.  I remember a similar feeling of being blasted by heat as I walked off that plane as well - when the sun wasn't even shining.  It really worried me that we were in for a rough time of it during my Iraq deployment, if the staging area was radiating heat in the black of night.  

It turns out that the Arab Emirates are just hot as hell.  I am told that summer months in Phoenix or San Antonio become similar pits of Hades, which means that I will never, never visit those places from March - October.  I would rather get a pitchfork to the backside, which may actually happen if i were to find myself in these magma chambers.  I'm not entirely sure that the Devil herself appears with a tiny pitchfork in these places in the summer months.

I am a man of the North.  A Yankee, if you will.  Winner of the War of Northern Aggression.  What I didn't realize is that we also won the war of comfortable climate.  It pains me that my daughters have acclimated to the burning jungles of Florida and North Carolina, while my northern bones require temperatures slightly below freezing in order to operate properly.  My neighbors still wonder why I walk around in shorts and a wifebeater in late January, whereas I am just happy to not be walking on the surface of the sun.

Better go grab a reflective belt and some water bottles.

Fatty Fatty Fat Fat

One of the goals of this blog was to help me verbalize all of the different reasons I would a) run long distances; and b) write about it.

Of all of the less legitimate reasons I have for logging my miles and words, there is one that stands on its own: fitness.

I have been in varying levels of fit throughout my life.  As a teenager, I didn't run at all, unless chased.  I dabbled with weights like any pimply, gangly teen, but even though I ate like a horse I had a pretty nice figure at roughly 165 lbs in high school.  I didn't realize I could see my abs until they were long, long gone.  

College was where I first was forced to run.  I wish I could go back and appreciate those runs for what they were, but at the time I couldn't appreciate  it all.  My fellow ROTC cadets and I would run all over Pittsburgh - through downtown, by Three Rivers Stadium, up to University of Pittsburgh, even to the top of Mount Washington.  Beautiful runs, although we were running at a pace that kept me wanting to throw up most of the time.  Even with that amount of exercise, I found my Freshman 15, and then some.

I remember distinctly in 1995, going through training at Fort Bragg, that I was gaining weight.  I thought that was a good thing to be so hungry, but in all honesty when I got back I was just heavier (185 lbs).  

Graduate school wasn't a time where I was watching the scale, but at least my metabolism, and a healthy respect for getting into the gym when the lab got to crazy, kept me from getting much fatter.  By the time I checked into OBC at Fort Sam Houston in 2001, I was around 190 lbs.

My time in the Army kept me very fit.  I was hitting the gym, going to PT, and even doing some extra training for things like EFMB, GAFPB, and Airborne school.  Still, I think at this point, I managed to get up to 196 lbs - the first time I ever got taped.  Legally overweight.

Transferring to the Navy, in a very physically demanding billet, didn't stop me from gaining more, especially when work got hectic, things were going on at home, and Grace was born.  The month after she was born, I clocked in at 210 lbs.  At that time, I was grossed out by my weight.  I got 20 lbs off right before I went to Iraq in 2009.  

Iraq was one of those great places where you had nothing but time to work on your physical fitness.  It was also a great place for me to realize that I couldn't just shovel food into my mouth anymore.  I got down to 171 lbs that summer.

However, I knew I had a problem when, on the second day I got back home, I looked in the pantry and found an unopened box of Oreo cookies.  I managed to demolish that box in ONE DAY.  You can guess where my weight went after that.  I was still training for a marathon in 2010, which kept some of the weight off.

However, after running the Raleigh marathon, I lost all incentive to run.  2014 seemed so far away, and I was commuting to work and busting my hump doing it.  Without workouts to help me control my weight, I busted buttons - getting up to 220 lbs by the winter of 2011.  

My best friend Andy's wedding was that summer, and I vowed that I would not look fat in my Dress Blues.  So I did my best and was able to lose almost 40 lbs over the course of six months, bringing me back down to around 195.  But after the wedding I got off track again.

In November of 2012, I weighed in at 221.  Even when TAPED I was having trouble staying within standards.  I knew that a deployment was right around the corner, but I was not happy that it was taking a deployment to get me in shape.  

But, here I am.  As of now, I am back to 180 lbs., and on my way down, a pound at a time.  I know I have to make some serious choices when I get back, but working out in preparation for this 40 miler should help.  But when I'm done, I know that there will always be a plate of cookies waiting for me.  

I Ran Today

So, on to business. 

Ideally I will update on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I am starting early, creating some material in reserve so ultimately I can write when I want to, not when I have to.  Otherwise, I imagine my posts will look something like this:

I ran today. 

I did run on my birthday, by the way...I don't know the exact mileage for a perimeter run (I'm currently deployed to Afghanistan), but it took me almost three hours.  I try to plot out distance on a map in the office...I surprised myself early in the deployment by pulling out a map of the base and carefully plotting my course that day.  I was excited to see that I was running around 11 km, when I thought I was running more like 5 or 6.  That was great news.  My main goal is not speed, or time, but running without injury.  So far - knocking on wood here for effect - I have not even felt sore the day after a run. 

This is even better news because I haven't done any physical activity in the months prior to deployment.  Maybe since my last physical fitness test, way back in November.  When I got here, my only goal was to start walking, which I did for about a month.  I threw in a one or two mile run in there somewhere, but nothing serious.  To say that I am pleased with how far I have come in a couple of months is an understatement.  I thought that I would increase my mileage by 10% every week, but if my body feels good I just go with it.

Not a bad way to wrap it up, really: listen to your body.  Most of the time.   

Welcome to 40 Running 40!

I'll preface this introduction with a warning: I am not a blogger, and have never seriously attempted a routine blog before now.  I don't anticipate that this will be read by anyone other than a few family members and close friends, but that is not really what 40R40 is for.

My bottom line up front: I want to run forty miles on my fortieth birthday. 

The main goal of this blog is to figure out WHY.  Why would I want to subject myself to 40 miles of misery, not to mention the training involved to make sure that I don't maim myself?  Why do I feel the need to celebrate this milestone with an ultramarathon run?  And why do I feel the need to document my progress in the coming year?

The second goal is to define WHAT: what do I really want to accomplish?  What does this benefit myself, and could it possibly benefit others?  What will I do if I can't make it?  What will I do afterwards if I do make it?

The WHERE and WHEN are pretty well established: June 3, 2014.  Starting sometime in the early morning, I plan on running a 40+ mile course I have laid out near Chautauqua Lake, NY. 

And finally, HOW do I intend on preparing for this task?  If you came here looking for running advice, please turn and run in the opposite direction.  I am no running expert.  I have read a couple of books, but other than the experience of putting feet to pavement I am no expert in distance running.  I don't care about personal records (PR), or how fast I go.  I'm not even that interested in what I'll be wearing.  But, occasionally, I will probably talk about my progress and reveal the secrets to my distance running method (hint: it involves a lot of running). 

Anyway, thanks for reading this far.  I hope you'll enjoy the journey along with me. 

Respectfully,

Dustin Huber