Delusions of Grandeur

I was talking to my brother-in-law (the one in significantly better shape than I am, as opposed to the one in the Army who is in significantly better shape than I am) this morning about entering a 10K in April, and he threw out a link for a beginner's triathlon in May. Figuring I needed to do things to keep this blog fresh, I set training for these things as intermediate goals of my training program. He runs at about a 7:30 pace, a pace at which I have only once in my life been within a minute of, and there was some significant dispute over the actual length of that race. So for me to even consider that I could run with him for 6.2 miles in about two months is pretty far fetched.

I was also reading the paper today and viewing the results of the Austin Marathon. I saw the 40 year old champion finished in 2:53, and of course I thought "I could do that" too, even though the only Marathon I ran was 80 pounds and 20 years ago, at a blistering 4:41.29 pace. If you take my normal 60 minute 5.2 mile runs, all I would need to do is cut my pace in half, and multiply the distance by 5, and bingo, I've got it. Quickly I realized that would be stupid, and I really have no business dragging my 6'6" frame anywhere near 26 miles. Please remind me of this should I get crazy in a half a year or so and decide I actually wanted to run a marathon.

Full of delusions and hope, I embark on my run today. My brother-in-law, from southern California, was complaining it was too freezing *** cold to run, whereas I, being from Cleveland, relished the 50 degree weather and the sunshine, and put on the long sleeve running shirt with my shorts.

Delusions are a funny thing. One minute they are ensconced in your mind, and thirty seconds into a run, poof, they are gone. As you may have gathered by now, I am not what you would call a "natural athlete". I'm more what you call "built for comfort." As a vintage car, it takes me a little to get my engine going, and it is somewhat painful when I start exercising. My runs are kind of like an awkward first date, where about five minutes into it you're wondering how in the heck you're going to make it through a whole hour this torture, and you're looking for every excuse in the book to bail out of there. But you plod on and suddenly you find some common ground, and you begin to enjoy the date, and then look forward to the next one.

Side note: I always hated the dating process. Ugh. Not having to date is one of the many reasons I am thankful to be married to my wonderful wife.

And so started my run today. Very painful. You could almost hear creaking in my joints as I got the lumbering beast that is my body warmed up. Oh, I feel obliged to advise on a pro tip here: before a run, do not eat a leftover meat loaf sandwich where you substitute Sriracha for ketchup.

Normally I make it about ten minutes at a "running" pace (largely thanks to the fact that minutes 5-10 of the run are downhill) before needing to scale it back and walk a little. I then mix running and walking, loping downhill and then hiking uphill. Recently it has been more running than walking, and even some running uphill, but never running past the 10 minute mark.

Today, I ran the whole hour. When it didn't feel good, I didn't stop, I just kept plowing forward. Granted, on some of the uphills I was less reminiscent of Roger Bannister and more of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, but I was still running. I made good distance and felt good at the end, albeit with slightly heavy legs.

Maybe I can do a 7:30 mile by April...