The slow road to 5K

I spoke last week about a bucket list that I put together several years ago, while in the middle of the "my life is over" crisis that resulted from adult onset epilepsy. I actually still have the physical list around here...somewhere. My memory being what it is, I should probably try to find it and see if I have missed anything important.

One of the items on that list involved attending an annual sporting event here in Albuquerque, one that supports an organization that is near and dear to my heart: the Run For The Zoo, a 5-kilometer race that supports the Albuquerque Biopark. I have wanted to participate in it for as long as I can remember. The problem? I have probably not run 5 kilometers in total over my entire life.

See, I am just not a runner. It is not an activity I enjoy. The endorphin high that so many runners like to talk about never materializes for me: though it did show up occasionally when I was a weightlifter. These days it never shows up at all - all I get is sweat and discomfort from our daily exercise routine.

Still, I have never stopped thinking about it. Earlier this year, along with my commitment to buy a Halloween costume this year if I lost more than 50 pounds due to surgery, I also mentioned to Lor that I wanted to participate in the 2017 Run For The Zoo if everything turned out successfully. I have lots of ideas, and I think she just agreed with me, hoping that the idea would quietly go away after a certain amount of time.

Imagine her surprise when I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to start training for next year's Run after the majority of my weight loss had occurred - maybe December or January. My proposal fell on deaf ears. She didn't like to run, she reminded me. I don't like to run, for that matter. I still have two badly damaged knees. For that matter, I am still over 70 pounds overweight. (I started at 152 pounds overweight, remember.) As the injector of realism into my life, Lor was forced to pop my hopeful, wish-list balloon.

As a compromise, she did remind me that the event had a walking component as well. Now, last time I checked, the walking component was a 1-mile stroll around the zoo grounds, which isn't what I had in mind at all. However, after further investigation, I discovered that there is indeed a 5-K Fitness Walk "race". I use the term race loosely because it is non-competitive. No time is kept, no medals are handed out. Parents with small children and strollers are encouraged to participate. Not exactly what I had in mind at all.

However, I accepted my half a loaf, and began looking into training tools for race walking. You know, kind of a Couch To 5K kind of thing for those of us disinclined to actually learn how to run. As it turns out, no such thing exists. You are either learning to be a runner, or you are just going to have to figure it out for yourself. There are no other options.

Currently, we walk anywhere from 1.5 to 2 miles a day. 5 Kilometers works out to 3.11 miles. So, I am going to have to figure out a route in our neighborhood that equates to 3 miles, and then we can start hitting it at least once a week, I suppose. I hope the dog can keep up, though she has been doing fine so far with 2 miles. By January, I will try to start doing the 5K route more than once a week, so that I can begin working on my speed. Lor naturally walks an 18-minute mile without me to slow her down, but together we currently manage a little less than 3 miles an hour. At that rate, all the other race participants will have packed up and gone home by the time I get to the finish line. Even the ones with small children and strollers.

I am simultaneously excited and disappointed. While I am now looking forward to next May, I am also left with the feeling that I am not really going to be doing what I had in mind. But, hey. It isn't like I have ever participated in any kind of race in my adult life, right?

Besides, it is all for a good cause.

Fearing Finishing Behind A Stroller Full Of Infants,

- Hawkwind

225

Once upon a time, about a decade ago, I sat in my room above my parent's garage and made up my mind that, despite my disability, my life wasn't done yet. Accordingly, I made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish. There among bucket-list type items like "Travel To Gettysburg" and health-related goals like "Full Seizure Control" was this entry: "Weigh 225 pounds."

At the time, I only (ha!) weighed 275 pounds. The one-two punch of Depakote and lack of activity due to seizures had pushed my weight from a heavily muscled 240 pounds up to a flabby 280, and it had taken me over a year to sort of settle in at 275. I knew I wasn't ever going to be a gym rat again (ever tried a bench press while having a seizure?), but I figured if I could just lose 50 pounds I would be in decent shape again.

For the next 10 years, that day never came. It took my weight climbing over 300 pounds this year to get me to finally take the "heroic measures" (a medical term, not stating that I am in any way heroic) of surgery to deal with my obesity. Now, 50 days after my surgery, I have arrived at the goal that I set so long ago: 225 pounds. So, how do I feel about it?

In a word: Pfft.

You see, back when I picked the 225 goal weight, I had a specific physique in mind. Something like an NFL running back. You know, like this:

According to BMI, he was obese for his entire career.

Maurice Jones-Drew - 5'7", played between 205 and 215 pounds. Not that I was aiming too high or anything. Let's just say that, looking in the mirror today, the photo above is not what I am seeing.

My crashing weight loss is the main reason, of course. My body has had no chance to slowly adapt as it shrinks. Instead, my skin is left as an empty sack around large areas that once held much bigger fat deposits. My arms sag, my chest sags, my formerly beer-keg-sized belly now looks like a deflated beach ball, half-filled with jelly. All in all, 225 looks almost nothing like the picture I had in my head.

Now, my weight loss is presumably not done yet. But, if I am 75 pounds down, out of an expected 100-ish pounds of weight loss, most of the fat shedding has already occurred. Losing another 25 pounds at this point is not suddenly going to turn me into MJD.

As I have stated frequently, I didn't go into surgery for the purpose of improving my looks. I wanted increased energy, reduced blood pressure, and relief for my disintegrating joints - all of which I have already begun to see the benefits of. If my energy level is not as high as Lor's or my blood pressure is still not low enough to stop taking medications, I am still in a better place than where I was in February. But that 225 number has been in the back of my mind ever since I started this process. "Man, if I can just hit that weight - wouldn't that be something?"

It is certainly "something". But not exactly the something I envisioned. I think I would have been better off setting my goal as being able to bench-press the 225 pounds, rather than weigh it. Despite having lost a quarter of my starting body weight at this point, I can't help but be a little exasperated at how much work I still have to do.

Time To Head Back To The Resistance Bands,

- Hawkwind