Notes and musings as I stop to look and listen.
Sky, grass and lake, originally uploaded by me.
I took this photograph at the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, November 24, 2007. I took 140 some-odd photos that day, but only a few were worth publishing, because much of the day was way too overcast.
Despite some hip pain, I think I did pretty well. I hope I feel the same way in a couple of days.
I have decided to take both today and tomorrow off from running. This pains me in spirit, but I need to address the physical pain in order to get back to the activity level I am currently pursuing. I feel a significant pain in my right outer hip and thigh area. From what I understand after reading about it so far, it’s an overuse injury of the hip flexor variety. I suspect that on the right side, my tensor fasciae latae muscle and possibly the iliotibial band near the hip have become inflamed. It could also be bursitis at the hip. I will need to address this with ice packs and anti-inflammatories, as well as stretching. Stretching is the area I need to focus on most, I think. I have so not paid the attention to that. I have a race on Thursday I am signed up for, and I intend to run it. (I will be doing some serious but gentle stretching before and after.) But I may scale back and not run on Friday or Saturday after the race.
This morning I completed my long run for the week. For the past three weekends in a row, I have been doing 10 miles. Previously I incorporated about three miles of trail running into the ten mile run, but today, I just stuck to the roads. I covered the distance in 1:41:57 at a pace of 10:09. The temp was not too bad, 41.4°F, with a slight wind of around 6 mph. By the time I started running at 7:30 am, the sun was already up, and it was nice to run in daylight for a change. I normally have been trying to run five days a week. Monday through Thursday I get in three miles a day before work, and it is usually quite dark then. I try to take Fridays off, then a long run on Saturday, and a recovery day off on Sunday.
Perhaps a little history is in order. This past July, I weighed 267 pounds. I stand about six two or so and have a large frame, but there was no doubt about it, I was way overweight. I think an apt description would be fat. I had tried to start running again this summer (I had done some running back in 2001 but never trained properly and gave it up), attempting to jog and walk a bit on the weekends, but I was not backing that effort up with additional weekday attempts, nor was I even the slightest bit considering going on a diet. I had not been a meat eater for quite some time, but I consumed lots of soft drinks and chips and pizza and pasta, and I never wanted to exercise that much, even though I have actually always loved getting out to the woods, and going on the occasional bike ride. But as my weight kept increasing, I was finding those activities harder and harder to do.
So around the first week of August this year, a friend decided she was going to try a diet, even though, in my opinion, she didn’t need to go on one, and I did. It was called the Fat Smash Diet. I never had much belief in diets, yet alone something with a “fad name,” but something about how she described it to me made sense…I could eat all the fruits and vegetables I wanted, and I had to incorporate cardio. This seemed quite a logical and healthy way to lose weight.
When I first started out, I was hardly running at all. In fact, for that first month, I barely could run for 5 minutes without significant pain in my knees and ankles, and I was totally out of breath after about one minute. But I still lost about 20 pounds, just from eating better. To be honest, I haven’t even read the Fat Smash book fully. I just followed the general guidelines, and it’s been working. The bottom line is I have lost over 40 pounds (with a goal of losing about 30 more) and I am now running about 22 miles a week. Oh yeah, and I am now a running addict.
So how did I come to be here, between the woods and frozen lake, on the darkest evening of the year? I now find myself solitary, alone and observant, on the edge of something beckoning but altogether strange at the same time. At the wonderful age of 51, I am on a path of exploration, finding out exactly how much I have left in the tank, realizing the journey is not yet over. And by god, I am going for it, without anyone or anything else but the energy from inside myself to carry me forward.
This is going to be a journal that perhaps no one will read but myself. But maybe not. Either way, it’s all good. I have always liked to read, and I also enjoy communicating. So that is what this journal is about. I will take notes and enter my thoughts. I will post photos on flickr and they will appear on the photos page. I will log entries that will undoubtedly appear mundane and extraordinarily boring. I will open up my soul and pour my feelings out, and I will also shroud or otherwise abstract my deeper reflections when the need arises. After all, I am only human. If you are reading this, you either stumbled upon this site by accident, or you may know me, or you got a link to this, either from me, or from some other source. Feel free to comment, or not. Linger and enjoy. Do whatever you want to do. It’s okay. No one will see us stopping here, to watch the woods fill up with snow.
