The Beginning: Couch to 5K

Wouldn’t it be great if we all maintained a fitness level that kids. They just run and bounce everywhere? But most of us don’t have that energy. So what on earth happened? Life happens to put it simply: stuff like work, college, deadlines, parenting, aging, laziness, ingrained habits, tiredness, weight-gain, stress, illness, and so on. Blah-blah-blah. Make your own list because I’m too lazy to go on... Ha.  

Before our quest

So one day in mid 2011 my wife comes to me and says “I want to do a 5k”. I simply responded (from my couch with probably a bag of chips in hand) “sure, count me in too”. And that was the start of my journey. 

I ran a bit in school and was active as a youth. But that was years ago (read a couple decades ago) I knew I wasn’t in prime form anymore by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, I had a few extra pounds for decorative purposes here and there. OK, maybe more than few. But I thought a 5k is merely a few workouts away from reality. Boy was I in for a rude little awakening. My wife proceeded to download one of those Couch to 5k programs onto her iPod. The first workout was something like run 1 minute and walk 5, rinse and repeat. Pretty easy, right? Well, I think my lungs caught fire that first run. Turns out that it wasn’t going to be that cake-walk I first thought. Cake... yum. Anyway, we kept at it and the workouts lengthened and there was more running and less walking. Things were progressing rather well; having not died from the prior days that is. And then came the... wait for it... running injury. It turns out that by starting running when you are out of shape + buying low/zero cushioned trail running shoes + heal striking with the clomp of a rhino on a track surface = metatarsal fractures. Great... let me quell my disappointment in a bag of doritos. Actually, I was making good progress with this thing called exercise and didn’t want to lose my momentum from an injury setback. So I purchased a road bike from Craigslist. That spurred this whole triathlon thing. But that’s another story. So I biked when I could and it was so much fun! Less pounding on the body, racking up mile after mile, and seeing real health improvements. After a few weeks I was back running again; this time with better shoes and this new cross-training alternative. 

And so it went; biking and running. Making plenty of stupid/newbie mistakes and learning from them. My wife also became interested in the bike aspect and we went out and bought her a nice shiny new road bike. We were shedding pounds like mad. Not gonna lie, that first 4 months was hard even though the mileage was pale in comparison to today. But we each lost about 35 pounds each during that initial 6 months. Seriously, a combined 70 pounds. No diets or gimmicks. As the weight came off, the running became easier. Then came our first race in November; the Hobble Gobble in Potsdam NY. A prediction run. This type of run is when you show up and find out how far the race is; in this case it had choices of either under 4 miles or under 7 miles. (We obviously picked the under 4 at that point in our lives). Then we estimated our run times. The winners aren’t the runners who finish the fastest; it’s those who come closest to their predicted time. That didn’t matter for us though. We just wanted to finish and have fun; and not die gasping for air like a fish out of water. The day was cool and overcast. Students from the local college were there to sign the national anthem for both the US and Canada. The course had some live turkeys, some cheerleaders, and even a garage band. The run was a simple out and back. My wife and I ran together and worked pretty darn hard coming up the incline to the finish (can’t even call it a hill... but it felt like a mountain). Afterwards we ate some chili and other snacks, and just sat back and enjoyed the company of other runners. We lived to tell the tale. And we started talking about “the next one”. 

Our 1st Race: The Hobble Gobble

Since that first race, we’ve come a long way in these past couple years. We’ve done a bunch of 5k’s, 10k’s, 1/2 marathons, and these insane things called triathlons. We still are just the average everyday novice athlete, but we’ve made it part of our lifestyle. In retrospect, we didn’t put back on any of that weight from before. Good riddance! Looking back, I thank my wife for putting this crazy idea in our head about doing a 5k. It has led to so much more. But I will also never forget that transformation. The work and drive needed to pound out a 5k. At races I do today, i try to stick around after I’m done and cheer in those athletes in the back of the pack. Because I’ve been there. Some of those athletes are working harder and put in more hours of pain that those who come in the top 10%. Why? Because it’s the hard start of a journey. It’s starting a new lifestyle and shedding baggage of past habits and excuses. It's setting a better example for our children. It's not an easy journey to start... but the benefits are huge. 

Our Journey: To Be Continued