Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

I said I would talk more about the sore knee.  It seems that it is a tight hamstring causing the tendon on the back of my knee to feel like an over tightened guitar string.

I’ve been freaked out by this injury(? ) for a couple reasons.  The first is that it could completely ruin my chance to hit my goal time for the half marathon.  That whole I just want to finish doesn’t work.  Set goal.   Achieve.  Set new goal.  I have a realistic goal in mind.  I want to finish between 2:00 and 2:30.  Not unrealistic at all considering on training runs I have completed 10 miles in 1:45.  Sooooo, now I’m looking at several months of building mileage out the window.  The second reason is that I’ve never had an injury like this one.  I’ve had sprains and broken bones I know how to deal with those.  This is new and I don’t have time for a long learning curve.  I know I sound like a whiney wuss.

                                                        My wife thinks this is me.    

First step to a solution is to define problem.

I have to give a huge thanks to my great friend and neighbor Shari.  She is the massage therapist and owner of Mind Over Matter Massage in downtown Jacksonville.  It’s hard to even write ‘downtown Jacksonville’ without hearing the Asian boy from the Unique Furniture (he’s like 19 now).  If you’re from central Arkansas you’ve seen the commercial.  Anyhoo, Shari came over on Super Bowl Sunday and worked on my leg.  How awesome is that?

So, after a full day of rest and Shari working on my leg Sunday I decided Monday evening (last night) to give the leg a short test run in new shoes.

New shoes.  I love them and hate them.  Not this particular pair just new shows in general.  I love getting new shoes. Everyone does.  I remember the best part of starting a new school year was the new pair of shoes.  Out with the old skanky sneaks in with the new.  Since I started running shoes are a crap shoot.  They feel great in the store but around mile 2 they feel like you have a board strapped to your foot.  Nevermind blisters.  Shoe companies in their never ending wisdom and attempt to ‘improve’ existing product take the shoe that fits you great and completely $%^& it up.

For the record February is just past the right time to buy running shoe.  The clearance is on for the old styles but they are down to the sizes that fit only midgets or mutants (not that there's anything wrong with that.) So every pair I looked at they were out of my size.  After trying on a dozen or so different shoes I buy my first ever pair of ASICS.  It's not important or a big deal but when has that stopped someone from blogging it. 

Me, my new shoes and my jacked up leg walk into a bar.  I mean go for a short run.  I decide I’m going to do 2 miles really slow. 1 mile out and 1 mile back.  I kissed my wife and told her to send out the search party if I wasn't back in 30 minutes.  I typed all this and now I wish I had a great end to the story something insane crazy funny.  Instead I just rambled.  I got nothing.  You read all this for a big let down.  No payoff nothing happened.  My leg bothered me but not too much.  I made it  home no search party.

Sorry.

A Pirate Runs Towards 40 or The Further Adventures of a Husky Boy...

So where to begin...I guess at the beginning.

I was born a poor black child.

Sorry, that's wrong.  I can't live a lie.  That's the beginning of The Jerk with Steve Martin.  I just love that line.  Best opening to a movie EVER.  I expect there's going to be more references to this movie before the adventure is over.

In reality, I'm 38 (white, not that it matters) and training to run my first half marathon (13.1 miles) next month just days before my 39th.  The idea behind this blog is that I want to chronicle my efforts to run the half marathon (13.1 miles) with the goal of runing the full marathon (26.2 miles) just before the big four oh.  I'll expand on my family (sexy supportive wife Angie and wonderful daughter Chloe), my great friends, work and my life in general as I go along.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this, the marathon running not the writing.  I know why I'm writing.  I hope the why of the marathon crystalizes as I'm doing this.  Is it mid-life crisis?  Ignorance? Stupidity?  Acomplishment? All of the above or none, I don't know.  Yet.

I do know a little over a year and a half ago my lovely, talented, brilliant, wonderful (I'm a proud parent) daughter Chloe was playing soccer and was preparing to move up to the "big" field.  The big field is around 10 yards longer and wider than a football field.  She was worried that she would not have the cardio for that size field.  In her defense, she was moving up to the big field about 3 years sooner than is usual.  Girls just don't turn out for sports in the same numbers as boys.  So we wind up with a U14 team made up of girls from 11-14.

Anyhoo, the aforementioned wonderful daughter asks if I'll run with her.  Help her get in shape.  As a good dad and encouraging coach I agree immediately.  I compliment her on her diligence. I tell her that's she a great example for the team, then...I panic.

I'm 5'9" and at the time 2 bills.  200 POUNDS. WTF. OMG.  FML.

                                                          actual photo Christmas 2009
                                                Okay, maybe not but it felt like it at the time.

I'm not sure I could keep up with her when I was her age.  I was a husky kid.  She's definitely not.  If you are not familiar with "husky" it means you're chubby.  Chubby's not nice to say unless you're talking about a 6 month old baby.  I wasn't 6 months old anymore so husky I was.  Fortunately, when I hit about 13 that went away naturally as I got taller.  Once I quit growing and stopped playing sports I got husky again.  It snuck up on me.  Husky or not I've played about every sport you can play in Arkansas I even ran track (poorly) but  I.   Hated.  Running.  Probably why I played a lot of baseball.  Baseball is a lazy man's game.  Running was punishment.

Fact: Every coach for every sport punishes players by making them run.

Back to the story, I started running without her because she had a sore ankle.  Figured it would work out great.  I run a week or 2 without her get a little head start on the conditioning.  When her ankle got better she would join me. Simple.

As with most plans this one didn't work out and I had to make adjustments on the run so to speak.  (see what I did there?)

She never joined me and I never stopped.  My clothes started fitting better. (encouragement) I had more energy.(encouragement!) I noticed weight loss.  I now hover around 180.  (encouragement!!) And there was a sense of accomplishment as I went from jog 1 lap/walk 1 lap to jog 2/walk 1 then 3/1 then jog for a 30 minutes without stopping.  The 45.  Then 60 minutes. Then 80 until this week was 110.

Saturday one hour fifty minutes. (encouragement?)

My knee hurts now. (not so encouraging.)  More on that later.

As I mentioned, this journey? started over a year and a half ago so I'll be sharing things that occur in the now and talk about things I've learned the hard way.

Finally, I feel like I should explain the title of the blog "It's My Own Damn Fault..."? I batted a buch of titles around.  Beside being a parrothead reference it's fairly apropos.  I bought into the dream of boat drinks and idealized tropics Jimmy has been hawking some 23 years ago (yes I was 16 more on that another time).  Mainly though running is something you can do on your own.  No team. No coach.  You and whatever is ahead of you.  No one to blame for your failure or success but you.

Yesterday my knee hurt pretty bad, and yes, it's my own damn fault.  Jimmy please don't sue.