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.
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.
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