Monday, August 23, 2010

My new passion!!!

About 15 months ago I took up running... I did it to whip myself into shape, to re-energize myself, to challenge myself, and to cross marathon off my bucket list... I hit the pavement with a passion and quickly fell head over heels in love with running; I was infatuated!!!

For months and months I gave my life to running... I didn't eat - I fueled... I didn't drink - I rehydrate...  polyester became my go to fabric of choice (and not just for pickin' up the ladies)...  I read blogs, magazines, websites, forums, and even books about running...

But like many good relationships the initial passion that running and I shared started to fizzle.  I started to begrudge the fact that I'd have to go out and spend my precious free time with running...  Running must have sensed my resentment and as backlash induced pain and suffering into my runs... the time we spent together became less and less fun, until eventually I began to hate running... finally, the pain became too much to bare and I stopped running all together!

And that's when I found my new passion...  sitting around on my ass!!!

A great thing about my new passion is that I have a whole new attitude about life...Everyone expects runners to be energized, active, and full of life. This is not the case for sit-around-on-your-assers... now I can sit around and be in the most depressest, foulest, grumpiest mood imaginable and nobody bats and eye... it's fuckin' great!!!!

Another thing about my new passion is that it's really improved my relationship with my wife... my wife used to quickly grow tired of me constantly talking about running... she'd hate when I wake up early on the weekends to squeeze in a long run on when we could be snuggled under the blankets, sleeping in... Now things are much better... here's a little look into our new home life:


     Wifey:  "Honey, the lawn needs mowed, the dishes are dirty, and the trash needs taken out..."

     Me:  "Not now, I'm busy sitting around on my ass..."

     Wifey: "Oh sorry.  Never mind, I'll take care of it"

Yep, we're communicating like never before... plus, sitting around on our asses is something we can do together... not only that, but nobody expects people who sit around on their asses to complete things that they finish... in fact, it's a victory to even start something... just like this blog post!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Injury update...

In case anyone was wondering I believe I might have just self-diagnosed my random leg injury...

It's my sartorius!!!

Look at how that bastard wraps from hip across the quad and groin and down to the inner knee...  I hope I'm right because it would totally explain why my hip, groin, quad, and inner knee are all randomly tight or sore all the time...  now let's hope I can find some info on rehabbing it!

Also, I've ran 3 times so far this week; a 5 miles, and two 3 milers... not exactly the kind of mileage that will allow me to competatively complete a marathon in less than 2 months, but at this point I'm happy to be doing anything...

Finally (and completely off topic), the Cardinals are playing the Cubs tonight so in honor of that I'll leave with this Cubs fan hat fail... yep, that's a typical Cubs fan for ya...

Monday, August 9, 2010

I'm back?

It's been 3 weeks since I went down injured!!!... talk about a long and frustrating healing process!

I was starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to train again... in fact, it's been so long I'm starting to doubt if I was ever a runner in the first place... Did I really run 1500+ miles over the last 15 months or was it all a dream?

The good news is that my undiagnosed right groin/quad/hip/knee/blank* injury is slowly but steadily healing and I even got out for a relatively pain free (if you exclude the excruciatingly slow pace) 5 mile jaunt today.  It wasn't my only run during the last 3 weeks, but it was most certainly my most successful... Not only was I pain free enough during the run that I could actually enjoy it a little bit, but I am also pain free enough now (several hours after the run) that I'm not regretting the decision. 

Anyway, after today's run, I'm optimistic that I might actually be able to run more than once this week (especially since it's Monday)... heck, maybe I'll even get double digit miles in... so based on my current condition, I'm going to tentatively declare myself "back".

Next on my agenda... preparation for a little local race coming up in just over 2 months (I think it's called the Chicago Marathon)... Oh well,  I'm not going to worry about 26.2 right now... I'd be content if I could get in 2.6 miles tomorrow!!!

*name any random leg part