What I Hope to Achieve, Part 1: The Fitness Factor

Crossing the finish line at the
St. Patrick's Day 8K in DC 
in March. Probably not
supposed to use this photo, 
huh?

I'm planning to run about 2-4 miles a day, depending on where I'm going, as part of giving up my car.  I may be filling in missing pieces of RideOn routes or running out of the District to get to a RideOn route, once Jon moves to Van Ness.  What's nice about incorporating a run into my work commute is that when I get home, I've already gotten my workout in and have the rest of the night to do whatever I need to do (read: hang out with Jon, watch my beloved Phillies dominate in the postseason after having won their fourth straight NL East championship). As I've already seen, it takes just about as much time to run down Rockville Pike during rush hour as it does for a RideOn bus to make the same trip.  It has its share of logistical problems, but I'm dealing with those.

This past spring I went to visit a friend living in Seoul, and then spent two weeks backpacking around Southeast Asia with her. It was a huge trip for me and I wanted to make a huge change accordingly beforehand. In anticipation of my travels, I lost about 20 pounds through changing up my diet, cutting out alcohol altogether (except for one grandfathered-in weekend with Millersville friends visiting), and exercising. After I got back I dropped another 10 pounds, meaning that I weighed 165 pounds for the first time since probably 6th or 7th grade. I had discovered that I actually loved running - something I hated having to do in gym class - and ran a 5K, 8K, and 10 miler in Charlotte, DC, and Philly, respectively.

In June I came down with a nasty case of shin splints, probably because I pushed my body too hard too soon after taking some time off (at least that's what Jon and U.S. Track Champion Lauren Fleshman, my favorite runner, would tell me). This required more time off to give my legs a rest. I also had to back out on a friend who I was going to run a 10 mile race in Baltimore with. To be honest, I'm still getting back to where I was.

I've also got the afforementioned cruise to the Bahamas coming up in 12 days, so if I could drop some pounds before that shitshow sets sail, that'd be hot. But it's really about getting back to where I was as a runner and maintaining my goal weight (ack, hate that term) the weight at which I feel my best.  So the goal is to get back to 165, which, at the beginning of this endeavor, was 12 pounds away.

Of course, fitness isn't the only factor involved in this decision, and I'll have more on the others in later posts.