Last..... Entry....... Ever..... 1/02

Well possibly.......... as there's a 93 to 94.5% chance I'm going to have a stroke or heart attack in the next 20 minutes........ It's 7am on a Tuesday morning and I just returned from my 1st ever spin class! Yes, it's true, I'm exercising again.....

My new year's resolution is to get back into shape and in doing so I've signed up for a half marathon on February 4th. As of today I've exercised now for 12 days straight which has got to be some kind of record for me.....

About 2 weeks ago I got challenged by a chick and I couldn't let it pass..... (ok, ok, her name is Julie and she's a woman...). She runs a lot and she had signed up for this race and it was late, and I'd been drinking so I was like "hell yeah, I can do it, it's just 13 miles...". Famous last words.... She some how sweet talked me and a buddy of mine into signing up but he's since come down with an "injury" and has now backed out. So it looks like I'm on my own!

Now in my youth I was in shape and did quite a bit of running, but never anything of this distance (normally just 3 to 4 miles). I have a recurring back injury which caused me to quit playing basketball a couple years back and got so bad recently that I basically stopped exercising about 8 months ago. Consequently my weight has ballooned so it's time to start doing something about it.

My training now is mainly concentrating on getting my cardio back and then I'm going to worry about distance as the race gets closer. Granted I'm down to 5 weeks till race time (February 4th, Super Bowl Sunday) but I gotta start somewhere. I've gone out on a couple of long, slow runs but no distance over 8 miles and no time over an hour and a half.... The main thing I notice so far is with the longer distance it's much more mentally grinding..... It definitely takes it toll once I get to an hour.....

As you might imagine I've gotten quite a bit of advice from people.....Most of it is well intentioned and very helpful (Pete, Renee and Deidre all who have run marathons and can do sub 7 second miles...) but it's amazing how many people are "experts" and then when you ask them if they've actually run that distance they come up with this response "well no, but I run a couple times a week.....". Well you know what, whoop do F#$%&ing do! To those people that think they are experts and say they could do it no problem if they wanted, here's the link http://tinyurl.com/ykwsw3, put your BAWLS where your mouth is, sign up and come out and run... You want my respect, earn it, don't be a P$##$Y! Yes you know who you are and yes I'm calling you out.....

As to how long it'll take me to run the race, who the hell knows.... I started out with some ridiculously low time of 1:45, but have since revised it to 2:30 and even that is probably to low.... On my birthday, January 22nd (in case you want to send me a card....) I'll come out with my goal. First and foremost will be to finish, but I'll be in a little better shape by then and will be able to make a more accurate guess in what I can run this in....

Well that's it for now. My heart rate has subsided so it looks it I'm going to live and post another day. Please check back in after the race and I'll give you an update as to how it went!

Happy New Year,

Bill