Day 2; Disclaimer

June 8, 2011.

Stats: 2.6 miles, 29 min, HR (ave./max): 154/176.

First a disclaimer: 

I am not a medical doctor. Surprise! What this means is that I am not trying to tell you that you should run, that overweight men should run, that men in their 30's should run: nothing. I make no recommendations based on health or fitness and no warranties of safety. Frankly, I'm not even sure it's a good idea for me to run.

Good. Glad that's out of the way.

Shaved almost a minute off my Day 1 time. So that's something I guess.

Day 2 was easier because: (a) I had a day in my pocket already committed to the effort, so I am pot-committed in a sense; and (b) I didn't overdo it on Day 1. Day 1 was at least two weeks in the making, two weeks of me setting my alarm, waking up, snoozing, checking the internet, bargaining, going to work early, and generally doing whatever I could to avoid running. Day 1 was hard because I knew that it was "Day 1" of something, and not just going for a morning jog. Day 1 carried with it the prospect of everyday that would follow, either the burden of hundreds of miles of waking early and running or the burden of a failed project. Day 2 was just the next day. So I woke up more easily, I got into my running shorts easily, I strapped on my heart rate monitor easily, dropped a load of laundry in the washer, and took off. 

Day 2 was harder because my muscles are not used to this. Quads and hammies and whatever muscles are buried beneath love handles are all a little tighter today. And not good tighter, not firm, just sore. I felt it most after my run, walking down the three steps out of my building on the way to work. But I felt it on my run, too, with my calves refusing to relax and my feet cramping. And here's the unavoidable truth: I'm heavy. I'm overweight (actually "obese"), sure, but that's different from the actual fact of the weight. That's a ratio, or some sort of value figure. I'm not talking about fitness here. I'm talking about the sheer load of weight. When I run, I empathize with the soles of my shoes, smashed repeatedly against the pavement by my foot. Think of it this way: a gallon of milk weighs about 8.5 lbs. We've all felt the heft of carrying a gallon of milk, and it's not something we'd want to carry far. If I were at an appropriate weight - at the very heaviest I can be without being overweight, a BMI of 25 - I would have to carry almost 6 gallons of milk to approximate the load I'm carrying in extra weight. Can you imagine running 2 miles with 6 gallons of milk tied to you? Or even going through the motions of a normal day? Not ideal.

I saw two runners today who stood out to me, one a short skinny-but-broad-shouldered guy and one a tall thin girl. The guy looked like a wound spring. He was running faster than I was already, but looked like with his next step he could break into a full on sprint, or jump three feet in the air, or stop and change direction completely. Like he had a palpable energy coiled inside him. I thought about myself, and how I felt as I ran. I feel mostly like I am doing everything I can just to keep from falling down. I could not stop or change directions quickly, and couldn't burst into a significantly faster gait. I am basically on tracks, something of a victim of inertia at the moment. The girl looked light on her feet. The cushions of her shoes barely compressed with her footfalls. She looked strong, with a toned physique, but she looked like she had the same specific gravity as the air and, if she wanted to, could just go swim away from me without touching the ground. 

I walk for 3 minutes, quickly, to warm up. I do this instead of stretching because I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that I shouldn't stretch cold muscles, and walking is a good warm up and other things I don't clearly recall. So it's what I do. I stretch some after I get back home. But I finish my run coming out from the 18th St. pedestrian bridge over the South Shore Line tracks. One of my goals is to run all the way up the incline to that bridge. It's at the end of my run, and pretty steep, so my heart rate usually spikes a short way up and I have to walk the rest. If you wondered where in my run I hit 176 beats per minute, now you know. Once I get to the top, I'm able to run again, and I run down the other side and try to sprint up the slight incline back out to Calumet Ave., then walk home (quickly) as my cool down period. I stop the timer when I get to my building.

So two days are in the bank now. The sinews that tie my spine to my pelvis to my femurs to my shins are all achy. But they will adjust. Training.