Just Set the Bar Higher
I’ve always been excited about running. Ever since I started at 14 years old, I’ve been passionate about heading out of the door for a run. An off day is tough on me, but I know they are necessary. When I was in high school I did pretty well running longer distances. I qualified for the state championships in the 2 mile run, ran in the 4:20’s for a mile in my senior year, and then dropped the ball after I left high school. I never took advantage of the genes that my parents passed on to me. I didn’t run again after my freshman year of college until 12 years later.
When I started back up I rekindled the love for running, even though that first day I tried to run I remember vividly the pain of not being able to finish a mile. Here I was a former high school runner who won every regular season race he ever was in as a senior. Now I was feeling the bad choices I made with food and drink. I thought to myself, can I ever get back to where I left off? Within a year I had completed my first marathon, not pretty but under 4 hours even though I walked miles 19 – 23. I continued to run local races, lots of 5K and 10K races, and a couple of half marathons. I started picking up a few age group awards while in my early 30’s. OK, I thought, can I do better?
About that time I got married and my son was born and I had serious surgery to remove a tumor from my spinal cord. I had a 50/50 chance for paralysis but I pulled through and recovered. I ran again but building a house and coaching my stepson basketball and baseball, I started seeing my time for running going away. Eventually I stopped running again. This time it was family time and that didn’t seem to hurt as bad at first. As the years went by, I started craving that feeling of running off down a country road just me and my thoughts. I had been transferred across the state for my job.
In my new home, I picked up the running bug again. The roads were much flatter there and I lived in suburbia, lots of safe roads to run on. I began entering races again. This time I was getting really up there in years, as I thought at the time. I started having muscle strains and injuries that I was lucky to never have had in all of my previous years of running. There wasn’t the technology and internet full of ideas and solutions that there are today. I would just stop running and wait to heal, and then go back at it. My times in races climbed so much from my younger days. My son had started getting serious with playing basketball and was getting recruiting letters from colleges when he was a sophomore in high school. His AAU team needed a coach so I volunteered and that took up just about every second of my time outside of work and household duties. So I stopped running again. Somewhere in there I broke my ankle playing basketball, my first broken bone of my life. It took me two years to even walk normal again.
A couple of years ago I finally got sick of the 240 pound 54 year old loser in the mirror and decided to do something with my health. Through diet first, then adding exercise I lost 55 pounds by the end of the year. I started running again, did well for an overweight guy who hadn’t run in 8 years. Still I wanted more. How far can I get back to my younger days? Now I was getting obsessed with that. I would get frustrated at any derailment of my training. My times weren’t even lower than the ones when I just started back a year earlier? Why? Was I over the hill already? I assumed that I couldn’t improve and just started running for the pure enjoyment. By now I was certified to be a running coach and had started my coaching business, helping others get what I couldn’t have. I learned to be satisfied with that. Helping people always gave me enough personal satisfaction. Until this past Saturday.
I ran the first race of the spring season for me, a 5 mile race run organized by one of the running clubs I belong to. It is a hilly course and I was in better shape than this time last year. The weather was much better, no wind, and I knocked a minute off of my time from last year. OK, here we go again. Is there hope? Can I get back some of what I thought I lost? As my wife and I were watching the awards ceremony, in my age group, 55-59, the 3rd place finisher ran the race 5 minutes faster than me. They’re running a minute per mile faster? In fact, I wouldn’t have won any award in the 65-69 age group. What did all of these runners have that I didn’t have? At my age group in 1974 I was one of the best in the state? Why am I this far behind now? What are they eating and drinking that I’m not? I’ve been good; I eat right and very rarely drink alcohol. I did come in 11th out of 40 in my age group, and that is where I usually end up, about better than 75% of the runners my age. But in high school I was at the 98% level.
What I noticed, and mentioned to my wife, is that every one of these guys walking up to get awards was thin. I mean really thin. Like 18 BMI thin. OK, now I started to see the picture. In my head on the way home I was calculating in my head that I probably had another 10 seconds per mile in me for that race for next year. Another minute off of my time would be nice but I still wouldn’t come close to those awards. My weight had crept back up 25 pounds of the 55 I originally lost. Through resting for injuries and getting sloppy on watching portions of food and what I ate, I got what I deserved. I had started a mission at the end of 2011 to get that weight back off. Up until the race Saturday I had lost 10 of those 25 gained pounds. That alone is probably most of the minute I knocked off of my time from last year. That got me thinking since I saw the thin people winning everything.
I have a nice fancy spreadsheet that I picked up along the way from my running coaching. It was developed by a man named Jack Daniels, PHD. It is very scientific, and you can plug in variables like your age, weight, resting heart rate, maximum heart rate, race times and distance, and goal weights. It estimates what your VO2 max is (maximum amount of oxygen your body is capable of consuming per minute during exercise) at your current weight, race times, etc. I started playing around with this tool and I almost fell of my chair when I started seeing numbers and times show up. I have had this tool for a couple of years now and never did I take the time to fully go through the entire thing and do so much analysis that I just did yesterday. I only have used it to build training plans by typing in race times and seeing suggested training paces.
I’m trying to come down from the dream clouds and be realistic but I was seeing potential times for me that were almost like those that I was running at 30 years old. What is the key factor? Weight. Given that I train with the same intensity no matter what weight I am (using heart rate as a guide) I learned that if this tool is accurate I can knock off 11 minutes from my November half marathon time if I just get to my goal weight, which is about 18 pounds from where I am today. If I am patient and lose a pound a week (I have been losing at a rate of 1.4 pounds per week since January), by June or July I will hit that goal weight, earlier if I stay on the 1.4 per week track. Of course I need to keep training with the same intensity, eating the right foods that give me enough fuel to train, and stay injury free. These are all major factors but it can be done. OK I went further in my dream.
I started plugging in more numbers, and if I can get to the weight that I was 23 years ago when I got married, 165 pounds, I would have the potential to run a sub 3 hour marathon, not that I want to try. At 180 pounds, my goal weight and very realistic, I have the potential to win an age group award at the very same 5 mile race I just did and thought I have no hope of ever placing at. I plan to take it slow and deliberate, and not rush the weight loss. I need to keep up my strength training so I don’t lose too much muscle, and I need to be smart with training and racing and stay healthy and injury free. I also realize that other factors may make Jack Daniels' tool inaccurate. While it has factors to plug in for temperature (weather) conditions, it is scientific and isn’t able to factor in human conditions like sleep, emotions, and even nutrition on training or race days. I will take the tool with a grain a salt. It does, however, give me scientific proof that I have the potential I always thought I had to get back to that higher level that I enjoyed in high school. I have the potential VO2 max, and lots of rooms to lose weight without becoming too light. There’s a very large window of opportunity and now’s the time to seize it.
It is a new and significant boost to the motivation I already have to continue losing weight, train well, and try to stay injury free. I haven’t been this excited about running and fitness in a very long time. That’s saying a lot.
When I started back up I rekindled the love for running, even though that first day I tried to run I remember vividly the pain of not being able to finish a mile. Here I was a former high school runner who won every regular season race he ever was in as a senior. Now I was feeling the bad choices I made with food and drink. I thought to myself, can I ever get back to where I left off? Within a year I had completed my first marathon, not pretty but under 4 hours even though I walked miles 19 – 23. I continued to run local races, lots of 5K and 10K races, and a couple of half marathons. I started picking up a few age group awards while in my early 30’s. OK, I thought, can I do better?
About that time I got married and my son was born and I had serious surgery to remove a tumor from my spinal cord. I had a 50/50 chance for paralysis but I pulled through and recovered. I ran again but building a house and coaching my stepson basketball and baseball, I started seeing my time for running going away. Eventually I stopped running again. This time it was family time and that didn’t seem to hurt as bad at first. As the years went by, I started craving that feeling of running off down a country road just me and my thoughts. I had been transferred across the state for my job.
In my new home, I picked up the running bug again. The roads were much flatter there and I lived in suburbia, lots of safe roads to run on. I began entering races again. This time I was getting really up there in years, as I thought at the time. I started having muscle strains and injuries that I was lucky to never have had in all of my previous years of running. There wasn’t the technology and internet full of ideas and solutions that there are today. I would just stop running and wait to heal, and then go back at it. My times in races climbed so much from my younger days. My son had started getting serious with playing basketball and was getting recruiting letters from colleges when he was a sophomore in high school. His AAU team needed a coach so I volunteered and that took up just about every second of my time outside of work and household duties. So I stopped running again. Somewhere in there I broke my ankle playing basketball, my first broken bone of my life. It took me two years to even walk normal again.
A couple of years ago I finally got sick of the 240 pound 54 year old loser in the mirror and decided to do something with my health. Through diet first, then adding exercise I lost 55 pounds by the end of the year. I started running again, did well for an overweight guy who hadn’t run in 8 years. Still I wanted more. How far can I get back to my younger days? Now I was getting obsessed with that. I would get frustrated at any derailment of my training. My times weren’t even lower than the ones when I just started back a year earlier? Why? Was I over the hill already? I assumed that I couldn’t improve and just started running for the pure enjoyment. By now I was certified to be a running coach and had started my coaching business, helping others get what I couldn’t have. I learned to be satisfied with that. Helping people always gave me enough personal satisfaction. Until this past Saturday.
I ran the first race of the spring season for me, a 5 mile race run organized by one of the running clubs I belong to. It is a hilly course and I was in better shape than this time last year. The weather was much better, no wind, and I knocked a minute off of my time from last year. OK, here we go again. Is there hope? Can I get back some of what I thought I lost? As my wife and I were watching the awards ceremony, in my age group, 55-59, the 3rd place finisher ran the race 5 minutes faster than me. They’re running a minute per mile faster? In fact, I wouldn’t have won any award in the 65-69 age group. What did all of these runners have that I didn’t have? At my age group in 1974 I was one of the best in the state? Why am I this far behind now? What are they eating and drinking that I’m not? I’ve been good; I eat right and very rarely drink alcohol. I did come in 11th out of 40 in my age group, and that is where I usually end up, about better than 75% of the runners my age. But in high school I was at the 98% level.
What I noticed, and mentioned to my wife, is that every one of these guys walking up to get awards was thin. I mean really thin. Like 18 BMI thin. OK, now I started to see the picture. In my head on the way home I was calculating in my head that I probably had another 10 seconds per mile in me for that race for next year. Another minute off of my time would be nice but I still wouldn’t come close to those awards. My weight had crept back up 25 pounds of the 55 I originally lost. Through resting for injuries and getting sloppy on watching portions of food and what I ate, I got what I deserved. I had started a mission at the end of 2011 to get that weight back off. Up until the race Saturday I had lost 10 of those 25 gained pounds. That alone is probably most of the minute I knocked off of my time from last year. That got me thinking since I saw the thin people winning everything.
I have a nice fancy spreadsheet that I picked up along the way from my running coaching. It was developed by a man named Jack Daniels, PHD. It is very scientific, and you can plug in variables like your age, weight, resting heart rate, maximum heart rate, race times and distance, and goal weights. It estimates what your VO2 max is (maximum amount of oxygen your body is capable of consuming per minute during exercise) at your current weight, race times, etc. I started playing around with this tool and I almost fell of my chair when I started seeing numbers and times show up. I have had this tool for a couple of years now and never did I take the time to fully go through the entire thing and do so much analysis that I just did yesterday. I only have used it to build training plans by typing in race times and seeing suggested training paces.
I’m trying to come down from the dream clouds and be realistic but I was seeing potential times for me that were almost like those that I was running at 30 years old. What is the key factor? Weight. Given that I train with the same intensity no matter what weight I am (using heart rate as a guide) I learned that if this tool is accurate I can knock off 11 minutes from my November half marathon time if I just get to my goal weight, which is about 18 pounds from where I am today. If I am patient and lose a pound a week (I have been losing at a rate of 1.4 pounds per week since January), by June or July I will hit that goal weight, earlier if I stay on the 1.4 per week track. Of course I need to keep training with the same intensity, eating the right foods that give me enough fuel to train, and stay injury free. These are all major factors but it can be done. OK I went further in my dream.
I started plugging in more numbers, and if I can get to the weight that I was 23 years ago when I got married, 165 pounds, I would have the potential to run a sub 3 hour marathon, not that I want to try. At 180 pounds, my goal weight and very realistic, I have the potential to win an age group award at the very same 5 mile race I just did and thought I have no hope of ever placing at. I plan to take it slow and deliberate, and not rush the weight loss. I need to keep up my strength training so I don’t lose too much muscle, and I need to be smart with training and racing and stay healthy and injury free. I also realize that other factors may make Jack Daniels' tool inaccurate. While it has factors to plug in for temperature (weather) conditions, it is scientific and isn’t able to factor in human conditions like sleep, emotions, and even nutrition on training or race days. I will take the tool with a grain a salt. It does, however, give me scientific proof that I have the potential I always thought I had to get back to that higher level that I enjoyed in high school. I have the potential VO2 max, and lots of rooms to lose weight without becoming too light. There’s a very large window of opportunity and now’s the time to seize it.
It is a new and significant boost to the motivation I already have to continue losing weight, train well, and try to stay injury free. I haven’t been this excited about running and fitness in a very long time. That’s saying a lot.
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