The first mile (plus)...

It’s not just a step, it’s a start

I have a friend that signs off on all of his inspirational posts in that manner.

Dave over at Eastern Walking is a very inspirational writer.  I've just not been listening.  Click on that Facebook icon to go to his page.  Give him a read, you'll like it.

It's such a simple phrase.  It's not just a step, it's a start.  A start that I've been putting off for one reason or another.  Just knowing the real reason is just being lazy, complacent it just being the way that I am.

The 40th Indy Mini has come and gone, and I didn't participate.  One of the medications I'm on kind of backfires on me sometimes and makes me very sick.  Well, the day before the Indy Mini, it hit me hard again.  I didn't even make it to get the packet, let alone even think of starting the event the next day.

The Tour DeCure has come and gone too, and I didn't participate.  I've not been on the bike since last year's Tour DeCure and I was in no shape to try it this year.  I missed my donations goal too, so I wasn't eligible to ride either.  A very BIG thank you to those of you that DID donate this year.  I WILL make it up!  100 miles 2017?

I'm tired of taking this nasty medication.  I'm tired of taking ALL of the medications I'm currently on.  The only way the doctor is going to even consider taking me off of them, is if I get this weight off and show that I'll be able to KEEP it off.

This evening, I put on the shoes and stepped out that front door.  I TOOK that first step.  I took that first step TODAY.  Tomorrow, I will have to take that FIRST step again. This will be a daily battle for me, until it becomes second nature to me like it did five years ago.

FIVE YEARS AGO!
Yes, it was OVER five years ago that I swore that I was going to loose that 100 pounds.  IN A YEAR.  I followed my plan!  (For the most part)  I followed my diet!  (Mostly).  I had some slippage along the way, but I did loose the weight!  I did go from a couch potato to someone that can do a half marathon!  I didn't make it that 100 pounds, but I made a good dent in that total.

Five Years Ago, interesting...  Did anyone notice..
I was going through my files that I had set up for my training those five years ago.  It was a simple Excel file.  I had one tab with my Couch 2 5K, then a tab for my Bridge to 10K, finally a 3rd tab with my plan for my Half Marathon training!  It's all there. Dates I did what, notes on how I felt and most importantly, the weight I was loosing.

Oh, so then I noticed something.  The dates this year, MATCH the dates from five years ago!

Me Vs. ME!

So, this brings me to my next point.  For the remainder of this year and leading into the Half Marathon next January, I'm going to be competing against myself!  I'm going to take my records from five years ago, and go against them this year!

It was around this time those five years ago that I started running outside, as the Treadmill-o-doom was giving me fits.  So, I'm going to be starting behind myself for now, but things will sync up well by the time we hit Half Marathon training time.  

Training
Here is my Schedule:

Couch to 5K - 9 weeks 6/6/16 through 8/5/16
Bridge to 10k - 6 weeks: 8/8/16 through 9/16/16

Vacation: 9/9/16 through 9/18/16.  During this time, I hope to get with Dave and see if I might be able to learn this walking technique!  It also overlaps the last B210K week, which I might put off till after vacation.

4 week gap / makeup: 9/18/16 trhough 10/15/16 - Use this time in case of slippage in the C25k/B210K Plans.

Half Marathon Training: 12 Weeks: 10/16/16 through to the race on 1/7/17!


Weigh-in Tuesday


Dad and I were doing the "Biggest looser" style weigh-ins each week.  So, to match up from five years ago, my next weigh in is Tuesday, 6/7/16.  By that time, I had already gotten down to 256.  I'm NOT going to like what the scale has to say Tuesday, but that's what it'll be.  I've taken that weigh in file and updated it so that I can track myself to it this year.  Weekly, my goal is to BEAT what my weekly loss percent was then.



Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp

2016 - Challenge Year: Me Vs. Me! Check the link above to see my current and past races.

Here we go again...

8 Months Down the Road
Last that was heard from me was 8 months ago.  I was starting to "train" for the 2016 WDW 1/2 Marathon.  Well, since there were no updates, there was no training.  

I went to Disney World for Vacation in September and then I was back down for Marathon weekend in January.

I made it.  I was not last like I was the year before, but I wasn't that far ahead of the back of the pack.  

I wish I remember the guys name that stuck with me after the climb up to the overpass coming off of World Drive, heading to Epcot.  He was going back and forth with several of us back in the back, and he helped me keep my mind off of how bad I was feeling.  I wish I would have seen him at the end or even remembered his name.  It's people like that that give these types of events a good name.  He wasn't one of the Team in Training coaches either.  Just a guy, helping out the back of the packers make it those last few miles.

I walked the entire route.  I didn't even attempt to do any running, as I was THE HEAVIEST I've ever been.  I was pushing 292-295ish (possibly over the 300 mark...) in January.  

The next morning, I was up even earlier than I had been for the 1/2!  I was a volunteer for the Marathon on Sunday!  I was on my feet all morning, from 2am till 9 am, I was "on duty".  I was part of the teams that put out the snack boxes and bananas.  Our only duty was to load them up for the first and greet the super elite and wheelchair racers as they came in.

Anyone who thinks the wheelchair racers have it easy for a marathon, has never witnessed any of them crossing the finish line.  These first racers in were just as run down and shaky as the elite runners are when they come in.  

It was amazing, because we were able to see everyone in the corrals leave on the jumbo screens they had set up in the family area.  We would then get updates as to where the wheelchair racers were and where the elite runners were, and when we could expect them to come in!  It was an amazing experience to have.  Not so much the stacking of the boxes, but to see a lot of the behind the scenes work that goes into putting these events on!

In February, I saw a nutritionist.  I'm on a new diet and I'm having a rough go at even attempting to stay true to the plan.  I'm getting better, and those "better" weeks are the ones I've actually seen the scale move down.

I'm currently at 283.  Back in 2011, when I started training for my first half marathon, I was just a bit lighter.

So, today, I've signed up for the 20th running of the Walt Disney World 1/2 Marathon.  We are now five ears down the road from my first race.

Coming up
I have the 2016 Indy Mini Marathon coming up in a couple of weeks.  Again, next to zero training effort.  I will be walking this one too.

A month after that, I have the 2016 Tour De Cure bike ride!  I'm way short of my donations goal.  I may actually have to pay out of pocket to meet the minimum.  I have to remember to take in my packet, so I can see if I can get some donations from work.  They have a matching plan, that I missed out on last year because I didn't get the correct paperwork.  Now, I'm very short on time.

Once the Tour De Cure is finished, its then time to fully focus on these two new goals.

When I hit that start line in 2017:

1)  I am to be AT or lighter than I was when I crossed that line five years ago!
     (242 lbs or lighter is the actual goal)
2)  I will finish the race in a better time than I did that first race five years ago!
     (3:48:49 2012 WDW 1/2 Marathon, 
      3:32:27 is my PR time from the 2012 Flying Pig Half Marathon.)


Blogging about it helped me stay honest back then, and I hope that I can use it as a tool to help keep me honest in this go around.

Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp

2016 - Some witty catch phrase goes here! Check the link above to see my current and past races.

I don't like Monday's

Monday
Time to hit the treadmill!  

I start getting ready and find that my sport earbuds that I've used for the past 3 years have basically exploded.

No problem, I had bought a new pair last year and only used them like once.  Time to break them out and start putting them to use.

I power up the treadmill-o-doom, put the safety key in and get all my gadgets ready...  start!  


Start!!


Start!!

Treadmill-o-doom is back to it's old tricks.  It's not recognizing any button presses.  Just great.  I'm tired and really didn't feel like messing with it.  Scrapped my plans for Monday night.

Tuesday
It could be nice enough to ride outside... but it's pretty windy.  I decide to just leave it on the trainer and go with that.

I tightened up the resistance a little bit and it felt a little more of a natural ride.

Goal was to make it an hour in the saddle.  I managed that.  In fact, my record of the ride was short, because I was going for 5 minutes before I realized I didn't hit start on the watch!  OOPS!

The GPS watch recording of the ride says that the wheel turned the equivilent of 13.11 miles, just about a half marathon's worth!  LOL.  1 hour to do what took me over 4 hours by foot back in Janauray!

Wednesday
What can I say.  I plug in the Treadmill-o-doom and it fires up!!  GREAT!

I go get ready, get all my stuff together.  Get onto the treadmill-o-doom and it WON'T GO!

Well, I'm not standing for this tonight.  I took the console apart again and disconnected the left side buttons.

Yep.  That did it, I can get it to work, but I have no incline control.  That is the ONLY control on the left side that I ever use.  OH well.  Hopefully we'll get out of this rain pattern and I'll transition to running outside full time.

Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend!
Early registrations for Annual Passholders opened up yesterday.  It's really killing me that I can't register for the Half!  I'm hoping that spots will still be there Friday!  If not, I'll have to take my chances at open registration next week.  I'll hate that, as the registration site usually overloads and it will be my luck that it'll fill up in like 10 minutes...

Tour de Cure - Indy June 20, 2015!
Well, apparently I suck at fund raising.  I'm still at the same place I was when I first posted about this.

Click this and help!

Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp

2015 - Rebuilding from the Shoes up! Check the link above to see my current and past races.

Picture This

C25K - W1D2
It was nice out tonight so I did my run outside.  It was a shock to the legs to be pounding the asphalt.  There were other people out and about tonight.  One pair of runners ignored me, didn't even return my hello.  Most everyone else said hi and/or waved.

Took a picture last night....
I forgot to take the picture I took last night.  So, I'll post that one and one from tonight.

3/31/15 - after riding on the trainer

 I was also in my biking gear.  The shorts still take some getting used to with the padding in the nether region.

4/1/15 - After C25K W1D2 run outside.

This was tonight.  I was wearing one of my new shirts I picked up at WalMart.  I got 3 shirts, all XXL.  They're made out of recycled techshirts!  They're also really cheap.  Comfortable on the run, so that's what counts.

Tech Junkie!
I had some PayPal money sitting out there, due to a seller never sending me an item back in January and E-bay sided with me.  I got a refund.  

So, I did what anyone else would have done... well, okay, maybe just my other tech obsessed friends.

So, being the tech junkie that I am, I bought a new weight scale off of E-bay.  It is a Taylor SmarTrack Bluetooth Body Analyzer.  It's a weight scale... with BLUETOOTH!  There's an app for that too!  TECHNOLOGY!!  

Here is what it registered on the phone app this morning:

Weight: 279.8 lbs
Body Fat: 47.8%
Body Water: 43.0%
Muscle Mass: 25%
Calories: 3223 (If I wanted to STAY this weight... well, THAT'S useless...)


Bike Pic!
Someone sent me a picture of what my first bike would have looked like!  That would be before the icicle crushed it, of course.

THE Bike in the early '70's!

Tour de Cure - Indy June 20, 2015!

Click this and help!

Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp

2015 - Rebuilding from the Shoes up! Check the link above to see my current and past races.

Back on the Saddle

What happened then...
Growing up, I loved riding bikes.  My first "real" bike I remember was the standard bike for many kids in the '70's.  I had a Red Schwinn Stingray.  Banana seat...  tassels on the handles.  The whole deal.

In the blizzard of '78, I had left my bike outside.  I giant icicle formed on the side of the house... you guessed it, it encased my bike.  When it thawed, it pretty much crushed the bike.

My next bike didn't last long.  It was a Huffy "BMX" bike.  Months after getting it, it was stolen from school.  Myself and 2 other friends had our bikes all locked together onto the playground fence at grade school.  Mine was closest to the fence.  We left school at the end of that day and my bike was gone, the other 2 were still sitting there.  The "good" thing that came of this?  The school installed bike racks up next to the building for us to lock our bikes up.

My next bike was a small 10 speed.  I've never been all that tall, so this small 10 speed fit me and I had this one until it literally fell apart around about the time of my Junior/Senior year in high school.

By this time, I had my drivers license.  Getting a new bike wasn't a priority.

About 10 years later, in the early to mid '90's, I had a junky 10 speed bike that I paid $25.00 for.  It didn't fit me well, but I rode it all over the place for several years.

In 1996, I was swiped by a car while riding my bike into work.

It's a moment that plays in my mind in slow motion.  I can remember feeling the car so close to me and seeing the hood of the car.  Then the sharp pain as the side view mirror finds it's target in my left side caboose.

It sent me, and my junky 10 speed flying.  Irony being as it is, this happened right in front of an EMT's house.  The EMT heard the car and came rushing out to see me and the bike sprawled on the pavement.  He came up to me and asked me where it hurt.  At the time, all I could think of was my back.

He had a call into emergency and the ambulance was on it's way.  I got the full deal ride.  Neck brace, back board, gurney ride.  A trip right to the hospital with all the bells and whistles going the whole way.  X-rays were taken, I was poked and prodded for a while.  

It came back that there was nothing broken, but I was going be having a very difficult time sitting down for quite a while.

The bike sat in the garage, until I moved to Indy.  The bike stayed at the old house, I never even thought of bringing it along.

I started running
After moving to Indy, I'd finally had enough and started running.  You can go back to my first blog entries to find out about this trip.

In many of the sites, books and magazines I read about running, it came up over and over again that cycling was a good cross-training activity for runners.  So the thought was planted in my mind about getting a new bike.

I would look online at bikes and drool over everything that I couldn't afford.  

I finally made up my mind at the end of 2013 after I had sprained my ankle.  It was time to serious look into getting a bike.

We wound up with a decent bonus at work for the year and I made my purchase.  I briefly spoke about that in the blog when I got it.

Giant Defy 5 (small)

Giant Defy 5, size small.  I got it on closeout.  The first time I picked it up, I was amazed!  It's so light compared to anything I had ever ridden before!

I went through and got fitted to the bike.  I purchase clip in shoes and pedals.  I have a water bottle.  I got a trainer so I could still use it in the 6 months of crap we call winter here in Indy.

Bottle Holder - Matches the bike almost perfectly!

The Water Bottle!

SIDI Genius 5 Road Bike shoes

and, of course, a helmet.

And there it all sat.  I rode it a total of 4 times in 2014.  FOUR times.

2014 - The year of saying F-it.
2014 was not a good year fitness wise for me.  I pretty much gave up again.  

Sure, I did several races, but I didn't train properly or at all for them.  They were all painful experiences.  Not something I would recommend for anyone.

One day, I hear on the news about the Tour de Cure here in Indianapolis.  I look into the event and it sounds really cool!  A chance to ride your bike on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!

So, I tell my good friend Rick about the ride and it sparks his interest too.  By the time November rolls around, we're signing up!!  I'm jazzed to go for the big ride.  Let's go all out and do the Century ride!  100 Miles on the track.

Once we sign up, there's 2 options for the Century, all on the track or do the 75k ride and finish out the 100 on the track.  We're opting for the latter.  40 times around the track sounds like it might get boring!

My Century training has begun
So, here we are, 12 Weeks out until the Century ride on June 20th!  My training has officially started!

Tonight was my first time back on the saddle since sometime last year.

I'm saddle sore.  I'm also other kinds of sore.  Biking uses different muscles than running.  Those muscles haven't been used in way too long.

The PLAN for tonight was to ride an hour.  I made it 35 minutes before I just couldn't stand to be on that saddle any longer.  My GPS watch sensor on the bike says that it was near equivalent to 10 miles today.  Wow... 1/10th of the way!  That's a scary thought right now.

That was also on the trainer.  I had some resistance, but not enough to make it seem like a real ride yet.  

I also need to do something I never did before while training for my running events.  Get some other types of training in!  I will begin phasing in some in-home core exercises that I can do that should benefit both running and biking.


Tour de Cure - Indy

Click this, and help!

Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp

2015 - Rebuilding from the Shoes up! Check the link above to see my current and past races.

Moving Forward

Training has begun!
Not for a half or full marathon, but another type of endurance race.

A Century Bike Ride.  In this case, the Century is 100 Miles. 

This is my first attempt at a fund raising event.  Frankly, I kinda suck at it.  My Dad has been my only supporter so far.  

I went with the lowest goal of $500.00.

This is to support the American Diabetes Association.  Because of my weight issues and family history, this is quite relevant to me.  I've been bouncing in and out of the Type II Diabetes area for years now.

A good friend from work, his daughter is Type I.  I have met his wonderful little girl and admire her for her battle against this terrible condition.  At times, I'm ashamed of myself. She was born like this and has no choice in the matter.  For me, it IS a choice.  I've done this to myself by not staying healthy.  I need to stop this cycle and with this event, I hope to begin the path back to a healthier lifestyle.  Along the way, I'd like to help out a little by getting my goal, and hopefully a little more.

If you can please help me, click on the Tour de Cure logo above, which will take you to my donations page.


W1D1 Couch to 5K
I'm still running, as part of my training for the bike ride.  Today was my first training day, which I began with starting the Couch to 5K program once again.

Start from the beginning.  I know what worked before, it can work again.

Even though it was about 60 degrees F out, I decided to do this first run on the treadmill-o-doom.  Start off on the springy surface before hitting the asphalt again.

Was it like starting C25K was 4 years ago?  Not at all.  Sure, I was tired and I'm feeling a bit sore now, but I was pretty much able to handle Day 1 at my "normal" pace.  

The idea this go around, I have a base to start from.  I want to get better than I ever was in the past 3 years!

Goals for this year
I want to finish the Century ride with my good friend Rick.  I talked him into this, so I had better be ready for this!!

My running goals for this year?  I'm not even sure I'm going to sign up for any races for this year.

I do want to return to Disney.  I would like to do the Half once again and get A PR!  A few of the WiSH running team are going to be there next year and I will look forward to being with them once again!

The only other race I'm even possibly thinking of is the Indy Monumental Half Marathon.  Last year was the first medal in a 4 year series.  I'm thinking that I'd kinda like to get the whole series of medals!

Other than that, the number one goal is to loose weight, get fit, get healthy!



Thanks for Reading!
Regards, ~Kipp

2015 - Rebuilding from the Shoes up! Check the link above to see my current and past races.