As I get closer to the beginning of my 16 week training plan for the Gay Games Marathon I’ve been thinking a lot about running - how I got into it, why I run and what keeps me motivated.
I run for one primary reason – to keep my weight down! I love to eat and have struggled with weight all my life. After years of gaining weight, loosing weight, gaining weight, loosing weight I finally figured out in my early 30’s that the secret to maintenance of my weight was incorporating regular exercise into my life. It’s kind of embarrassing to show the “before” picture below but – what the hell, I’m proud that I’ve kept the weight under better control.
What do you think of the cheesy mustache? Well it was the early 90’s! This has to be the worst driver’s license picture! My weight topped out in 1993 at 194 lbs! I’m not a tall guy so I was pretty heavy. I eventually successfully lost all the weight by the late 90’s by joining Weight Watchers and reaching goal. The “after” picture is my current license – so as you can see running has really helped be keep the weight under control at about 150 pounds for a number of years!
By the late 90’s I’d taken off the weight but had still not yet started running – and to top it off I was smoking! Like weight, I’d struggled with smoking for years! I was a bit of a rebel and started smoking somewhere between age 13 and 14. I know - my poor Mom, she had to have a lot of patience raising me! One of these days I’ll tell you about hitchhiking to Montana - and eventually making it to Florida – but that’s definitely a separate blog post!
For the first few years I was able to keep the weight off within several pounds but I was also smoking off and on – I’d quit smoking, gain a few pounds, start smoking, quit, gain, quit, gain……..
This was all going on about the time Kent and I met and horror of all horrors – I began closet smoking! Kent was a non-smoker and of course I wanted to make a good impression – long story short, one can be a closet smoker for only so long – Kent busted me and I have not smoked in well over 12 years! Without the crutch of smoking I had to find another solution. Running was the answer!
In some ways I think I was destined to turn to running eventually. As a kid in grade school I was always the fastest one in my class, in junior high I was on the track team (until I started smoking), I had toyed with running periodically and ran my first 10K when I was 18 or so – but what really inspired me was my younger brother David. He had ran a marathon and convinced me I could do the same.
I started out slow and ran my first half marathon in 2002. My brother David ran it with me and although he was much faster than I he ran along with me and even let me cross the finish line before him! I continued to run and found like smoking I could maintain my weight within a few pounds as long as I was running. It would be a few years but I ran my first Marathon in 2006 – San Diego in 3:42:56. I’ve ran at least one each year since.
So May 16th I’ll return to Olympia where I did my first half Marathon and compete in the Capitol City Marathon. I will have already started my training for Cologne so I will run slow so not to have to spend time recovering and keep up with the “serious” schedule.
I still struggle with my weight and between marathons I have been known to pack on a few pounds – but running keeps me within the range of weight that I can feel comfortable with – and best of all I don’t have to smoke!
Have a good one-
Jim
