November 1, 2011

Rob - (I swear I had this blog title first) Running the Roads – Part One

Those of you who have been following my wife’s blog will know that we have been on what is being referred to as a “lifestyle” change for the past eight months or so (Too be absolutely honest, it was eight months ago when I started this blog post but it’s pushing on towards nine months now.) and no, not the kind of lifestyle change for which our little suburb has become famous (the swingers capital of Canada), rather, we have been eating healthy and exercising on a regular basis. It has been a great way to bring us closer together as a couple and for me personally, has been a way to bring my commitment to my family into focus. That is not to say that I think Laura and I were particularly far apart as a couple since frankly, we have basically been tied at the hip for the last seven years, and I have always loved my kids the way only a parent can understand. Rather, this lifestyle change has managed to bring things like the importance of eating healthy and my own mortality into focus.  This has in turn, made me want to experience more, love more, laugh more, make sure I’m around to see my children grow up and watch my hair turn white (or even disappear).

While this adjustment has been great for us as a family and fantastic for me personally, the exercise side of things has been an odd sort of evolution.  For me, the exercise bug began even before we started with the healthy eating when I joined a gym near our house last fall while we were patiently waiting for the birth of our second child.  As a bit of back story, I have, on at least three separate occasions, lost a significant amount of weight through hard work/exercise (the weight by the way, came back each time with a vengeance) and I think in the back of my head I kind of thought that I could do the same thing this time.  If I went to the gym five or six nights a week I could lose weight again and wouldn’t have to change my eating habits. Unfortunately, my 30 something metabolism didn’t seem to agree and, to be honest, I don’t know that I was working at it the right way.  For the first two months I did nothing but ride the stationary bike and then spent the next two months doing only the elliptical machine. In all that time, while I think I got in better shape, I’m pretty sure I actually gained about 15 pounds and I’m positive not very much of it was muscle.

Then at the end of February, we made this change into healthy eating and low and behold I started losing weight.  Again, those of you who have read my wife’s earlier blogs will know that it came off pretty quick and like a typical guy, I started asking myself how could I make the weight loss go faster.  One night, I had a light bulb moment and told Laura that I was going to go for a jog the next morning.  I think I made it about 1 kilometre and while I was sucking wind and hyperventilating like a kid whose older brother just punched him in the stomach, (those of you with older siblings get it), I kind of felt fantastic at the same time.  After the first week, I was hooked, and over the course of the last couple of months I have steadily increased the time and distance that I have been running. 

In August, I made a decision that I was going to do a 5km and would debut my fantastic form at the Army Run in September.  I trained hard and was doing roughly 5km at least three times a week.  I was timing my runs and thinking that I was in pretty good shape to compete on this race. Then I talked to a few folks who run on a regular basis and realized that I was averaging about 15 minutes behind the “slow” runners.  Undaunted, I figured that it wouldn’t matter since all I had to do was finish the race but then life took over.

Around the same time that I was in full “training” mode, Laura and I were starting to plan our fifth anniversary and we made a snap decision to go to New York for an extended weekend.  Sometimes you just do things without thinking and before I knew it, the tickets were booked before we realized it was on the same weekend as the Army Run. Even though I was a little disappointed, as a good husband I felt obligated to soldier on and go to New York and all kidding aside, it was a great trip. We saw tons of sites, did lots of walking, drinking and eating but in the time since our trip, I had kind of gotten off track a bit on the lifestyle change.  I think skipping the run may have opened up a bit of a laziness door in my brain that encourages me to have snack or a beer and unfortunately, I am one of those types that once Pandora’s box is opened, I have a hard time closing it again.
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Stay tuned for part two of the Rob Runs saga…

1 comment:

Kataroo said...

So very proud of you, of you and Laura :) and damn lucky to have you guys as friends...because I think its really cool to have another couple to go do 'crazy fit shit' with like City Chase :) Even if you beat us LOL.