I ran my first mile since High School last night. Well, let me rephrase that…I mostly ran my first 1.25 miles last night. It was tough. It made me realize how out of shape I really am, but at the same time made me realize that I’m in better shape than I thought (if that contradiction doesn’t throw you off too much). I know that I’m out of shape and that this run would fucking kill me, but I did much better than I would have guessed that I would. I’m glad that I didn’t map out my route or have any definitive plans for my run before heading out, because I probably would have set my expectations too low.
Back in the olde days of college, I read a story in one of my Organizational Behavior classes about when typewriters and data entry devices first came into use in the business environment. The “experts” told the users that the best of them would only be able to do 100 keystrokes a minute (I have to pull arbitrary numbers out of my ass because I can’t remember the specifics) if they worked really, really efficiently. After several months, they checked the productivity and saw that the workers were averaging about 75 keystrokes a minute and the ones that were sustaining over the average were subject to high stress, anxiety, illness, etc. Cranking out these high numbers were making these worker bees sick as hell. Six months later, same result.
So now a new group of operators are given the same equipment and the same tasks, but not told anything about what their productivity is expected to be. After several months, they check their productivity and these new people are cranking out 400 keystrokes a minute (again, from my ass, but it was about 400% higher) with virtually no incidences of the stress that was affecting the losers putting out less than a fourth of work as their uber-productive newbees.
Goals are good, but setting them without a benchmark can lead to either disappointment if too high or self-defeat if too low.
Last night we took the kids to see Kicking and Screaming at the dollar movie house in a neighboring city…Tuesdays are $0.50 night (or fitty cent if you be down). I was already low on Points (Weight Watchers Points, that is to say) because I ate an extra yogurt at lunch. Movies suck without popcorn, so I ended up eating a small popcorn without butter. All things are better with butter, but it wasn’t so bad once you buried it in popcorn salt. Needless to say, I used all my frickin points (and then some) on that popcorn. Since I NEEDED and REQUIRED my nightly Whole Fruit Lime Bar, I had to do something to earn some extra points. I decided that I would jog around the neighborhood to pick up a few.
I haven’t run since High School and even then I didn’t do much running except in PE or during my short stint on the football team. I’m about the same weight I was then (now that I’m down about 50 lbs from my all-time high weight of about 310lbs) and I stopped smoking since then. But, I’ve aged about 14 years so I figure that offsets the lack of tar on my now baby-pink lungs. I threw on my shorts, laced up my Vans, grabbed a stopwatch and headed out the door.
Realization #1: It’s still fucking hot in Texas at 9:30 at night.
Realization #2: Vans are great if you want to still look like you can ride a skateboard, but REALLY are not a good choice for running.
Realization #3: It’s hard to breathe when you are jogging.
Realization #4: My legs hurt…I may weigh less, but now I’m still pushing 262 pounds of fat ass along at more than a shuffle.
Realization #5: Stay away from the light, Carole Ann
The first minute or two of jogging, I’m thinking that this isn’t so bad…I’m not even sweating yet. I get down about 10 houses and then it starts getting harder to breathe. My feet pound up and down on the uneven sidewalk and I find that it’s tough to time your breaths so that they fall between the bouncing of my gut. Now the sweat starts. I’m trying my best to take deep even breaths, but I’m having as much success as Scott Weiland had with rehab. I look down at my stopwatch: 1 minute down. Fuck me, I’m going to die.
I keep jogging until my chest feels like it’s going to collapse and my legs feel like going to pop. I jogged 4:25 according to the handy-dandy stopwatch swinging on my neck. I start walking at a pretty decent pace and decide that I will walk for two minutes to catch my breath and then run another four minutes. I pass a couple of teenagers playing out in the yards and say “How’s it going?” , which I think came out as “heeeh aaaassssp ussshhh”. They look at me like I’m going to kill them.
My two minute respite is over, so back to running. Again, the first minute or two are fine but by the time I hit the four minute mark, I’m the walking dead. I walk for another two minutes and then hit the bricks again for my last four minutes. I timed it pretty well, because I got to the steps of my house at about 3:55 of the last leg of my run. I’m drenched in sweat and wobbly, I smell like a just-fucked goat, and I’m breathing like M. Jackson after a pillow fight with the kids at Neverland. But I feel good on the inside, like I accomplished something.
Afterwards, I took the car out along my path to see how far I actually ran. My first jogging leg was 4/10 of a mile, which impressed the hell out of me. I was shocked that I actually made it that far. My total route was 1.25 miles, which using inexact math means that about 1 mile of that was done while jogging. I ran/walked for 16:20 seconds so using my inexact math again, I averaged about 36 miles per hour…just kidding—4.5 miles per hour, which, now that I look at it, is not all that impressive at all. But, it’s a start.