Check out the new blog location: https://mykindofrun.wordpress.com/
Over a year has gone by (Six Hundred and Thirty Six days actually)
since I have last sent word of my adventures out on the trails. Much has
happened, though my running has been pretty spotty at best. I could give
excuses about work and life getting in the way, but really it comes down to the
fact that I have been lazy and I have put on quite a bit of weight in the past Six
Hundred and Thirty Six days to show for it. Really my habit of being a lazy
home-body started even earlier than that.
I have been very happy these past several years and my comfortable
happiness has left me content to come home every night to spend time with my
kittens (now cats, you can find them on Instagram @Midsomer_Purrders, yup.
Don’t judge.) and my girlfriend (now Fiancée) watching Netflix, the DVR,
chatting, cooking (we moved in together and actually have a nice sized kitchen
that we spend quite a bit of time preparing new recipes that we find (typically
on Pinterest), going to the dinner with friends, or just hanging out together.
Basically, much of what I have been doing recently does not require
much physical activity. From a long commute, sitting down on buses and trains,
to coming home to watch Netflix, the DVR, or baseball, or even cooking or going
out to a restaurant with friends (especially in winter when we are lazy enough
just to take a cab), most of what I have been doing is not all that active.
While I have my excuses, it really boils down to old adage, “You make time for
what is important to you.” Spending time with my Fiancée and my kittens is
obviously very important to me. However, it didn’t occur to me how important
physical activity really was to me as well, until I inadvertently cut it out of
my life (or at least greatly reduced it). While I have been very happy for the
past several years, I couldn’t help but feel a pull from somewhere in me that
wanted to dust off my ‘work-out’ cloths and running shoes and get back outside
and do something.
It isn’t running specifically, though I do enjoy it, I really just like
being active and outside. I like going for long walks, bike rides, hikes, elaborate,
city-wide, night-time games of tag, etc. I started to grasp what that pull to
get back to being active and outdoors was on long walks with my Fiancée when we
would just stroll around the city; even if it was partly to get in a Fitbit
step count for a
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| Petit dejeuner on Rue Cler |
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| Palace of Versailles Gardens |
Eventually, I decided that I needed
to do something to become more active again. So, even though I was too out of
shape to really venture too far from the apartment for a run (or was just too
lazy, or it was just too cold or wet outside), I would make the journey to the
fitness center in my building and run on a treadmill for a couple miles. Not
perfect, but at least it has been getting my body slowly re-acclimated to
running more regularly as of late. I only wish I had decided to become more
active again much sooner, as having gained as much weight as I have, I am now
the most out of shape I have ever been. It has been harder for me to get back
out and go for a run now than it was before I ever started running at all, as
when I first started running; I was already pretty in shape. Since I have been
back at it now, it has been getting progressively easier, but I still have a
long way to go.
A year or two ago, I was out for a run (so it was probably closer to
two years ago) and I saw that Lake Shore Drive had been taken over by cyclists!
This was very exciting and I wished that I had known about it before hand so I
could have been out there with everyone. As it was, I had a yearly Divvy
membership (and technically still do for probably another week or so) that I had
been using to bike around the city and go on short bike trips. Divvy was very
convenient for just getting around town, or having a bike only when you wanted
one, but not having to worry about storing it for winter or anything. The
problem with Divvy, was occasionally, their bike racks would be full (or empty
when you needed one) and you would have to look for another station. The main
reason I ended up cancelling my yearly membership though, ended up being the
thirty minute time limit on the bikes. It makes sense that pay-as-you-go users
would need some kind of time limit so that they would have to check the bike in
and then Divvy could charge them accordingly, however for someone with a yearly
membership, it doesn’t matter how often you check in and out bikes, your cost
is always the same. It would make more sense for people who had yearly
memberships to be able to check in bikes when they wanted to (the same bike
loss fee would still apply if they damaged or didn’t return the bike of
course). At the very least, they could have given an expanded window of
possibly a couple hours or a full day to yearly members so they wouldn’t have
to keep checking bikes back in every 30 minutes. You don’t even really get a
full 30 minutes of ridding in since after a certain point, you need to start
looking for another Divvy station that has available spaces so you can dock
your bike before your time runs out. That little rant to say: Divvy’s time
limitation prevents riders from going on longer bike rides, bike rides that are
‘just for fun’, and so I wouldn’t have been able to use this membership to do
something like ‘Bike The Drive’ (without paying lots of extra fees that shouldn’t
have been necessary as a yearly member). So while Divvy was a nice way to
introduce me to ‘City Cycling’, it was time that I got my own bike. A few weeks
back, I was walking home and saw that the ‘old’ 2015 models were on sale, so I stop
in and got a brand new, shiny, bicycle! I’ve been out a few times on it and it
feels nice to be back outside with the wind on my face.
At the last second this year (two days before the event actually) I realized
that Bike The Drive would be that weekend. I debated with myself a bit, as I hadn’t
budgeted for it, but as I have wanted to participate for a couple years now and
finally had a bike of my own; it seemed like a good time to sign up. I managed
to do packet pick-up the next day, just a basic shirt (non-tech shirt) and a
bib (and a wrist band and a sticker for my helmet with my bib number) and then I
waited for the next day when it was race time. The race actually started at
5:30 in the morning, but we ended up going out the previous evening for dinner
with some friends and stayed out later than I planned. I was about to head out
the door the next morning around 6 AM, when I couldn’t get my bib to stay on. I
have grown accustomed to running race bibs that are pinned on, this bib
however, was a sticker and it didn’t seem to want to stay fastened to my tech
shirt. I looked around for pins from previous races, but remembered getting rid
of most of them (and apparently losing the rest) during my last move. I ended
up just sticking the bib in my backpack in case anyone asked for it and hoped
my ‘helmet-bib’ and wrist band would be enough to get me through checkpoints
(it was, out on the road it became apparent from all the bibs on the road that
others had experienced the same issue). I was out the door by 6:30 AM and rode
down to the Fullerton on-ramp not long after to begin a beautiful 30 mile ride.
By the end, my legs were tired, but I felt great and had experienced a
fantastic morning with perfect weather (not too warm, sunny, and it didn’t end
up raining which was a concern when I signed up for the ride).
From where I started months ago, when I was still wondering what that
pull was that kept tugging me to get back outdoors, I have started back down
the road toward something resembling fitness. Things are now even better than
ever, if that is even possible. Things have gone from great to just short of
perfect (perfect would be Paris of course). Now all I need to do is to keep it
up and not let this purring kitten on my lap keep me from going for a run.
