One Down, three or 11 to go …
Maybe the post title is a bit dramatic. But, time is running out.
My exercising has been been minimal this month, despite jumping head-first into a year-long challenge against the maniacal mother of challenge seekers. I’ve played nice far too long, regarding my friend Matt. Yes, we agreed that walking would count as running, so long as it was a concerted exercise effort and not walking around the office at work or, walking around Walmart or the mall, shopping. And, you have to wear a heart rate monitor (chest strap) as part of the aforementioned “concerted exercise.”
So, my understanding of the challenge was that any walk/run had to be at least half a mile as well. The whole idea was that we, he and I, are not avid runners and some walking might be necessary for recovery between runs or even WHILE running. Matt leaped well ahead of the competition (there’s four of us in total) within the first two weeks of January. Potentially hurting himself in the process but logging long, lumbering miles nonetheless.
And I defended him, to a fault.
I agreed to the rules, which are in writing and posted elsewhere on this blog.
But, when Matt attended a flea market known as Florida Flywheelers a couple weeks ago, and logged a 10-mile walk that took in excess of five hours, as he and his family meandered from booth to booth, which probably included food typical of such an event (which is to say: not health food), I had had enough!
Nada. Nothing. Zip.
So I did nothing! It even took me a couple days to mention it to mutual friends (who from the inception of this deception have been bitching about Matt’s methods) to even mention that I noticed his logged meander. But, between not feeling 100% and Winter Weather that finally hit Central Florida, I wasn’t motivated enough to get out there and pound ground. Oh, and my walking/jogging partner was on injured reserve for a couple weeks due to injuries of her own.
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I did a couple of bike rides during my hiatus and my eating varied from healthy to I’d-rather-not-mention-it-in-this-public-forum. The latter outweighed the former.
Though I know that my personal weight-loss goal will weigh heavily on food choice, volume, frequency and timing, I cannot allow myself such a long absence from running again. Cycling, as much as I love it, is not helping me out on any front (weight, Challenge points, etc.) and I need to put on my running kicks. And run. However slow, because it “all” counts.
Here Goes Nothing.
That pretty much sums up how tomorrow and the rest of the month could go…I can go all out, head-first, damn-the-torpedoes again. Or, I can literally go forth and do nothing.
Hopefully, because my eye is on the prize at the end of the year-long challenge, I’ll actually exert some willpower to get going in the correct direction. I might have lost The first portion of the challenge (of which three of four months remain), but I can win portions two and three and the overall, while winning the ultimate goal: returning to a healthy and clean-eating lifestyle that I once adopted and lost lots of weight, gained muscle and had an improved outlook on life.
The Clydesdale Challenge 