At the end of May I posted about my plans to try and get back into shape. Here at the end of June I figured I’d post an update.
According to my training log at RunningAHEAD, I ran 28.0 miles in 6:12:17. My mile time was 12:47. I weighed a couple minutes ago and was at 168. So that’s 6 lbs down, though our scale has been messing up… I’ll check when we get a new one.
I turned 32 on Wednesday. The week before me, Amber, and the in-laws were in Hilton Head, both celebrating Amber’s graduation with her Masters and spending some time with Lyndsey before she left for the summer.
I’ve started running again. For whatever reason this time, I’m really enjoying it. I think part of it may be I’m working from home now, and it gets me out of the house for a while. Anyway, while in Hilton Head Lyndsey and I went running a couple of times together, and once our friend Robert went with us; that was fun.
One of the last evenings we were there Amber and I went to the beach and talked. I mentioned to her my desire to get into better shape. According to my body-mass index, I’m just over the line for overweight. Right now, I can still lose weight pretty easily if I try. Unfortunately, I can gain weight pretty easily, too. And that’s not going to get better with each passing birthday…
It’s funny how your views on such things change. It’s become a theological issue with me. I want to be useful to the church as long as I can. Amber and I have also discussed going to the mission field instead of retiring here (yes, John Piper has had a lot to do with that; see here and here for starters). But if I don’t take care of my health now, how useful will I be when I’m 65, 70?
I figure a good way to stay motivated is to post all this on my blog for my friends to see. So here ya go. We’ll track my progress here. I’m kinda easing back in, so I’m not running the whole time, instead going for 30 minutes, 3 minutes running, 3 walking. I’m changing that today to 3 minutes running, 2 walking, and following I’ll continue to adjust the recovery time til I can run the whole time with no trouble. Then I’ll start being concerned with milage.
For the record, though, I went 2 miles yesterday in about 30 minutes. When I weighed Thursday I was 174. I’m 5′8″ tall.
If I don’t improve this, I’m counting on all of you to make fun of me.
Finally, one big encouragement to me has been Joe Thorn. Funnily enough, he 1 year anniversary of running was May 29… 1 day after I turned 32. His post on that, especially the picture at the end, is helping me along.
So, I’m off now. Amber got me new running shoes for my birthday, plus a watch, so it’s time to break em in.