Running on empty

This morning I headed out with 3 friends to do 6 miles. Sounds easy right? Well it was, at least for 3 of the people in the run. I was the odd man out.

Since I had Achilles tendinitis therapy starting in late August last year and was out of running for 3+ months I've managed to gain a few pounds. Not that I'm super over weight and could be used as the "before" picture in one of those weight loss infomercials but I've added 10% to my frame, and it wasn't muscle. When it started happening I wasn't to worried because I always seem to gain 10 pounds over the holidays. I've just learned to accept it and it's the bodies way of getting ready for the colder weather. Every year I go into my marathon training having to first drop the extra weight while building endurance. So if you think about it, by carrying the extra weight, I give my body a better workout because it has to move more mass. If you're one of those super techno people I'm guessing it has to do with E=MC^2. For me it gets me stronger and faster as I drop the weight. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, my usual plan just isn't working for me these days. I'm having trouble dropping the weight and my friends are dropping me on every run. I don't mind getting dropped because I figure that at some point I'll get mad enough at myself to lose the weight and get in shape.

This morning I showed up a little early to do a quick warm up run so I would be loose when we started as a group. When I arrived one of the other guys was already out doing a warm up, GREAT...ARG!! So I headed out and 1/2 mile in I see 2 head lamps bouncing towards me. Now I'll have two guys who are already warmed up. This is not going to be my day. I hooked up with them and we headed back. I was hoping for an easy warm up run but this turned into a slight hammer fest. I was in real trouble, I had only run 1 mile and I was already sucking wind. Once we arrived at the meeting location we hooked up with the last person in our group and we were off.

As we started I was feeling pretty good and was running smoothly up the hill. But once we crested the hill the pace picked up and soon I was shate out the back side of the group. We had only done 1 mile and I wasn't able to keep up. I tried surging a couple of times and would catch the group but would once again fall behind. At the 2 mile mark the boys were out of site, so I decided to alter my route to run straight up into Westford center. If you don't know Westford center, all roads lead UP to the center. Slowly but surely I made my way up the hill. As I was about half way up I started thinking about a race that they used to have up this hill. It was always held in May just before the Apple Blossom parade. The race started at the High school and finished in the center. For some reason they always seemed to change where the exact finish line was. Some times it was at the community center, or the common or at one of the churches, so comparing your times from year to year was not really possible. What you did know was that it was going to be a race of about 1.9 miles and all up hill. I remember one year as I was leading the race I passed the home of a man I worked with at about the half way point. I remember he was out in his yard raking leaves and he just stood and stared at me like I was crazy for running up that hill. Back in those days I felt like I was floating when I was running. The following Monday back at work this gentlemen came up to me and said "Gee you really take that running stuff seriously, don't you"? As I'm standing there listening to this and holding my gym bag I just smiled and started chuckling and walked away. What does this have to do with "Running on empty", well this morning I was not floating up that hill I was barely getting my feet off the ground and needed to stop half way up to regroup.

I've slowed down quite a bit over the years but I'm not going to stop without a good fight. I hope to look back at this post in April and laugh. I'm hoping I laugh sooner, the sooner the better!!