Running Man

Currently Reading: Ender In Exile by Orson Scott Card

Due to genetics I've ended up with bacon blood. High triglycerides you see. My overall cholesterol levels are pretty good though, which is something. Just too much fat in the blood. I get that from my father. Thanks dad!

Anyway, now that I'm not working regularly, I decided I needed to get some exercise. You see, normally when I was working at the salon I was on my feet maybe 5 to 7 hours a day. We don't sit down. There's also a WHOLE lot of lifting. Light lifting, heavy lifting, medium lifting. Dogs come in all shapes and sizes and most of them don't just hop up on the table no matter how much we wish they would. Then there's all the dog washing, the cleaning up. You can really get a good workout doing a job like that.

The question was: what kind of exercise should I do? Now, CC does all sorts of stuff here in the apartment. She's got a couple of different workout dvds that she'll use. She's been alternating between two lately. One is more cardio, the other is more of the classic style. They're both good, don't get me wrong, but I hate stationary exercise. Aerobics, yoga, all that stuff, it's good, it's good for you, I just lose interest very quickly with it.

Earlier this year I read a memoir by one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. The whole premise was how he prepares for running a marathon. It's also got all sorts of information about various marathons he's run, including the actual ORIGINAL marathon route. I remember connecting rather well with him on running. When I was in high school and a little bit in college, I used to jog. I wasn't all that serious about it but every now and then I'd feel the need to do something more active so I'd put on some shoes and off I went. Back in junior high I even ran 5k and 10k races with my father. It was just something we did back then. Just made sense to go back to running.

I started this off on Thursday last week, the 4th, for no particular reason other than I said I would. Wednesday night I was sitting here at the machine and I decided that the next day I would run. Now, I didn't want to be the kind of guy who made a decision like that and then backed out later so after walking the dogs, I changed clothes and shoes, grabbed my MP3 player and hit the road.

Fortunately, thanks to Murakami, I have some decent running shoes. In his memoir he descries a conversation he had with a sporting goods representative. They were talking about Mizuno shoes and equipment. He said that while they may not have all the fancy bells and whistles of some of the other brands out there, the shoes are high quality and very dependable. He said they were the Subaru of shoes.

As luck would have it, I was in the market for a new pair of shoes for work, my other pair having fallen apart from all the abuse in the salon. So I figured if these shoes were made to stand up to the punishment of daily running or even marathon running, they ought to be able to handle 4 days a week in a dog grooming salon.

He was right. 100% accurate description of the shoe. Comfortable, light-weight, nothing too fancy or flashy. A high-quality shoe for a decent price. It was time to put them to use at what they were designed for.

It's now Sunday. I've run the same loop twice. I'm not really sure how far it is to be honest because I haven't yet taken the truck out to measure it. I do know that it takes about 20 minutes or so because I remember which songs I listened to along the way. You just add up the run time and there you go. I'm HOPING that the look is around a mile and a half. Back when i was younger I had no problem running a mile in under 9 minutes. Sometimes under 8 if it wasn't too hot or humid out. I'd REALLY be disappointed if it NOW took me 20 minutes to run a mile. Seems it would be faster to walk it. I'll measure this week.

So now, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning I'll be out there in the cold (it's in the 30's when I run), bundled up in sweats and a light jacket, MP3 player keeping me company while I get a little running in. You know what I like the most about it? My mind pretty much goes blank while I'm out there. Even the music is more in the background than anything else. It definitely helps clear my head.