My first run of 2016 is in the books. Rather, it’s in the Excel spreadsheet.
The stats: 5 miles on the local high school track. 1.5 mile warm up run. 1 mile of easy to moderate 100 meter intervals. 2 miles of moderate to intense 100m intervals. Two easy laps for a .5 mile cool down. Plus a 1 mile walk to and from the school.
I definitely feel the weight hanging on me. It felt good to run as hard as possible to try to shake some of that lard off.
While I was at the track there were two young guys intensely practicing passing and receiving with a football, a young lacrosse player half-heartedly lobbing a ball back and forth with a man (Coach? Dad?), a couple of boys happily kicking a soccer ball into a net, and one other middle-aged comrade lugging himself around the track. There was also a girls soccer team practicing with two older male coaches. One of the coaches, the one with the English accent, frequently called out, “DAGNABBIT!!” As in, “DAGNABBIT, ANNA, GET WITH THE PROGRAM!” Or, “CHERYL! DAGNABBIT! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO FIELD THE BALL!! DAGNABBIT!” I laughed to myself every time he yelled it.
My wife was done with her workout and had lunch prepared by the time I got home: salad with chickpeas and vinaigrette dressing, lentil soup, and a ham sandwich with fat-free American cheese. We both said, “Food tastes so much better after running!” You can’t argue with that, dagnabbit!
Onward and upward in 2016! (Or onward and downward as far as my weight goes!)
Seeing as 2015 just ended, I spent time updating my yearly running stats spreadsheet today. Yes, I am that much of a geek. However, while keeping a spreadsheet might make one a geek, if one does not evaluate said spreadsheet, one might not become a better runner… and one is not much of a geek either. So, I ran the numbers today.
It turns out, I ran on only 68 out of 365 days. That’s only 18.6% of the days of the entire year.
My total mileage was 420 miles. That averages out to 6.17 miles, basically a 10K, for each of my 68 days of running. Sounds good, but there were far too few occurrences of running.
To be fair to myself, I have to state that 61 of these running days occurred over 8 months, April through November. January through March, I ran only 5 times due to an injury. (In December, I ran only twice due to laziness.) Without the injury, I might have run maybe 20 more times, based on the monthly running occurrences average during my 8 good months. That would have brought my yearly percentage of running days up to 24%, still not great, but better.
Also on the positive side, I ran 21 races in 2015. 5 half marathons, 3 10Ks, 5 5-milers, 1 3.8 mile trail race, 10 5Ks. Twice I ran a 5K and 10K on the same day. Here’s my list of races:
2015 Races – Click to enlarge.
I am satisfied with completing 21 races through the year, especially the 4 half marathons in close proximity to each other in the Fall. (More on these races HERE.) But I am not satisfied with my overall running experience through the year. Given the fact that I found myself in a total slump after Thanksgiving and 7 pound heavier at the end of the year, I need a different running strategy for 2016.
The first idea that comes to mind is that I need to run more frequently. I need to get my motor running more often. In 2015, my focus was primarily on distance: long distance runs for the sake of multiple half marathons. But I think it that caused me to run less often due to psychological and physical challenges. Long runs also left me hungry for the rest of the day, ravenously so on some days. Without more frequent episodes of running, I often consumed more calories than I burned off for any given week. That explains the phenomenon of running 5 half marathons and not losing any weight. Running more frequently would get my motor running and burn calories more consistently.
So, going back to the numbers. 68 running days averages out to 1.3 per week. I plan to double that by running 3 times per week. If I do that, it will work out to 156 running days. If I focus on running only 3 miles each time, the mileage will work out to 468 miles, very close to my 2015 miles. To make each run more beneficial, I will put more emphasis on time spent on each run rather than the mileage. 45 to 60 minutes per session will be beneficial for fitness and weight loss, provided I can keep the Ring Dings out of my mouth. (More on Ring Dings HERE.) 45 to 60 minutes will give me 4 to 5 miles per run. 156 X 4 = 624 miles. Not too shabby. 156 X 5 = 780. Not shabby at all!
In addition, I need to add more speed work, intervals, hill repeats, etc. to my running sessions. I need to throw in some strength training. Do a squat or two. Maybe a plank now and then. I plan on doing races through 2016, probably not as many as 21 this year. A few half marathons in the Spring and a few in the Fall with a handful of 5 and 10Ks sprinkled in will be good. But my focus will be on running frequency, strength, speed, weight loss, and enjoyment. I want to finish 2016 being faster, stronger, happier, and with significantly more rows in my 2016 spreadsheet.
Holden Caufield: “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?”
Phoebe Caufield: “What? Stop swearing.”
“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like – ”
“It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”
“I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”
She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though.
“I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,'” I said. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know It’s crazy.”
Sam Snyder: “That’s not crazy in my book, Holden. Not crazy at all.”
We men like to hide our emotions. Don’t we? Well, maybe “hide” sounds too accusatory. And “like” is probably an unfair characterization of our motives. We men tend to cover our emotions, or push them away, or disassociate ourselves from them to varying degrees depending on how vulnerable we feel in any given situation. We might be able to cope in this way in a large proportion of uncomfortable settings. It may even be necessary in such settings as the workplace, or the in-laws’ house, or the Sunday afternoon football get-together with the buds. But sooner or later, our emotions are caught off guard by the moment and there is no hiding them.
Hiding our emotions in relationships with persons of significance is never a good idea. With all the lumps on my own head, you would think I would have learned that lesson by now. You married fellows know what I’m talking about. If you hide emotions from your wife, you don’t usually enjoy the release of your emotions catching up with the moment. More than likely, your wife catches on a lot quicker than you admit she does and you find yourself in a heap of trouble, Uriah. (Don’t try to obfuscate your obfuscation by sly Dickens references either.)
Hiding our emotions in the workplace is not beneficial either. However, you can’t wear your emotions on your sleeve in a dog-eat-dog environment. Your emotions will be like so many juicy steaks hanging off your sleeves. You will be left in tatters and may even lose your shirt. What we need to do in the workplace is be honest with ourselves about our emotions and find the appropriate channels to express those emotions with the goal of being productive and maintaining some semblance of satisfaction in our work. It’s helpful to have someone to trustfully confide in and obtain direction from in the workplace, maybe a good and seasoned manager. Finding a mentor, even outside our place of employment, is a good idea. Get advice and channel your emotional energies in the right ways. Don’t be a sissy. But don’t be a brute either.
Now, as tough as emotional honesty in intimate relationships is, as complicated as properly handling your emotions at work is, the area of life in which allowing your true feelings to surface is the hardest and the most rare is in the realm of relationships with other men. You men, ask yourself, to how many other men are you able to say the words, “I love you,” with complete honesty and sincerity? With how many other men are you able to mutually discuss your thoughts and the workings of your soul? David, do you have a Jonathan to whom you can turn? Just as importantly, do you, Jonathan, have a David whom you love as your own soul? (I think I lost a few of you. GO READ THIS and come back.) A friendship of the type which David and Jonathan had is the holy grail of manly relationships.
I wager that most men reading this have only experienced this type of emotional honesty with another man to very low degrees. I would wager that these experiences are few and far between too. I would make this bet because such has been my life’s experience as well. I can count my Jonathans on one hand, not including my thumb.
Today, I had an experience that contained a flicker of the emotional honesty of which I am writing. I did not expect it. I was not prepared for it. Yet, by some grace, I was able to let go and stay in that honest moment. I was pulled into it by the most innocuous of lures: laughter. There is perhaps nothing as disarming as a jovial man’s laughter turning to tears due to his gratitude for your being present at one of his most vulnerable of moments. Sometimes just showing up means enough to a man that he sees you as wearing your Jonathan name tag. Given the right set of preparatory circumstances, in this case, a man’s deceased brother lying in a casket at hand, you are Jonathan. The other man shows his emotions. His laughter turns to tears while your hands are on his shoulders and he cannot take his eyes away from yours. You are thereby disarmed yourself and can do none else but shed your own tears, telling him with your eyes, “I love you.”
Then a joke is belovedly made about his brother and you both have an out. “Ha ha! He would have loved that! He had a great sense of humor!” You both are secretly thankful that humor is such a great cover for vulnerability. But you are both even more grateful to God that you saw each other’s true souls and sensed a manly love.
My fellows, this experience leaves me with the desire to be a better Jonathan. Sure, I could use a man or two to be such for me as well. While that is out of my control, my focus needs to be “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I pray for grace to do just that, the grace to be better prepared for the opportunities, the grace to lock eyes a moment longer, and the courage to say, “Man, I love you.”
