Not Really "Back," but Maybe a Little Teaser :-)

Well hello everyone!  I have been thinking about ya a lot lately.  I have not been a good boy, but lately, I have been considering trying to be good again.  I pretty much undid all the good that I did last summer.  Pretty disappointed in myself in that regard, but it's not over.  I can still give it another shot and see what happens. 

I am not "starting the blog" again, so don't get too excited.  BUT I am planning on throwing something up here and there in hopes that maybe it will help me and entertain you (and if things go well, maybe give some of you a little motivation too.)

How did we get back here you ask?   Well, let's start with my "Excuse."  I'm going to do it in the form of a hashtag:

#Mariskamademefat

For those who don't know who Mariska is, it's Mariska Hargitay, lead actress and eventually producer of Law & Order, SVU.  Over the past 2 1/2+ years, Kristyn and I have worked our way through 20 seasons of Law & Order SVU on Hulu.  Basically, when the night was over, we'd settle in for some SVU.  OR if we had a snow day, we'd watch 6 episodes!  Summer was really bad because we may watch one in the morning, 1 in the afternoon and a couple at night.  Why is this a problem?  Well, 1st of all, I'd NEVER call that a problem.  It was awesome.  What a great show.  And on top of that, we all need some relaxing time and the world knows that Kristyn and I keep ourselves very busy, so to give ourselves some down time is never a bad thing.  The issue is only coming to light now. 

We finished the 20 seasons on Hulu Monday night.  Then something crazy happened Tuesday night.  I had no TV to look forward to so I said "I'm gonna go for a run on the treadmill downstairs!"  34 minutes, 2 miles and something like 375 calories later, I called it quits and grabbed a shower.  Now I know those stats are not really great - 34 minutes and only 2 miles, but when you have literally done NOTHING physical in forever and have gained a lot of weight combined with getting older, it was plenty to do.

I used to start off by doing a 10 minute run and building up so I can run longer.  But a friend of mine at Cresskill HS who runs a ton told me something about needing to do about 20 minutes before your doing real work to your body with the cardio stuff.  So instead of going as hard as possible for 10 minutes and building, I decided to waver between 3.0 MPH and 6.0MPH as necessary.  The goal was to try to blow by the 20 minute mark and see what I can do.  Of course, I kept going back and forth between time, calories and distance.  I got to 20 minutes and was like, ooh, I can get to 1.5 miles.  Then I got to 1.5 miles and thought "ooh, I can get to 300 calories."  I got there and was like "ooh, I can get 30 minutes!"  I got there and was like "ooh, I can get 2 miles!"  So that kept pushing me.  I was exhausted after my 2 miles, even though I was doing a lame 3MPH walk for a significant chunk of it, but my heart rate was up and I was working as hard as I thought was smart for the first day back. 

Then something else interesting happened.  I did not have a late night snack!  So I replaced my goldfish, peanut butter filled pretzels and chocolate ice cream out of the carton with a 34 minute walk/run and 2 bottles of water.  Interesting how that works, isn't it? 

As far as the rest of the day, I can't say that I did anything special, foodwise.  I mean, I was not intending anything out of the ordinary when I woke up in the morning, but the lack of SVU led me to this run.  All I can do is hope that it continues from there.

So here we are at today - Day 2 Post-SVU (Wednesday.)  I worked most of the today.  Got to school around 12:30pm, did some MAJOR cleaning in the office with Steph, section leader meeting and marching band sectionals to follow.  Got home around 10:15pm.  WENT TO THE TREADMILL!!!!  Was not sure how i was going to handle this.  Would my body give in sooner because it was a little tired from yesterday?   OR would I be stronger on day 2?  I decided to start at 3.0 MPH and add .4 each minute until I got up as high as I thought was wise.  Once I was totally shot, jumped back down to 3.0 until and cramps, heavy breathing or leg fatigue went away.  I basically went at it like this:

0-1 = 3.0mph
1-2 = 3.4
2-3 = 3.8
3-4 = 4.2
4-5 = 4.6
5-6 = 5.0
6-7 = 5.4
7-8 = 5.8
8-10 = 3.0
and back up a few more times. 

In the end, I kept it at 34 minutes but added .24 miles to my total and killed an extra 75 calories!  I think I liked this system.  Kept me from getting bored and felt good.  Also helps to watch the Yankees during this.  Having something to watch is very helpful. Keeps my mind off the fact that I hate running.  :-)

Guess what - I didn't have a snack tonight either after my run.  This would be prime time for ice cream. 

 Notice that I'm not telling you what I ate today.  Why?  Because I didn't necessarily eat "good" choices, so there's no need to talk about that yet.  At this point, I obviously want to get some healthier eating habits going, but this particular situation is brought on by my obvious out-of-shapeness.  Where did this come from?

Well, on Saturday night, I was at the Yankee game.  As many of you know, I like to collect autographed items from people I meet in person.  I have been chasing after Aaron Judge for literally 3 years.  He's a great signer.  Pretty much everyone I know that has tried has eventually gotten him, but I don't get a chance to go out and do it too often, so I have just not had any luck.  Anyway, I literally chased his car a couple blocks in the rain hoping that he would feel bad since it was raining pretty hard and roll down to sign for me.  Turns out that it worked!  I got really lucky.  Judge is NOT a guy who rolls his window down to sign.  He signs at the game in right field fairly often and does autograph show events.  Signs a lot on the road from what I hear, but rolling the window down is not a typical Judge move.  I got really lucky!!!!

So afterwards, I jogged back to my friends who were waiting back where i started.  By the time I got there, I was breathing so heavy and had pains in parts of my leg that I didn't realize existed!  For someone who a couple of years ago was able to do 3 miles fairly easily and even did a couple longer runs w/Kristyn - 5-6 miles through Nutley,) I was very disappointed that I could not run a few blocks without feeling like i was going to fall over!  Additionally, our day at Sesame Place was great, but I spent a lot of time in the water and on the floor and I was not happy about how much work it was just to get up off the ground!  I'm 38 years old, for God's sake.  That got me thinking that I needed to get back into shape a little better and here we are. 

So at this point, who knows where I'm heading with this, but there are a number of people who have "requested" the blog back.  Can't guarantee it will be often and can't guarantee it will be good. BUT I'll be around, here and there and I hope you enjoy reading it. 

Until next time . . . . . . . . .