13. Positive Negatives 1

I really hate how much present achievement sheds light on past failures sometimes. I try not to dwell to much on these things, choosing to write them down here and forget them, but this particular issue is something that causes a tightness in my chest out of shame due to a couple of years of self deception. I hate lying to myself much more than lying to anyone else, I try very hard not to do that, now more than ever, but in this little corner of my personality I couldn’t seem to stop

To the point. Recently I have started running again, I hate running, but my bike is plagued by constant problems. I seem to run over ever staple, piece of glass, or nail (3 of the 6 objects to have given me a flat this far) on the road. Doing enough damage to render the never flat tires worthless and the constant repair costs prohibitive. I have been willing to spend that money because of my distaste for running. It burns more calories per minute than riding, but because I had so much trouble completing even a mile it just didn’t give me the total calorie burn I needed. That was until the last 6 days.

I had another flat and asked my wife to grab me a new tire from walmart so I would be able to get on the bike quick as I was getting home late. What I didn’t mention is that there is a difference between a tube for a mountain bike (what I have) and a road bike and she grabbed the latter. So the sun was going down, neither of us wanted to go back to the store and I wasn’t going to ride my normal route at night anyway. I was not about to not burn those excess calories, so it was either a p90x cardio (murder me) or running (just torture). So I strapped on my KSO’s and headed out. I was able to do nearly 3 miles. This had me stumped, because the last time I attempted running (2-3 months ago which was when I started losing) about .6 miles in everything hurt, and by the end I was sore and felt like a train wreck.

This should’ve made me very happy, and it did at first, but what it made me realize is that the reason running those miles was so horrible was because of all that excess weight jolting my body with every step. Not the mono killing my endurance, not bad joints, just excess weight. I ran 5 miles today, something I haven’t done since I was 17. I think I could’ve made it 6, the only reason I wasn’t able to do this 3 months ago was because of my weight. I love my bike, it may be one of the best things my wife ever got for me, it started me rolling down hill to change, it let me work off the excess without making my body feel like it was falling apart. However, it feels really good to be able to mix in running again, and at a level surpassing what I managed as a teenager.