About me. I’m Travis. Thirty five year old AU alum, husband, not yet a father, construction project manager, respectably out of shape, hunter, christian, small farmer, Georgian. Like many, my post college professional life has been sprinkled with spurts of exercise and long, slow steady declines in health. I almost wish it had happened faster as it would have been more drastic and noticeable. Noticeable would have been motivating. Long, slow and steady isn’t motivating. Until you’re 35 and realize you’ve become something you don’t want to be, that is.
I suppose the decline began after high school. As a child I played sports. At thirteen my family moved to Florida where I lived through high school. I didn’t play the organized sports there like I did previously, but I absolutely lived in the water. Surfing, wakeboarding, swimming, you name it. I was no athlete, but I was certainly in shape. After HS came college. With college came lots of walking, but also lots of less healthy extracurricular activities (beer). Post college, the beer waned, but the activity didn’t pick up. I lifted weights for several years, but did no cardio. I did cardio in spurts, but never really sustained anything but the decline.
So here I am. Never really being too out of shape or too overweight, but currently a little too out of shape and a little too overweight. I heard about this c25k program (couch to five k). I’ve never been a runner, but always wanted to be. I have slight arthritis in both knees from two short bouts with Lyme disease which has always been my excuse. I recently decided that pain was a pathetic excuse. In the words of the great Swayze in Road House, “Pain don’t hurt”.
My wife and I started a week ago. A week and a day, really as we just got done with week 2 day 1 of the program. We’re excited. We hurt, but it’s a fantastic hurt. We’re enjoying it and actually looking forward to each run. This is different. No, not “this is different” as in that’s what we’re telling ourselves, but “this is different” as in it’s actually different. We’re loving it, pain and all.
We have goals. They will be achieved. No really, watch us. They will be. We aren’t in a hurry, so we might repeat a week here and there, but we’re going to get there. We’re going to complete the c25k program by mid November. We’re going to run a 5k by the end of the year. It will be a first for us both. We’re going to run the Peachtree Road Race 10k in Atlanta next July 4th. Then we’re going to train for the 2013 Georgia Tough Mudder (likely around March 2013). There might be other 5k’s spattered in between. Who knows? Depends on how much we enjoy racing.
I’ll blog it all here. Most will be about our runs and progress, but please don’t expect me to stay on topic. You’d be surprised at the random thoughts that go through my mind throughout the day. I’m going to use this space to blog about it all. We’ll see where it goes.
Off we go. C25K210K2TM.
