Light and Speedy... Kind of...

October goal - 219 lbs. Actual weight this morning - 219 lbs.

Check that goal off the list! November's will be difficult with the holiday, but not impossible with a 75 mile goal! I'll be satisfied if I can reach 215 lbs by the end of the month. Anything more than that is icing on the cake that I can't eat.

Running for Candy

6 miles
55 min, 9:10 min/mile pace

You read that right. Today was all about offsetting the candy binge that thankfully never happened. After a few pieces of candy I was done. Some call it being healthy; I call it getting old. Not a bad run. Running down 24th between 91st and
Tower was difficult, but I have to break the 5 - 6 mile ceiling for long runs if I want to be prepared for the Rock n' Roll Half in February. So far so good, but I may have to break down and get some sort of hydration belt if I'm going to keep this up. Anything over 4 miles and I'm getting bad dry mouth.

Easy run tomorrow if I can. Final mileage for October was 65. Not bad for me, but its getting kicked up in November to 75 miles. That's the goal anyway. We'll see how it turns out.

10/30 Run

3.24 miles
33:30 min, 10:19 min/mile

Got up early again to knock out a few easy miles before starting the day. At least it wasn't raining today, but I had cookies for breakfast so that probably negated anything that the run did for me. Other than that there were some errands, a trip to Publix and lots of NFL on tv.

I almost made it to the driving range today, but a little twinge in my upper back made me a little apprehensive. That got pushed to sometime this week. With all the holidays coming up it's getting more important to get reps in on the practice range to get the swing plane where it needs to be, maintain touch around the greens, etc. Depending on if I get a Monday through Friday job or stay with Lowe's I will either be entering amateur qualifiers or Monday qualify for a few regional Hooters, Nationwide or PGA Tour events until the decision whether to enter Q-School or play on the NGA Hooters Tour is made later in 2012. No matter what happens, there's a lot of hours of work in the future to chase that goal.

10/29 Run

4.2ish miles
43:24 min

We woke up to rain, but as it turned out the main part of the storms had already passed and it was down to a drizzle. Still, I was a little too nervous to bring my phone with the iMapMyRun app so I had to settle for estimating based on previous runs. I did want to go out again later in the day, but prior obligations and a horrible Georgia/Florida game took up the rest of the daylight. Oh well, there's always tomorrow morning!

The Birds

Conventional knowledge states that strapping a plastic owl to a tree branch will scare the birds away and keep my car a lot better looking, assuming of course that some vindictive squirrel doesn't chew through the wire, giving me another dent I'm too lazy to repair.

Hedwig was $12.38 and sat quiet in my passenger seat like a sullen grandmother. I propped him up against the dashboard to get a picture, but after a sudden turn I looked over to see him staring out the window and into the sun.

I use to wonder what Nana stared at on our road trips to Myrtle Beach or Ocala when I was growing up. She never would say and I never figured it out until years later, but she would always find something to criticize or complain about. I have a hard time thinking that her goal in life was to find fault in things, but maybe it was. I remember one summer, a year or two after my grandfather died, her, my mom and I were constantly fighting. None of us could have remembered how it started, but it kept going on for weeks. Finally, on Mom's birthday we got the news that she booked the three of us for a week in Myrtle Beach. When we got there our room just happened to be a few doors down from the room where my grandfather died from a heart attack. We went about our vacation and nobody realized until after we got back that we were quiet the whole time. No arguments, harsh words, criticisms or outbursts from me despite being dragged to an outlet mall with no decent toy store in sight. Of course, as soon as we got back to Marietta it didn't take long for her to get back to normal, but in Myrtle Beach the years we went until high school started and baseball kept us busy all summer she was different. We all were.

"I wish I could be a real bird," he probably thought. Instead he's stuck in a box. Pretty soon he'll be out of sight and mostly out of mind, but always above us, glaring down in his angry and judgemental way, but always protecting us.

Biggest Loser

Not many people know that during my senior year at Flagler College my weight ballooned up to 265 lbs, mainly because my only exercise was sucking in my gut.  Thankfully, I carry weight well and didn't look like a disgusting blob, but everything I did either had bad results or was harder because I was heavier.  Golf was out of the question. My flexability was shot, but I was still coordinated and strong enough to compensate and keep my scores respectably in the 70's and low 80's, but cracking 70 consistently wasn't going to happen.  Running caused pain, not just soreness, in my knees, hips and back.  Going to the gym was a commitment I didn't make at that time, and as a result I had the body I deserved.

After college I worked outside at a golf course supervising the cart guys and a lot of the weight fell off.  I was also living on the beach, and even though it was embarrassing to go, I still went with different roommates almost every day.  When a business partner and I started a small construction company, my weight got down to around 210, and ever since 2003 I've fluctuated between 210 and 235.  No matter how hard I worked, visited the gym, etc, I wasn't able to shed the weight.

Last year, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I joined Gainesville Health and Fitness, began walking and occasionally running together and had a lot of success. Despite completely losing focus for months on end which resulted in problems, the least of which was weight, the focus has come back.  On May 1st, weighing 235 again, I set a goal of getting back to a respectable weight, shape and lifestyle.  I assumed that 200 would be a reasonable goal, but after reading a few bio's on PGA Tour players with my same height and body type, I realized that that was a little short sighted.  With October 31st approaching and the 219 lb goal coming fast (plateau during the summer, change in job, excuses excuses), I'm realizing the gravity of the situation.  One of my favorite shows is the Biggest Loser, admittedly because I love laughing at some of the people on there, but watching and hoping that others will succeed.  Thinking back to me at 265, then 235 and now that I'm at 219, it's amazing to think that when I reach my goal of 180 lbs, I'll be 85 lbs lighter than I was at my heaviest.  That's almost one She Who Must Be Obeyed... or it is one...  I have no concept of her weight and she'll probably keep that number with her to her grave.

I heard somewhere that there's a greater accountability when you publicly state your goals.  Over time I'm sure I'll state several goals relating to golf, running or other life related things.  As for weight, I started at 235 on 5/1.  The goal is 180 by the time the next 5/1 rolls around.  That's 55 lbs in a year, just over a pound a week.  So far, the summer heat and a plateau hurt the progress.  When 11/1 arrives I'll either be 219 or a few lbs under that, but no matter the number I'll be behind schedule.  With cool weather coming up and the prime running season here I'm expecting big things.  Gainesville Health and Fitness is just around the corner, so I may look into renewing that membership as well.  It's time to get going. 16 lbs down, 39 lbs (ish) to go.

10/26 Run - UF

4.32 Miles
40:19 min, 9:20 min/mile pace

The usual practice is to go to UF (The University of Florida for all non-Gainesville readers) after my weekly guitar lesson and run stairs at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.  Tonight I wasn't in a stairs mood so I figured to change it up a little I'd run around campus.  My route took me from the stadium parking lot on Gale Lemrand to University to a side street that runs by a the law school and golf course down to 34th.  Right when I turned off University onto the side street, some guy in a car yelled "FUCK YOU!!!".  I'm not sure why, but then I can't explain the reasons why my college roomates and I decided to egg people a few times my sophmore year.  One of these days kharma will catch up to me from all the crap we did back then.

The rest of the run down 34th, by the Rec Center and down Museum Road went well.  The hills at the end on Museum and Gale Lemrand weren't great, but it was a nice way to end the workout.  All in all, pretty uneventful, though I'm betting that if I keep going that route I'll end up dodging an egg or some passenger seat projectile at some point.  Can't blame them though. Kids being kids.  God... 32 and calling 18 year olds kids... Help...