Waistline

Last year, as I prepared for the Chicago marathon, my goal was to lose 5-10 pounds and reduce my weight to about 180. Although I did not reach this goal, I was close. At the time of the marathon, I was about 183. Even following Chicago, I kept at it and tried to reach the 180 mark. In early December, I dipped to one of my lowest weights at 181.4. Then Christmas happened ... and a week-long vacation to Florida. On January 8th, I peaked at 190.6 thanks to a diet of Christmas cookies, fudge, and beer. Yes, that is a quick 10 pounds in about a month!

In late February, there was a noticeable downward trend in the weight once I signed up for the Green Bay marathon (2/12/16) and the weekly miles started to accumulate.

I made a couple minor adjustments to my diet. I cut down on the size of my lunches. Prior to February, I was eating a hearty sandwich usually with a side of pretzels. Now, I am down to a cup of yogurt and a piece of string cheese. I have also reduced my alcohol consumption (blasphemy, I know). I've only had a few beers and couple glasses of wine since early February. Finally, I reduce my sugar intake. I still sneak in the occasional piece of candy, but Jody and I have drastically cut back on our post-dinner dessert.

These changes have paid off. On March 11th, I touched 180.8. The weight jumped a little bit after Jody and I went wedding cake testing.

One of the places from which we cake tested how to cancel our in-person appointment. She gave us this instead.

Once we finished the cake and I cranked out two weeks where I averaged 30 miles, the weight is as low has it has ever been. Today, after my 13.1 mile run, I weighed in at 178.6. Sure, I was dehydrated and had nothing in my stomach, but let's not get caught up in the details....

Overall, I'm not frustrated that I gained the weight during my off-season, that is to be expected. I enjoyed myself during the holidays and while on vacation. What is surprising is that it did not take a drastic change in the diet for the pounds to return and it has taken has taken nearly three months to kick the pounds back out the door.

The Long Run

This past weekend, a friend, whom I have not seen in ten years, and his wife visited from out of town. During their visit, we started talking about running. Many years ago, he ran a couple marathons but commented that he got extremely bored with the distance. He asked me how I coped with the long runs. This is not a new question. Jody has asked me on several occasions what I think about when I am running long distances.

I really do not have a good answer for the question. To sum it all up in a few words, I would have to say "a little bit of everything" comes and goes as the miles accumulate.

For example, yesterday, I ran 17 miles.

I cannot recall half of what went through my head during the 3 hours it took me to run the route. I know I thought about school and upcoming tasks that I should do while on Spring Break. I know I thought how to respond to a reviewer's comments of an article that a colleague submitted for publication. I know I thought a couple students who recently emailed me. I know I thought a little bit about the wedding and task that still need to be done. I know I think about Jody. I know I thought about needing to do laundry at some point when I got home, despite knowing that I would be very tired and weary. I know I thought about the Green Bay Marathon and what it would take to run all 26.2 miles without stopping.

But other thoughts focused more on the current situation. I was thinking about traffic, always cognizant of needing to move to the curb or run on the sidewalk. Fortunately, the morning after the time change, there was very little. I know I thought about my route and where to turn next. I know I thought about the odds of catching certain green lights or needing to halt my progress at a red light. I know I thought about the distance and how far I still had to go. I tried to not think this very thought. I know I tried to tell myself to minimize looking at my watch to check the distance and my pace. I know I tried to relax myself on several occasions as my legs grew tired. I know I tried to tell myself to run by feel. I know I repeatedly said that my pace was irrelevant and that my overall time did not matter. I know I cursed a few times when my knees started to hurt less than halfway through the run.

Last year, when I was training for the Chicago Marathon, I had two 20-mile long runs that were not fun experiences. I was flat out miserable at times. In hindsight, I tried to run these long runs too fast and crashed before I know what hit me. Today, I focused on not worrying about my time or pace ... at least that is what I thought I kept telling myself. In fact, as my knees started to scream at me, I did something that I would never have thought to do last year, I told myself to stop and stretch, which I did on 9 different occasions during the run. It paid off. After each brief stretching session (about a minute or so), my knees returned to normal and I felt loose again -- I was able to start running without angst flowing through the body. I know I felt relieved after these short stops. I was able to enjoy the run ... the rain did not bother me ... my thoughts did not stop me; they propelled me as I made my final push to the 17 mile marker.

Memories and Horses

For this post, I am going to take a break from talking about running and focus on something completely different...

I teach at the School of Information Studies (SOIS) program at the University Wisconsin - Milwaukee. I teach classes pertaining to archives and records and information management.

In some of the weekly conversations with my students, we discuss issues related to memory, history, and cultural identity.

Let me put it another way. The few of you who read this blog most likely have digital cameras. What happens with all those photos that you take during your vacation, of your kids, or while you are out on the town with friends? Do you put them on Facebook, on another site like Picasa or Flickr, and/or do you download them to your computer? Regardless of what you do, what would happen if your computer crashes and you have no backup? Although highly unlikely, what would happen if Facebook or Flickr were to shut their doors tomorrow? What are the consequences of losing those pictures?

Yes, we would be devastated. It sucks. We might shed a few tears, but what are we losing? A good friend of mine once wrote that documents, such as photographs and emails, are touchstones, or triggers to memory. We look at the photograph or email and we recall the events that were transpiring at the moment that scene was captured. So, by losing those photographs, we potentially lose some of our connections to the past. With digital information, we can create a million different touchstones seemingly in an instance, but in the blink of an eye, these triggers may be lost forever.

However, I now wonder if we are too busy creating triggers that we believe will help us remember and, in a sense, this will be detrimental to our memory.

Look at the following picture. What do you see?

I'm sure we have all encountered this at concerts or sporting events, where the majority of people seem to be staring at their phones, trying to record the action, rather than watching the action. I would also guess that several of us have all been guilty of doing this as well. I sure am.

An astute reader of the magazine made a very interesting comment about this cover, saying "In looking at your cover, I couldn't help but wonder how many of the people pictured are going to someday wish they had a memory of actually seeing American Pharaoh cross the finish line instead of looking at their cellphones."

Several years ago, when I was living in Vancouver, a good friend of mine visited me for a week. Of course, he brought his digital camera. Unfortunately, during his visit, his camera "died." Panic set in and, obviously, he was upset, thinking that he had lost all the pictures he had taken to that point, not to mention hundreds of other images that he had yet to back up from the memory card. As we climbed over some rocks on Pender Island, I remarked that while the pictures would be nice, they can never do justice to how you remember the event or place. (On a happy note, my friend was able to recover all the pictures from the camera.)

Not Pender Island. Apparently, I did not take any scenic photos from that trip. This image is from the ferry coming back to Vancouver, BC from the Sunshine Coast.

Despite our ability to seemingly record every second of our lives, even if we did so, would we vividly and accurately remember these experiences? In short, I want to spend more time enjoying the scenery with my own two eyes, nose, and ears and less time worrying if the scene is in focus on my camera. The experience will be much more memorable.