THE OLD DAYS

18:00 MINUTES

   Had a good workout today. Or at least a good workout by my current standards. Back in the 90's I went from around 290 pounds down to around 195-200 lbs. Stayed ther for about 5 years. I have long since gained back 90 percent of that weight. Mostly due to laziness or apathy but alos due to a number of years wear I worked extremely long hours and just couldn't motivate myself to hit the gym, though I did keep up not one but two memberships. I would get back in the mood, or mode, every 6 months or so and do or say all the right things about how I was going to lose this weight this time. And occasionally I would lose 25-35 lbs. Right back it would come with the next crisis at work or in my life.
     I still want to lose that weight and if I actually get my diet in line it will happen pretty easily considering the time I am spending in the gym or on my bike these days (due to my current state of unemployment). Today I got on the treadmill after an hour on the stair master. My current time on the treadmill is 40 minutes. I warm up for about 10 minutes and then I alternate 1 minute at 6.2mph and 1 minute at 4.2mph. I just started back on the treadmill and I am still very heavy so that is good for now. But it got me thinking about the past. In 95-96 I was running pretty strong (18 min 5k) and I would go into the gym and do my workouts on the treadmill ( I enjoy the constancy of the gym and the ability to scientifically repeat workouts to measure today against yesterday). Today  I felt pretty good about "run/walking 3 miles in 38 minutes today. In the past I wouldn't have felt like "wasting my time" with such a workout. I used to go into the gym at 2am in the morning before the day of a race and do 45 minutes on a stair master and run 3 miles in around 24 minutes and not even be tired. In fact I would get up 3 hours later and go run a local 5K race just for fun, usually in a sub 19 minute pace.I am able to be happy with what I accomplished today but some where in the back of my mind is that little guy going you can do better. you can go faster. He doesn't care that I way 80 pounds more than when I could do this in the past. My goal for this year is to run a few 5k's in the last 3-4 months of the year in sub 25 minutes. Nothing grand, but it is on the road back. Hopefully I can lose some of the weight that I want to to lose so that this goal is possible. One foot in front of the other and continuing to adjust my diet will definitely make this possible.