Weight for It, Weight for It

My weight, it seems, has plateaued at about 177 pounds. Though the masochist who created the Body Mass Index tells me I’m still “overweight” (unless I’m very generous in estimating my height), from a health and, well, vanity standpoint, I’m satisfied at 177.

I do suspect, however, that maximizing my speed will require some additional weight loss. Although, now that I think about it, when my then eight-year-old son [name redacted] and I raced down the water slides at Great Wolf Lodge a few years ago (back when catching a communicable disease at a water park was only a probability, not a certainty), I demolished him. Why ? Because I outweighed him by more than a hundred pounds. Paraphrasing Newton (or someone), an object in motion stays in motion and the fatter an object is, the faster it will go down a hill. Should I be gaining weight? Something to bookmark for further research.

The cute diver I married says she doesn’t want me to get too skinny; wants me to “still” be able to protect her. She should’ve thought about that when she married a diver. The only punch I’ve ever thrown was when [name redacted] and I decided to buy some gloves and box behind our dorm sophomore year. We wailed for several seconds, realized how exhausting boxing is, and held a joint press conference to announce our retirements from boxing. I’ll give it a solid effort, but make no mistake: my protective ability depends almost entirely on Divine Intervention.

Physics research and spousal opinions on hold, I decide to see how much the world’s fastest 5k runners weigh. Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei is the current world record holder. He covered the distance in twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds. I assume that’s a typo. Or else Ugandan minutes are longer than American minutes. The Internet tells me Cheptegei is 5’6” and 115 pounds. This rabbit hole was a mistake.

Maybe I should stick to Americans; compare myself to some meat-and-potato types like myself. Bernard Lagat is the American record holder for the 5k on the track. Twelve minutes, fifty-three seconds. (“What took you so long, Bernie?”) He’s listed at 5’8” and 134 pounds.

Cheptegiei and Lagat are both shorter than me. I’m a towering 5’10”. We’re still not in apples-to-apples territory. Ben True is the American record holder for the road 5k. Thirteen minutes, twenty seconds. He’s 6’0” (the same height as me if I round up to the nearest foot). Now we’re talkin’. 164 pounds. Crap. The writing is on the wall that an ideal running weight for me is likely somewhere in the 150s. This conflicts with my ideal Oreo consumption, which is nightly. *Sigh*

Between the Ears

I’ve long believed that distance running is primarily a mental exercise. I said that to a friend the other day, and he said, “100%.” My friend, who isn’t a mathematician,* is wrong. I tend to agree with Yogi Berra. “[Running] is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.” Regardless, if I’m going to run a fast 5k, I better get my mind right.

I decided to visit a sports psychologist to get some sound advice. I Googled “world renowned sports psychologists” and, while browsing through the results, considered that (1) world renowned sports psychologists probably expect to be compensated for their services and (2) the 2021 Jordan Family Budget lacks a line item for sports psychology treatment. So, I decided to read Deena Kastor’s book “Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory,” and then sit in a chair for a few minutes and think about the mental aspects of running. Here’s what I came up with:

Imagine I take my car to a 3.1-mile straightaway. I floor the gas pedal and don’t let up until I cross the finish line. Absent user error or mechanical failure, my car will cover that distance as quickly as it is physically capable of doing so. There’s a physical limitation on how fast my car can travel that distance and the car will hit that physical limitation.

There’s also a physical limitation on how fast my body can carry itself 3.1 miles. The goal is to hit that physical limitation. Unlike the car, however, my body has this annoying co-worker (let’s call him “Brian the Brain”) who, throughout the course of the 5k, insists on popping his head over the cubicle wall and saying things like “you can’t keep this pace up” and “hey, I think we’re about to die.” Brian the Brain is rarely right, always persistent, and surprisingly convincing.

To maximize my performance, I have to fire Brian the Brain. (Easier said than done'; he’s the type to keep showing up even after you stop paying him.) Once I’ve fired Brian, I need to hire his replacement. Someone who oozes positivity. Someone who would play the violin on the deck of the sinking Titanic or appreciate the warmth from the fire burning down the building in which he sits. He’ll pop over the cubicle wall and tell you how strong you look; how you can even pick up the pace a little. Sometimes he’s lying, but that doesn’t really matter. He’s a hype man; not hired to tell you the truth.

So, I’m trying to remember that Brian the Brain got the pink slip and his replacement is to be embraced, not ignored. I’m letting the replacement stick his head into my cubicle whenever he wants to and I’m choosing to believe that what’s he’s telling me is true.

*It took me 6 tries to spell mathematician correctly.

Peaking Early

I think I peaked athletically when I was about 10. Conveniently, I peaked at an age when athletic ability didn’t threaten to burden me with millions of dollars, or a free education, or the adoration of the opposite sex.

I was 10 when I won the Futures Junior Tennis Tournament in Atlanta. I beat Robby Ginepri in the finals. Ten or so years later, Robby was playing Andre Agassi in the semi-finals of the U.S. Open. I was playing PlayStation with my roommate [name redacted]. Did Robby’s loss to me in the Futures drive his success? Hard to say. But, no. It didn’t. He beat me soundly when we were 11, 12, 13, etc.

I was also 10 when I hit a walk-off grand slam to win a little league baseball game. The asterisk to that story is that the ball barely left the infield and the play would properly be scored as a single followed by three errors. Asterisks can be real buzzkills.

By eighth or ninth grade, I backed away from competitive tennis. I thought my girlfriend would probably dump me if I was out of town the whole summer. She dumped me after I spent the summer in town.

I wrestled in eighth grade. I was in the 103 pound weight class. I quit after a year, worried that the next year there wouldn’t be any other wrestlers in that weight class and, until I could put on some muscle, the coach would make me perform ribbon dance routines in between the wrestling matches.

In high school, I made it rain in the YMCA and church basketball leagues, but I was never good enough to make the teams you had to try out for.

Senior year of high school, my friend [name redacted] and I decided to join the diving team. There was a pretty girl on the diving team who I’d been dating for several months and there’s nothing that can solidify high school love like a Speedo. [Name redacted] quit the diving team after the first practice. Turns out, he was incapable of entering the water head first, which likely wouldn’t have helped his scores. I stuck it out as the sole male diver. What I lacked in ability, I also lacked in grace. The pretty girl? She’s now my wife. Thank you, Speedo.

In college, I played rugby for one day. I don’t need to explain why that was a bad idea.

I think it’s time to write some new glory days into my story. One day, when I’m playing shuffleboard at the senior center, the guys and I will swap embellished stories about our athletic pasts. Hopefully I’ll tell about the time I blazed a 5k when I was pushing 40. Beating a ten-year-old in tennis can only take you so far.

Chasing a Zoomer

On March 14, our family went to a Pi Day (3.14, get it?) gathering with some friends from church. We ate a variety of pies (shepherd’s pie, pizza pie, strawberry pie) and tried to remember how to interact with other humans in a face-to-face setting.

I’m a card-carrying introvert and do my best to steer conversation topics away from myself, but my recent effort to improve my 5K time came up. This prompted someone in the group to ask [name redacted], a twenty-year-old college sophomore and once high school cross country runner, how fast he could run a 5k. This led, in short order, to [name redacted] challenging me to a 5k race through the neighborhood. That escalated quickly.

[Name redacted] is a member of Generation Z - he’s a Zoomer. (I initially titled this post “Chasing a Millennial,” but then realized that [name redacted] isn’t old enough to be a millennial.) As it relates to running, [name redacted] has several qualities that I lack - experience, ability, and metabolism, to name a few. But the perq of racing someone nearly half my age is that I have exactly nothing to lose. Expectations are extremely low, just as I like them. Race accepted.

Three days later, we met in my driveway. [Name redacted] went shirtless to remind me of his metabolism. I wore my shirt, both to love my neighbors and to keep [name redacted’s] confidence from further surging.

I then proceeded to chase [name redacted] for 3.1 miles. Occasionally I lost sight of him when he’d make a turn, but I generally kept him in sight, albeit unreachable sight.

[Name redacted] crossed the finish line in 19:41. I crossed in 20:29, significantly faster than I’ve ever run a 5k before. 1st in my age group. Second overall.

March 17, 2021 5k Time - 20:29

Doctor, Doctor

I have an uncle who, whenever someone is unwrapping a gift from him, cautions the recipient not to "over-expect.” It’s good advice, both in present unwrapping and in life in general. It’s the reason I show up at my annual physical with a large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a 2-Liter of Mountain Dew in tow. Don’t over-expect, Doc.

In March of 2020, my doctor told me my cholesterol was too high and I needed to bring it down or start taking medication. I feigned surprise, pretending to choke on a Dorito. She scheduled me for lab work six months out. By way of (a) divine intervention or (b) laboratory error, my cholesterol had dropped a few points by September. Noting that it was “trending in the right direction,” my doctor held off on medication.

I returned yesterday (March 2, 2021) for my annual physical. I’d been eating well and exercising for about three months (and had dropped about 25 pounds), but I took the Doritos and Mountain Dew just in case. My cholesterol was way down. No need for medication. Turns out watching what you eat and exercising is good for your health. Who knew?

Tools of the Trade

There are three things I’m using to keep my eating and my running on track:

  1. Run Less, Run Faster - This is a book and training plan I’ve used in the past. It focuses on three “quality” runs each week (a speed workout, a mid-distance/mid-pace run, and a long run). A couple of buddies and I used this program when we trained for a half-marathon. One of them hypothesized that if less running = faster running, then even less running (i.e., no running) = even faster running. Race day was a near-death experience for him. Hypothesis proven false.

  2. Lose It! - When it comes to eating, I live on the slippery slope. If I go off the rails for breakfast (hello, Bojangle’s), I see no need to return to the rails for lunch or dinner . . . or dessert . . . or midnight snack. Tomorrow is a new day. But imagine having to tell the little man inside your phone that you ate a different fast food fried chicken for each meal in a single day. The little man’s judgment oozes through the screen. The Lose It! app gives me a daily calorie goal and I record all of my food and my exercise. It keeps me close to, if not on, the rails.

  3. Strava - I record all of my runs on Strava, which makes it easy to track progress and see mileage splits. Remember when you had to map out a course with your car and record your time on a stopwatch, like an idiot? Thank you, Strava (and Al Gore)!

Setting the Baseline

I figured I should start this . . . boondoggle . . . by seeing how fast I could run a 5k. So, on December 5, 2020, I laced up, started my “Everything” playlist (the only stage Rage Against the Machine and Toby Keith will ever share) on Spotify, and headed out.

I hit the 1 mile mark at 8:20. Feeling pretty good.

Then came the hills. As I approached the 2 mile mark, I saw a car approaching. I prayed (only briefly) that it would hit me. Just a graze. Not enough to do damage, but enough to justify my scrapping this whole idea and finding a “safer” hobby. Like needle point.

I hit the 2 mile mark at 17:33. Mile 2 - 8:53.

The Dixie Chicks’ Cowboy Take Me Away came on. If a man pulled up beside me on a horse right now, I thought, I’d hop right on. No questions asked. Cowboy, take me away.

I made the turn onto our street and hit the 3 mile mark. Mile 3 - 8:41.

I decided to “sprint” to the finish. I saw the neighbors peering through their window blinds, craning their necks in an effort to see who or what was chasing me down our suburban street. I hit 3.1 and collapsed into the front yard. In the words of the inimitable Andy Dwyer, “everything hurts, running is impossible.”

My December 5, 2020 5k Time: 26:46

A Brief History

Before we get too far down this road, I should let you know that I’m a decorated runner. No, “decorated” isn’t the right word. Hold on while I Google “antonyms for decorated.” Naked. I’m a naked runner. No, that isn’t it either. Unadorned. That’ll work. While I have some history with the sport of running, that history is . . . unremarkable.

In the fall of 2000, as a Davidson College freshman, I ran in the Cake Race, a less-than-two-mile run around the campus that awards top finishers with cakes made by locals and professors. At the sound of the gun, my friend [name redacted] and I took off in a dead sprint. A photo taken in the first seven seconds of the race would’ve revealed us with a healthy lead over the rest of the pack. Things went downhill from there. At some point, the president of the college (in his mid-fifties at the time) passed me. He was wearing the Davidson Wildcat mascot head. A few minutes later I was passed by a man who was juggling while he ran. He, too, qualified for a senior citizen’s discount. About that time, I noticed how close the race route had taken me to my dorm. I went there instead of to the finish line. Later, I ate some of the cake my neighbor brought home after winning the race.

After college, I ran a few half marathons, 10ks, and 5ks. The last 5k I ran was five or so years ago. I don’t remember my time, but I do remember crossing the finish line and seeing a runner who had finished well before me casually smoking a cigarette next to the finish line. That was . . . kind of a bummer.

Only one direction to go from here . . .

In the Beginning . . .

2020 has been an . . . interesting year. “Interesting” like those vegan black bean brownies your wife made. The ones the dog ate off the counter, proving you wrong when, after describing them as “interesting,” you told your wife “not even a dog would eat these brownies.” 2020 has been interesting.

As we near the end of 2020, however, I find myself having reached something of a personal milestone. I’m heavier than I’ve ever been before! Quarantine champion! The impressiveness of this feat is amplified by the fact that, in college, I followed a strict diet that required me to eat and drink exactly what I wanted at any time of the day or night. On many occasions, second dinner (or was it first breakfast?) would consist of a 2 am chicken quesadilla. I’ve given that up (I can’t stay up that late), but thanks to my quarantine commitment to (a) not exercise and (b) support “local” businesses by eating lunch at a different fast food restaurant every day, I’ve surpassed College Will and claimed the belt for heaviest version of myself.

I’m 5’10” and I weigh 213 pounds. I know that isn’t that heavy. TLC hasn’t called to negotiate a reality show. (I also know that others struggle with their weight in much more profound ways, and by suggesting that I need to lose some weight, I don’t mean to be insensitive to anyone else.) But, the truth is, 213 pounds is heavier than I need to be in order to be healthy (more on that later). And, more to the point, weighing 213 pounds is not conducive to running a fast 5k. Running fast will inevitably require trimming some fat.

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