The Longest Twenty-Minute Run of My Life (and what I plan to do about it)

One of the hardest parts about being heavy is resisting the urge to just lay around and eat.  It's so much easier to watch SportsCenter over Honey Nut Cheerios and milk than to take a walk up to the gym any given morning.  Nonetheless, I've been losing weight lately and have been drinking lots of water, so I decided to work out Thursday morning.  I lifted just a little bit, then decided it was cardio time and hit the treadmill.  Safe to say, afterwards I wanted to die.   Let me highlight three major mistakes:

#1.  I assumed that I would run exactly what I could on the treadmill in early August, the last time I went to the gym (7.2 miles per hour, 2.0 degree incline, 20 minutes).

#2.  I agonized at each passing second, watching the treadmill clock the entire time creep to 20 minutes.  Never did I ever focus on anything other than that clock.

#3.  I neither stretched seriously nor did a little warm-up jog to gauge my heart/lungs.

While all seem silly to any serious athlete, I had this weird fixation Thursday morning nonetheless that I could simply pick up where I left off towards the beginning of August.  I have always been staunchly against using music when I exercise, trying to focus more on the mental exercise of staying motivated.  Normally I use vivid memories of football and wrestling practice to push me through a particularly difficult day, but Thursday morning just would not translate into results.  It's funny, above all, what actually was running through my head:  as my breaths got shorter and legs more like Jell-O, all I could think about were all the pizza and pasta I have eaten and the beer I have consumed.

Aside from memories of coaches screaming at me, I have to go back to the mindset of making my own "tackling fuel."  For those of you who have artfully dodged watching The Waterboy the past 15 years, observe:

Visualize and attack!

If I'm going to burn off the 25 pounds left that I want to drop before Christmas, it's going to take a lot of cardio training and proper eating.  I think I can handle the eating part (more eggs, less flour, for example), but I'm going to have to turn it around in the gym.  Finding my inner tackling fuel will also be a must, but that will come with greater concentration.  Now, for some goals, I'm proposing five must-do's from now on:

#1.  I will skip rope at least 1000 times per gym visit, whether in sets of 100 or 200.

#2.  Each successive day, I will run at my normal pace for two minutes more, settling on 20 minutes.

#3.  I will work in one-minute sets of burpees and mountain climbers, done between sets of jump rope.

#4.  If I fail on the treadmill, I will still run for 20 minutes, backing off the speed for some time while increasing the incline to build my legs.

#5.  I will start a small core strength regimen, experimenting with different techniques until I find a suitable one to complement my running.

For those of you who find yourselves in the same rut I found myself in on Thursday, it's time to find your "tackling fuel."  For some people, it's their gym playlist.  For others, it's the prospect of being teased for years about their weight.  Yet for others, it's the desire to reclaim a level of fitness that they had in the past.  Wherever you find your inspiration, promise yourself to go a little harder in your training either tomorrow or the next day.  For those of you still stumped, try this video on for size:

"You've got to want success as bad as you want to breathe..."

In the end, it's you who has to want it.  We can all party and do what we like any given day, but we weigh it against the opportunity to complete something we've left to the back burner.  I've chosen this semester that work and self-improvement are more important goals than they were the last, and I refuse to let things get in my way.  I hope and pray that I maintain this mentality, but it's a good habit I have to ingrain within myself.  I welcome any suggestions to help me with this transition, or even a simple workout tip.  I'll update you on my weight and workouts on Monday, when I do my weekly weigh-in.