I Beat The Crim! Let The Final Countdown Begin!

I ran ten fucking miles today. And I hurt.

But before I discuss why I hurt, let's go to the photos!

This is me during my 5K, when I weighed 280+ pounds and thought that running 3.1 miles was a challenge (now, a 3 mile run would be what I'd call "rest day"):

Here's me at the 10K, when I weighed about 270:

And here's me at 250 pounds, just finishing the Crim:

I am svelte as fuck!

I even convinced my wife to do her first 5K, which she had to walk due to her being pregnant:

Say hi to the awesomest wife ever!

So why the pain from an itsy-bitsy 10 mile run? (And I say that non-ironically, I know people that have run marathons and triathlons who weren't hurting as bad as I am right now).

Remember that ab injury I mentioned a few weeks ago? It hasn't gone away, and here's why:

I finally got a doctor to check to see why my abs were still having consistent pain after three weeks. He said that it was simply muscle strain from overtraining (turns out that despite what CT Fletcher tells you, overtraining is not a myth). I asked him why I was still feeling it after three weeks despite not doing any weight training, and he said that my long-distance running wasn't doing my abs any favors. I told him I was running the Crim that weekend and he said to avoid any running until then. So I did, and went four days without doing any exercise at all.

So my abs felt fine when I started the run. I was crazy motivated to get started in the beginning. I carbo-loaded the night before and was hopped-up on pre-workout formula. I looked at the start line and didn't see a race. I saw a battlefield. This was war. I actually had Loaf's voice in my head screaming at the road "WE ARE GENERALS, YOU ARE THE ENEMY!"

I ran out the gate and started passing everyone, immediately realizing that I had seriously underestimated how fast I was going to run this race, so I started way in the back. I thought I would have a mile average of about 12 minutes. But for the first 3/4 of the race, my average was about 10:30.

Unfortunately in the middle of my seventh mile my abs decided to protest. It was like it was screaming at me "HEY, REMEMBER ME MOTHERFUCKER! THE ABS THAT CONSISTENTLY STAY INJURED BECAUSE YOU CAN'T STOP WORKING OUT FOR TWO GODDAMN SECONDS!?" So my average hit a downward trajectory of 11:11 minutes. I still completed the race at 1:51:48, well below my goal of two hours. But after the race, despite drinking large amounts of water, my body started experiencing heat cramps, which only exacerbated the injury. Just as I started considering hitting the first aid tent, my wife texted me and let me know that she was almost done with her race. So I soldiered on and afterward we hit up the Tropical Smoothie Cafe where I got a turkey sandwich and some liquified fruit and sugar into my system.

The ab strain still persists, though, and it's because of that that I'll be taking two weeks off of working out completely. It sucks, but it'll suck worse if I can't heal up. If I stay on the paleo diet (which I follow on days when I don't need to carbo-load for a long distance run or deal with passing out after the run), I should be okay. On Friday I weighed 250 pounds even. I'm sure I took out a couple of pounds on this run, which would mean that I'm less than 10 pounds away from my goal weight.

So anyway, bring on the half-marathon. It's the final countdown!