My New Gym (And Book!)

A few months ago, one of the old bedrooms in the house was cleared out and I decided to make a gym. It's a tiny bedroom, so I compacted as much as I could into a tiny space. Here's the end result:

Don't mind the cute kid climbing. It's kinda her thing.

Here's a shot from another angle:

In case you're wondering, the pallet is used for calf exercises.
Oh, you weren't wondering? Well, now you know anyway!

And I built my daughter her own weight bench. She's taken a liking to it so far, but hasn't yet learned the exercises She just climbs on it and picks up the bar and does whatever with it:

It's a nice little bench, where the foam weights and bar max out at about four pounds. It's more about getting kids interested in exercise and learning the techniques than anything else. I figure with proper training, my daughter will be able to press about 150-160 pounds by the time she turns four. But I'm optimistic.

My daughter has also taken a liking to hitting the punching bag. She'll be old enough for karate soon enough. :)

Anyway, this was a labor that took months to build, as I had to save up for various equipment, look for good deals on Craigslist, and finally get time to build all the stuff between work and school.

Now I just have to wait for my abs to heal up so I can lift again.

And just as soon as my gym was finished, a book that I pre-ordered six weeks ago came in. A wonderful little graphic novel called "The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances", by Matthew Inman, aka "The Oatmeal". The Oatmeal runs a great website with funny comics, and he's also a runner. He runs for the same reason I do. He's scared of getting fat again. It's why I keep training for my half-marathon even on damaged abs. I keep telling myself: "Fat people don't do half-marathons. Fat people don't do half-marathons. Fat people don't do half-marathons."

I need to do the half-marathon to prove to myself that I'm not fat anymore. When I weighed 367 pounds, you couldn't have got me to run a half-marathon if you paid me $1,000,000 plus a night with Jennifer Lawrence and Keira Knightley at the same time. I couldn't even run ONE mile, let alone 13.1.

But that's changed. And I need to see this through to the end. As The Oatmeal said:

"I often regard overeating as a drug addiction, and I try to imagine what my life would be like if that addiction got the best of me. I picture the years wearing on, with Earth's annual trip around the sun being marked by an increase in pant sizes and a decrease in self worth. I imagine my heart getting tighter and more flustered, until one sunny morning it shudders to a violent halt. I imagine myself wrenching forward, my face heaving into a pile of waffles. I imagine my last breath gurgling into a tepid pool of maple syrup.
I imagine all these things, and I think: 

I don't want to die face first in a pile of waffles. 

I want to die in an electrical storm.
I want to die wrestling a Kodiak bear.
I want to die in an EXPLOSION.
I want to die quietly at home, hand in hand with somebody who loved me. 

I just don't want to die by waffles. Anything but waffles."

I really can't say enough good things about this book. Go buy it on amazon.com for about $10.

Three More Weeks!

Well, the half-marathon is three weeks from today.

And my running is...shit.

I started running again last Sunday, deciding that, my abs be damned, I'm tired of not training.

I also downgraded my training to Higdon's Novice 2 program. It's easier, so not as fun. But easier is what I need if I'm going to heal up.

Anyway, I started last Sunday morning by running 10 miles. It's probably not best to run 10 miles when you've only ran twice in the past month. I was sore as shit after.

My time on my shorter runs has gotten slow, too. It takes me over an hour to run 5 miles, and over 1/2 hour to run 3 miles. Eight months of work, all pissed down the drain because of a stupid abdominal injury.

My abs haven't healed up yet, either. They don't feel as bad as they used to, but I still can't lift weights.

Still, I know that I'm not going to get better at running by sitting on the couch. The only thing that's going to help is to eat right and train as hard as I possibly can. I just keep telling myself: "Fat people don't do half-marathons!" I keep repeating that to myself, over and over. It's my mantra. It's the reason why I keep going.

Three more weeks. I can do this. I have to do this.

"Welcome To Your Thirties"

So, my abs have not healed up. I decided to contact my surgeon and see what the story is. Do I have a hernia? Is it just muscle strain? No, it can't be. It would have healed by now.

I met up with him this morning. I really, really hate my surgeon, but I figured if anyone would be able to figure out what was wrong with my stomach, it would be him.

I told him about my abdominal pain and he examined me. After two minutes, he came to the same conclusion as the ER doc I saw a few weeks ago. It's just muscle strain.

When I asked "Why is it taking so long to heal?" He just said:

"Welcome to your thirties. It'll get even worse when you're in your forties."

Fuck my life.

The half-marathon is six weeks away. I need to heal up.