Last year, it was windy and a little chilly.
This year, it was rainy and way more than a little chilly.

I didn’t run the 8K, but I did walk the 2K. I considered running, even with the rain, but didn’t for two reasons. First, it doesn’t do me any good to catch a cold that kicks my ass for two weeks right before final exams. Second, I wasn’t as in shape this year– two jobs plus half time school takes its toll on a person’s workout schedule.

So my results for this year weren’t in the paper the next day. Oh well. I did get my tshirt, my beer, and got to see the crew from work. Definitely worth two clicks in the rain. Just wait ’till next year.

It took a while to get started, even in bike friendly Madison. Getting in the car is easy– it’s still a pain to get up and go to work, but the trip there doesn’t require any effort. You get in the car, start it up, and off you go. Riding a bike involves leaving earlier, checking the weather, bringing clothes to change into when you get there, and making sure you take (enough) water along.

The route I take to work involves two different, and each fairly short, dedicated bike paths plus bike lanes and two legs of just plain old streets. There are a few hills, but nothing I can’t deal with. It’s an easy ride. The streets I do ride on aren’t busy in the morning on the way to work, and are still easy to navigate in the afternoon. They’re city streets, but not “main artery” streets. Without the two bike paths, and a short chunk of asphalt (thank you, PDQ @ Stoughton Rd. & Anderson St.!) that connects one street to another, my bike commute wouldn’t happen. If anyone wonders if those short bike paths and connector sidewalks are worth the money property owners and the city of Madison spend on them, the answer is yes. So are the bike lanes.

And since I’m handing out thank you’s, thanks to those nice folks who give me extra room on the street even when I have a bike lane to ride in. It’s appreciated.

(Now, if I could convince The Man at work that a place to shower at work would be a good thing, I’d be willing to call my employer bike friendly, too.)

Links:

• City of Madison, WI Traffic Engineering Bike Maps
• Where to get a Dane County (paper) bike map
• Reindahl Park info (one of the paths I use
• Wisconsin DOT Bicycle Projects

Listen to me, talking about my running technique. Heh.

I wish I had thought of it earlier– at last month’s VFW post meeting, an info packet had arrived asking if Post 7591 was interested in putting a team together for Crazylegs. I was the only one that raised my hand, but there may be others around from other Posts or people who don’t attend meetings. So I’ll put it out there now, 364 days before Crazylegs 2009. If you’re a Veterans of Foreign Wars member (or you’re eligible) and would like to run with me in next year’s Crazylegs, leave a comment and let me know. I’ll get in touch when registration opens for 2009.

For people who “are runners”, this is no big deal. For me, this is a milestone. Before this year’s Crazylegs Classic, I had never run in any kind of organized run or walk. Zip. Zilch. Nada. That was for, you know, those cross country and track and runner type people. I was busy doing cool computer stuff, sloshing down Mountain Dew and eating healthy things like Twinkies. Now, I can not only run five miles at a time, I can do it without the need for medical assistance. (In fact, I run five miles three times a week.)

Now, I’ll admit the fact that I knew there was free beer waiting for me at Camp Randall. And that Bud Light tasted pretty damn good. But that wasn’t my main motivation for running the race.

If you’re one of the three or so people who actually follow my blog, you know I’ve been working on losing weight and getting in shape. At a certain point, you have to do something to test yourself. I’ve been running for an hour at a time on a treadmill at the Y, but running outside with other people on real streets and hills is a different thing when you haven’t done it before. You ask yourself, “Self, can I say I’m in good shape now?” And so you pay your money and do things like run the Crazylegs Classic.

And when you finish under your goal time, knowing you trained hard, and ran up all the hills instead of walking, and just plain kept going and got it done… that’s when you can say “Self, you’re in a whole lot better shape than you used to be.”

And when you hear yourself saying “I bet I can run it faster next year…”, that’s when you know you’ve made a change and stuck with it, and it’s going to be permanent.

Here are my main issues on days when I work at night:

• I go straight from one job to the next. The easiest thing to do is just grab a brat or hot dog for supper at the night job.
• I have no time for a structured workout that day.
• I get home late, meaning I get even less sleep than normal.
• I have even less time to prep meals and snacks for the next day, so I also don’t eat well enough at my day job.

I think the first thing I need to address is diet; I’m not going to lose weight having brats for dinner, and I’m not going to lose weight by eating the wrong things for lunch and snacks during the day. So, first change is a new rule: if I don’t have time to prep a good lunch and snacks for work, I can get a salad with lite dressing for lunch at work. For snacks, I can take veggies and fruit that don’t require any preparation. I don’t know the calorie count of the salad, unfortunately, but it’s my best option within the building.

Second change is that if I try, I can find something healthy to eat between jobs instead of taking the easy (and not healthy) route. Enter one of my favorite apps, Google Maps. By looking at the route I take between jobs, I’ve discovered that I pass a Subway on the way. I can get a 6 inch Veggie Delite with 230 total calories (30 from fat) at Subway; if I eat at work, just a single Johnsonville brat (without the bun) contains 270 calories (200 from fat!).

Okay– now on to the workout problem. My night job involves a lot of standing around, along with some lifting and carrying of boxes and containers. I do have some time to walk around, though, and since most of the stuff I have to carry is located one or two floors down, I can take the stairs. So I can get some exercise in, although not all at once. But that’s okay; it’s still calories burned. The change I’m going to make is that I’m going to look at my schedule every week, and out of every seven days, Sunday through Saturday, I’m going to find three days when I can get to the Y to do a full workout. The days will need to shift, and I’ll need to do some back-to-back days, meaning I might have to adjust the amount of weights I do on a given day, but I’ll still fit in three trips. As an emergency backup, I can do a Biggest Loser workout at home if my schedule’s just that insane (like it was this week).

Of course, saying I’m going to do this and getting it done are two different things; one of my problems is that I get so busy I lose track of where I am in the schedule. So, two mechanisms for managing all this. I’m going to use my personal planner to hold my work, workout, and other activity schedule, including meals away from home. If I have a plan, I can follow it; it’s when I don’t have a plan that I get into trouble. Second, for things where I need to be reminded that something’s coming up, I’m going to expand my use of Yahoo! Calendar and its incredibly useful calendar reminders that go to my cellphone.

I don’t have an answer for the lack of sleep issue; I’m under a lot of stress right now, making more changes than just losing weight and getting in physical shape. I’m also working on getting in emotional and spiritual shape as well. Sleep tends to lose in the battle for the 24 hours a day I have to work with… stay tuned for more on that…