Once A Runner…

Setting New (Old) Ground Rules for Myself

If you were one of the only few people to frequent this blog back a couple of years ago, you might notice the Nike+ stats are missing.  I’m not going to be playing with the Nike+ iPod this early this go-around.  Probably much later on, yes.  Right now, no way.

I have a very deeply-ingrained competitive streak — so deeply-ingrained, in fact, that I will compete ruthlessly with even myself!  I don’t need to have my self-destructive, counter-productive psycho tendencies getting in the way again, so I’m keeping it very low-key and all non-nerdy, non-statistical for the foreseeable future.

I’ve been researching a lot of fitness stuff.  Damn, if everybody and their big toe out there is an expert and almost nobody is healthy in this country… so, how’s that work… really?  Yeah, not very well, apparently.

So, I reckon I already really knew:  I don’t need no stinking “experts” right now.  I’m very much at a rediscovery kind of stage in this effort anyway.  I’ve been here before… both in the past few years and at many times before in my (younger, healthier, fitter) life.  I may remember how to do it myself if I can just let go and use experience and common sense.

You do realize that leaves me back where I usually wind up finding myself anyway, right?  Yep, back to being the same pain-in-the-ass know-it-all I was when I walked away from that ignorant track coach’s program back in 1976.  Back to doing it my own way, by feel, by perceived effort, and ignoring all the so-called experts.  (Well, I could at least follow a periodized training schedule back then, so I don’t think I was that bad.)

Of course, there will be more to this than just flying by the seat of my pants or going with my gut.  There’s critical empirical data that I pay attention to, of course — weight and height, blood pressure, pulse rate (all of these being measurements I can take on my own), but also including physical exam medical tests, too.  I don’t hate doctors, you know.  I just don’t always trust their motives all the time.

Me, I trust.  I just can’t always count on myself to man-up and stick with it to do the right thing.  Gonna get better at it, though, and I know I can’t do that with my nose stuck up some so-called expert’s southern exposure.