This is the Run-Walk program I’m banking on getting me back to running well again soon. This was only the first day, to be sure, but I’m very optimistic after this.

It felt pretty good. Not great, but very good. The running intervals, though short, were long enough to settle into a reasonable rhythm. The walking intervals seemed a little long and had me urging them on so I could get to the next running interval.

The Nike Free Run+ shoes were pretty fantastic. Granted, I’ve spent a lot of time in more cushioned and structured shoes up to now, but just walking in them. The mostly packed red dirt track around Barton Field is a nice surface, fairly smooth with some loose, sandy places, but doesn’t present any of the more troublesome kinds of surface that would challenge the strength of my feet too soon for them to begin to reap the benefits of the minimalist shoes’ lightweight and flexibility.

This schedule will have me traveling to Fort Gordon Saturdays and Sundays. (That dirt track is big and wide and really well worth it, in my opinion.) But Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually work days and I’ll already be out there. So, I just change in the office, walk across the street and I’m practically on the dirt track, and that’s about as convenient as it gets.

I’m pretty psyched, and I’m looking forward to moving forward from here.

The original, default image file names and their replacements are listed below, left-to-right:

Runner1.jpg is no more; instead you should now see Danny Busheme and Mike Terry racing downhill at the cross country regional meet at San Marcos Academy, San Marcos, Texas.

Runner2.jpg is gone; instead that’s a photo of me, as a Junior at Judson High School, finishing the mile run at the District 29AAAA meet. (Yeah, a whole lot of years and quite a few pounds ago.)

Runner3.jpg has been cut, too; and instead there’s my brother, Darrell Warbington, and me on a nice easy run at one of the parks at Joe Poole Lake, near Grand Prairie, Texas.

For whatever they may be worth to anybody else visiting this blog — probably so much eye candy — they’re nothing but excellent motivators for me. Looking at those pictures makes me remember so much that I had taken for granted all these years, so much I let get away from me.

I’m ready to get back some of that… any of that… and I’m willing to work my ass off to get there. Just to resume some easy running, and have it in me to bust out for an occasional long run here or there… well, that would pretty much just rock.

This is for real. No more excuses. No more bullshit. No more chances.

Time is one damned mean son-of-a-bitch and nobody beats that cat at his own game, but you can cheat that cheeky bastard. You just have to let go of all the bullshit and get the hell out of your own damned way and seize every chance at life and at love, to savor every bit of all the joy and wonder and playfulness and pleasure that will come your way when you truly live.

See? The “cheat” is to pack all the life you can into whatever years you have — or have left — and then there ain’t a thing Time can hold over your head.

Forget all that crap about growing up. Play! Act out! Live! Love!

No limits. No lies. No bullshit. No doubts. No regrets.

I made a joke about burning the candle at both ends, trying to maintain the new fitness regimen and diet while simultaneously doing NaNo, but that’s just not realistic for me. The late-night word-count chasing fueled by handfuls of high energy snacks and copious quantities of caffeinated beverages simply won’t work.

I can’t get up every morning at the crack of dawn to walk for half an hour, lift on a regular schedule, or hope to maintain my weight loss progress on the kind of days I normally put in during NaNoWriMo. I have to prioritize regular exercise, good nutrition, and adequate rest — and doing NaNo the way I do NaNo pretty much throws all three of those right out the window.

Instead, I’m trying to decide how I’m going to fit in a few two-a-day workouts starting really soon, within the next week or so. The objective being to move forward more rapidly through the winter months by adding another session a couple afternoons per week when it’s usually a little warmer than it will be at the time when I wake and go out to walk. And, of course, I will be banking on that little bit of extra work to help with a foundation that will let me shift into the Spring more smoothly and, hopefully, running more than walking by then.

So, for now I think I’ll keep up the daily early morning half-hour walks, with a long one on Saturdays and keep my make-up day on Sundays. I’ll stick to the strength training workouts three days a week: normally on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings unless something forces me to adjust. That’s no sweat since that’s my current regimen.

To that mix I’ll be adding some sort of a Walk-Run program, probably only twice a week to start, so Tuesday and Thursday initially. The winter weather in Northeastern Georgia can be brutal (by Southern standards) but the late afternoons can be far more pleasant for running than mornings. (Not always, but on average, yes.)

Then I’ll see where things go from there. Even without the addition of the early, slow running, I could conceivably reach my recommended “healthy” weight of 173 pounds by a week or so prior to my birthday — and then be able to stop calling myself overweight. Building up to and eventually being able to add in some light, easy jogging might help to hasten that day, which I think would be a nice birthday present to myself.

I am not, perversely, being as precise about things as last time. No Nike+ iPod along for the ride (walk) this time to make sure that I capture every last one of the various different numbers that won’t really add up to nor add a damned thing in the grander scheme here. In fact, I’m not measuring anything except the hard-and-fast, quantifiable indicators of health and wellness — blood pressure, pulse rate, weight — and I’m not bothering to record anything but the weight loss progress — but only once a week — indicated in the sidebar on the right.

Given that I have that very strongly ingrained, potentially self-destructive competitive streak that tends to make me a bit reckless when I can least afford it, I’ve not been giving in to the temptation to turn any part of this into a competition with myself, nor within myself. I’m competing only on one front right now and that’s the part about keeping myself motivated to continue.

Not that it’s super difficult this time around — well, it is and it isn’t, which is pretty much true all the time. It’s difficult to do the same thing day-in and day-out when I want to go faster, when I can remember how it feels to fly and run down folks and blow them down. But it’s easier to keep my focus on what I’m trying to accomplish when I see how far I’ve slid this time, and when I have a very good example to motivate me and make me want to keep to the task.

Darrell, my younger brother (by only one year and 18 days), has been pretty much steadily keeping it together and getting it done for the past five years, and for years before that he was doing a lot of long bike rides, too, but he’s approaching 5K total running miles by around his birthday next February. He’s still entering and racing 10ks and other shorter road distances, and turning ‘em over at the rate of mid-7-ish minutes per mile. He’s doing right now what I want to be doing myself.

This past weekend marked a huge boost to my motivation, too, and that’s finally reconnecting with an old running buddy, Danny Busheme. I ran track with Danny at Kirby Junior High School and then track and cross country at Judson High School (where Darrell also joined us one year behind). There is no telling how many miles we ran together, and I can’t possibly recall exactly how many times we raced together over those five years, but it was all good… no, it was all very good.

I regret we didn’t have a track season our Senior year, but that was a choice we each made as we felt we had to take a stand or else compromise our personal integrity to stay on a team with a coach who couldn’t coach middle distance runners for crap. (Whatever, it doesn’t make us heroes or martyrs or anything. We took a stand is all, and I know very well that we lost something especially important in doing so.)

So, yeah, I’ve got more to help to drive me forward now. I’ve got Darrell really going like gang-busters out there and keeping the tradition alive. I’m back in touch with my other best running buddy now that I’ve finally managed to track down Danny Busheme. And I know I have got to toe the line and keep myself going this time, because this thing really is more important to me than the things that made it possible for me to so easily wander away from it in the past.

Danny, Darrell, and me. There was a time when we three defined ourselves almost entirely within the context of what hearts and lungs and legs could do with time and distance. I want that shit back, man. I really want it bad.

But… the most nutritional bang for my buck is the plain variety.  And it’s roughly the consistency of — and some say the taste reminds them a lot of — sour cream, which I really can’t stand at all. Damn. Double damn.

Hiding a 4-ounce container of all that tangy high-protein goodness in smoothies made with fruit juices and frozen fruits was a half-decent solution for me, but it’s neither really quick nor convenient. And it wasn’t really all that wonderful or delicious that way anyway.

Then while halfheartedly searching for recipes that would be friendly to both my weight loss efforts and my slowly ramping-up exercise regimen, I stumbled across a site whose owner had been down the tortuously hard weight-loss road and was now more heavily into strength training.

He dealt with his dislike of the available yogurt forms and flavors by coming up with a new twist — very nicely DIY, too! He took Greek yogurt and just added a serving of Comstock No Sugar Added Cherry Pie filling. A third of a cup of that stuff is only about 35 calories, no fat, lots of good tastiness though.

Anyway, I tried it that guy’s way today after a lunch of a small piece (2-oz) of turkey breast diced into baby spinach with a Tbsp. of olive oil vinaigrette and a cup of unsweetened green tea.  I made one small adjustment, though: I just went half-half and mixed one 4-ounce container of Greek yogurt with half-a-cup of the cherry pie filling. The tang is still there, but the taste is well within my tolerance — much better than anything else I can get.

And before you dismiss me for a madman or bash the idea, the numbers for a one-cup serving of my Frankenstein yogurty delight look like this:

• Calories — 116
• Fat — 0g
• Sodium — 60mg
• Potassium — 180mg
• Total Carbs — 17g
• Sugars — 11g
• Protein — 12g

I can accept having to take in the sugars there to get to the  protein, since I apparently need the sugars to make it palatable to me.  The proverbial spoonful of sugar to make the (nonfat) liniment go down.  It’s all good.

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.

Well, I am surprised that I did.  Though it’s a damned shame I can’t just pick back up where I left off, wandering back in from where I got lost and resume as if nothing happened.  Ha!  Human bodies — especially old, out-of-shape human bodies — just don’t work that way.  Pity, I know, but consequences are harsh and we reap what we sow, and quite deservedly so.

The ponytail is gone again, and probably forever this time — not that it has a thing to do with my fitness or anything… just an update, I guess.

The running shoes have been back on my feet for a little over a month now, but I’m still just walking… for now… again.  I’m getting up early and walking, then making and eating a good breakfast, every morning before work, with a longer walk on Saturday mornings, and sometimes taking Sunday morning off (but not always).

I’ve got a lot of fitness work ahead of me.  I’m supposedly old enough now to settle down and make better plans and execute more carefully than in the distant — and even recent — past.  Well, theoretically anyway.

So, lets see if I can start getting it right this time around.

It was pleasantly cool this morning when I woke up a little after 6:30 a.m., so I put on the shoes and shorts, grabbed my Nike+ iPod and took a 20-minute walk.  NaNoWriMo is on the horizon and I’m starting to think about story again, but I also figured I’d better get a little more air into my lungs so I can not only survive NaNo for another year but have enough oxygen in my brain to think and actually write something worth a damn this time.

Am I really, really returning to tackle getting back into running shape again after giving in to gaming and laziness such that I’ve pretty much ruined all my progress?  (I weighed 192 pounds after my walk this morning!) Time will tell, I guess. But I think that maybe if my theory about oxygen to my brain proves successful in helping me to turn my story idea into a solid novel, then I’d have to be an even bigger idiot than I’ve already been to not continue this time, wouldn’t I?

However, I already note a tendency to try to “race” myself. I want to push more already, and I’ve only just started! This is kind of dangerous and could lead to a major setback if I don’t reign myself in constantly. It’s not that I’m not strong enough — I do feel much stronger. It’s that testing the limits of those gains in every workout is totally foolish and counterproductive.

Work has to be followed by rest if you’re to make any gains in strength and endurance, and rest by work if you’re to continue to make any progress, but work intensity has to be increased progressively, added to in manageable increments. Going too far, too fast, too soon is a recipe for disaster. It just takes ramping one of those up too quickly to tip the intensity of the work effort too far and start a chain reaction that could wind up setting me back to the beginning all over again.

Yesterday, I set out on my normal 30-minute Nike+ iPod workout setting, complete with the walk for five minutes, then start jogging, with the intention of walking the last five minutes. However, I did go farther and a little faster than I had intended. No ill effects this time — other than a little soreness.

But hearing Tiger Woods in my iPod headphones telling me that I’ve just turned in my fastest mile — three workouts in a row — tells me I need to watch it. This isn’t the time for all that. This is the time to build up slowly and gradually, to follow a system, not choose what to do by whim. I need to settle into a rhythm and increase rate and intensity progressively. I’m still going to have to constantly remind myself of what has sort of become my motto: Patience and perseverance.

On the weight-loss front, I weighed in at 181 pounds this morning. I’ve added a sidebar item to track my progress. I’ve also gone ahead and declared a goal weight.

I’m making good progress and I’m happy with how things are going so far. I need to try not to get too happy and so carried away with how well it’s going that I sabotage my progress by being foolish.

More or less the usual routine.  Set the Nike+ iPod for a 30-minute workout and started.  This time, however, I only walked the first five minutes, started jogging at around an 11-min/mile pace and slowly picked it up (averaged 10:22/mile), and then walked when the voice announced “Five minutes remaining.”

Of course, I’m a little sore today, but it’s worth every bit of soreness to me!

It’s nothing all that special, but it represents damned good progress.  And I’m pleased to get this far.  Finally.