Find your own path

Day 14 -- Aug 20, 2012

Today I am 193.6 pounds of rolling thunder.

I try not to scoreboard watch too much when it comes to weight. I started my blog-odyssey about two weeks, and I'm down roughly 2 pounds, which is what most people in the know say is a sensible rate of loss.

The key here is loss. While the scoreboard inches up some days, in general it has been moving down, and that's a trend I'm sure I share with a lot of folks.

My run yesterday was short and quick. It was wedged in during my hour-long break from my sedentary job as a writer/editor. But I was able to go 45 minutes on the run without stopping, so score one for the world's slowest human.

I used to do what I called adventure rides on my bike. In essence, I'd pick a general area that I wanted to cover, but I wasn't tied to a map or a specific route. This allowed me to find back roads and sometimes dirt roads that I had never gone down before. You get to see a lot more if you allow yourself an adventure ride or run every once in a while.

So yesterday's run was a bit of an adventure run, although I didn't stray out of my neighborhood. I did, however, change my normal path. My only plan was to run down the new jogging path as part of my adventure. One of my main goals was to give my brain a break from the normal loops that I do throughout the neighborhood.

So I hit the road and traversed a few rollers before finding the level path. Distance running doesn't come easy for me. I never really lock into that feeling that I do on a bike where machine and human are working together and you don't really feel the weight of your effort.

My efforts feel more like the spin cycle of a washing machine being towed on a 190-pound frame. I admire those people with flawless strides who gallop around the neighborhood. Heck, I admire the veteran runners with the funny gaits who have managed to find a way to set an unwavering pace that is deceptively fast.

I know that I need to run. It balances out the other exercises I do and helps give me more energy and stamina in other parts of my life. It gives me the endorphin rush that helps me battle through life's stresses -- big and small.

So if you see the world's slowest human running like a washing machine set on spin, give me a wave and a clear path or you might become part of the adventure.