First 5k training

Ok, so as pretty much everyone that knows me, knows I'm not a runner. However, for the longest time I've wanted to run a 5k. I think in my mind it's the accomplishment of something that I've never done before, and something I can't accomplish easy; it's a challenge for me. I've noticed in my life, with the help of my loving wife, I don't always challenge myself; a real challenge. I'll do things that to others would be challenging but are easily or with little effort accomplished for me. So I've talked about running a 5k for almost a year now, and have had reason after reason not to. One of the biggest concerns is my weight, there is always the concern of joint fatigue and injury when you're talking about a guy almost 400 pounds running 3.1 miles or training to do so. So my concern is being alleviated by the fact that in the past 7 weeks I've lost 19 pounds, and I'm down to 381. I've been on a pace of loosing, on average, 3 pounds a week. I'm going to start working with my trainer to do some specific workouts that will help strengthen my knees and legs to help avoid injury as I train for this race.

So the race itself. The race is September 24th and is being sponsored by my employer, Denton County MHMR in support of national suicide awareness month. It's being held at South Lakes Park and more details will come as they are made available. I think the reason I finally decided to get off the couch and do this is that in the past couple months, is because I've realized a couple things about myself; one, I'm not the person God desires for me to be and two, if I don't make real and practical changes to my life I'm not going to be alive for much longer. It's a sobering and depressing realization to admit that I was almost 400 lbs, that's almost a quarter of a ton; that's like a cold towel eh? But here's what I've realized, with the right guidance, motivation and heart there isn't anything about me that I can't change with God's help. Because believe me there are days when the last thing I want to do is go to the gym and work out, and I know there will be mornings when the last thing I want to do is go for a run. But, from somewhere not inside me I find the motivation to do those things because for me to become the person I, and everyone else I touch lives with needs me, need to become those are the things that have to be done.

I can tell you that right now as I type this blog I'm almost in tears. Not because I'm so tired I can't feel my body or because I injured myself the first day. I'm almost in tears because this past 7 weeks has been the greatest evidence to me that God really does love me and cares about me. I know it may be weird to think that me starting a lifestyle of healthy living and losing weight is evidence of God's love for me, but it is. It is because for the longest time I didn't believe I could change that about myself, I didn't believe that I could be a healthy person and I blamed God. I blamed God for 'making me this way' or 'not giving me the same motivation to succeed in this area of my life as others'. But what I'm now getting to realize is that God didn't make me this way, I did with my choices, and I've always had the motivation inside me to do this, I just had to let him help me get out of my own way with excuses. I don't know if that makes any sense but the way I see is that I've been angry about a lot of things in my life and the way they've gone down. I've blamed God but I haven't turned my back on him, because others would see that more easily. No, what I did was turn off my eyes and ears to God, who for the past two years (the length of my pronounced bitterness at the world) has been standing there going 'man I'm waiting for you, I'm not going anywhere, you can be as mad at me as you want to and my love for you isn't changing. It'll be right here, I'll be right here waiting for you to open your eyes and see how infinitely greater my love for you is than any expectation you had of me that let you down'. Over the last 2 months with the help of my wife, my amazing friends who I love more than I'll ever tell you (because that could be awkward) I've been opening up my eyes and man does it feel good.

I never realized that a blog on my first run could be so deep but oh well here are my results:

Calories Burned: 254.95

Duration: 16:00 minutes

Distance: 1.05 miles

Average Speed: 4.5 mph

Average Pace: 8.3 min/mi

Love you all

Drew

"you have to open your eyes to see the road, otherwise driving is scary"