Livin' it up, baby!

Pick your poison, mine is running. Life is hard, that's an obvious fact. But, how we choose to cope with it makes all the difference. I won't lie, I use all sorts of "self medications" to get through each day. Sometimes, I use more sleep, more alone time, more comfort food, but more often than not, I use running. I'll pick a race and focus my energy on training hard to reach a specific goal. This is the healthiest of self medicating methods I've tried.

I'm about to start my quest for attempting to requalify for Boston. I'm now 35 and I have five more minutes to reach my goal. The target race: Quad Cities, the target time: 3:44:59. I really just need 3:45:59, but I don't want to give myself that extra minute leeway.

I plan to train harder than I've ever trained in my life. This is going to require all the dedication and determination I can muster. There are going to be lots of changes coming up soon. No more late night TV, no more alcohol (scaling back from just a few times a month anyway, so I don't think this will be that difficult), no more late night snacking, and no more high-fat foods. I was thinking I would gradually get to this point starting this past winter, but that hasn't happened. So now, it's all or nothing. I will workout 4-5 times a week, I will stick to a healthy diet, and I will get enough sleep. That's it. No if, ands, or buts!

My start date for all of this...June 12th. Until then, I'm "living it up," so to speak. I'm mostly eating whatever I want, I'm staying up however late I want, and not feeling guilty about it. I figure my guilt-free days are few and I don't plan on wasting them. Funny thing about me "living it up" is it's not really that much different from what I'll be doing. It turns out, I reach an enough point with food and staying up late. I'm realizing how bad I feel the next day if I eat too much "bad" food, drink too much, and don't get enough sleep. I want to feel and look better, so there's incentive to be proactive and do the right thing.

Still, I see some meals with bacon, steak, some wine and a chocolate-ey dessert in my near future. Just a little over a week to go before the seriousness begins. More to come soon!

(Are you hungry now?)