yet another blog!

I seem to have more on my mind these days about workouts and my hopefully-not-futile attempts at getting ready for races and events, so yep, I'm starting yet another blog. Somehow it's easier for me to have a blog for each category of my life, rather than having one and tagging posts therein. Hopefully I don't develop any more interests or this blogging thing is going to get really out of hand...

It feels a little strange to be focusing my writing on workouts and fitness, of all things. I am, as the title states, so very NOT an athlete. I ran cross-country and track for a year in high school as a way of getting out of PE. Running around for awhile sounded a lot better than standing in an outfield praying a ball didn't come my way, or walking around on a soccer field trying to fool the PE teacher into thinking I was participating in the game. I did actually come to enjoy the running, but aside from a few 5K races, I didn't run after my school-mandated PE requirement had been fulfilled. And that was pretty much the end of my time in any kind of sport. I've joined (and left) gyms, I've owned (and not used) an elliptical, but mostly it's been my good genetics that have kept me looking like I'm decently in shape.

I never did entirely lose interest in running 5Ks, though, and last August I started running again. Since it'd been some 15 or so years since I'd gone running, I felt asthmatic and pukish the whole mile-or-so loop I did through my neighborhood, and had a pitifully slow time. Somehow I kept it up. (I'm notorious for quitting anything I'm not instantly good at.) It's been six months now and I'm still running on a regular basis, and in the past six months I've done a few pub runs, run a 5K, participated in Warrior Dash, and tagged along taking pictures on a goruck challenge. The events are fun--fun enough to make up for the total lack of enjoyment I have trying to train for these things--and this year I'm setting my sights a bit higher. I've signed up for Hero Rush, will probably do Warrior Dash again, am contemplating a half-marathon at the end of the year, and after seeing the amazing camaderie of the participants in last November's goruck challenge, I've signed up for my own.

Two problems: First, I have very little stick-to-it-ness when it comes to workouts. I am not an athlete. I don't enjoy working out. I like to look and feel tough and I like to rise to a challenge...but I really don't actually like putting in the work to get there. And second, I have pretty much zero upper body strength. Which is going to very much kick my butt at goruck if I don't get that handled. I've tried a pushup regimen, I've bought a pullup bar, and I have some little 8-lb weights I use here and there, but I won't actually stick to a workout plan and this is definitely not helping me to develop the kick-ass arm muscles I'm going to need to haul logs around for hours, or scale walls using rope ladders. Nor will the cherry limeade and onion rings I had last night (instead of running) help me stay within the confines of the 150-lb weight limit if I want to carry just four bricks, and not six, at goruck in October. (In my defense, working late delayed dinner, I was hungry, and they were delicious.)

So, in an effort to keep myself at least somewhat accountable for sticking to any kind of plan that results in readiness for these future events, I'm setting this blog up as a place to post about my efforts and possibly get some feedback from people who know more about this kind of thing than I do. Or at least amuse a bunch of people in the process.