Day One

This morning sucked.

The last two months sucked.

Let me explain.

For close on two years now, I've been on a mission to be active, eat healthy and lose weight. I've been doing well. From 398 lbs when I started, to 320 as of June 29th (July weigh in pending).  Progress has been slow and steady, with only one plateau so far. Then mid May I hit a wall.

I got a flu and I mean a bad flu that wouldn't let go. It started in my throat and I lost my voice for a couple of days, then it moved to my chest and I couldn't breathe for a week until finally it settled in my sinuses for 2 more weeks. Once I shook that off, I started having pain in the left side of my back. I mean PAIN! The last time I'd felt pain that intense was 7 years ago when I had kidney stones.

I spent one morning at the Emergency Room hoping to get some answers, and they said it was just an infection with a possible helping of prostatitis for good measure. Scary but treatable, antibiotics for 10 days, the pain cleared up... until I stopped the medication, then the pain came back with a vengeance. I saw my Doctor and she booked a CT scan to check for kidney stones, which was my fear in the first place. Last week, ahead of the scan, I'm pretty sure I passed something. TMI I know, but I don't care, I've been up front and open on Facebook with all my weight loss ups and downs, and I'm not going to change that here on my blog. So yeah, one hurtful episode and I started to feel better.

With that recap, after two months of illness, this morning I felt well enough to go back to the fitness room at my work place and start in again on ye olde treadmill. When I left off, I was running 1 kilometre in about 9 minutes and I was up to running 3 kilometres without having to stop. This morning, I did one kilometre and was totally gassed, nothing left in the tank at all and I was pissed with myself. I was frustrated that I had to stop and I was upset at my time first, 10 minutes to run 1 kilometre, but looking back I didn't lose that much time. Then I was upset that my stamina is gone, but realistically I haven't done any running in two months, I had to lose some ground.

Then as reason took hold, my anger turned into determination. I will start again and I will improve and I will reach my goals. As that realisation dawned I heard an old quote in my head. There was a TV show called Fame, way back in the 1980s (yes I'm old) and in the opening, one of the characters says; "You've got big dreams. You want fame. Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying: in sweat."

This brings me back to the title of this post, Day One. Today is Day One of getting back on track. Toady is Day One of my road to fitness starting again. It's been a long road up to this point, but today is the new start.

Today is also Day One of my preparation. I've got a year roughly until the annual Telegram 10 Mile Road Race in 2019. That is one of my new goals and I will get there. I will run the Tely 10 and I will run it in a respectable time. Five days a week I will be using the fitness room at my work and I will run a little farther each day. I will run a little longer each day. I will run a little faster each day. A year from now, I will cross that finish line and I will have run 10 miles (16 kilometres)

Today is Day One.

I'm back.

Reset the clock.

Let's go!