End of the Soft Body

As most of you probably know, yesterday was my birthday. I’m 25 years old now! Milestones like turning a new age are arbitrary yet excellent motivators to set new goals, turn over new leaves, mend ones’ ways, walk the straight and narrow, etc. etc.

It’s definitely time for a new age; running-wise, 24 wasn’t that good to me. During my last week of 23 I ran my first marathon and felt great, but after one week of being 24 I ruined my right IT band. Two months later I healed it just to ruin the other side, and then followed many months of alternating pain in all kinds of places. Things were looking up until 9 months into my 24th year when I messed up my achilles tendon.

I tried other methods of working out, like kettlebells – but I got bored of that. Plus, I decided to try their stupid 60 day diet, which I’m still recovering from. It was a great lesson in how terrible diets are – as soon as you stop being on one you (me) eat uncontrollably and it takes forever to re-normalize your (my) eating habits. Soccer also came to an end when my team scattered and I had trouble fitting it into my schedule.

What I’m getting at, is that despite my ongoing quest for the Ultimate Hard Body, I ended my 24th year with a pretty Soft Body. This is okay, because I’ve never been that fond of even numbers like 24, so maybe that year wasn’t so deserving of the UHB. I do love odd numbers though, 25 is an especially satisfying one, so I can’t let it down with a soft body.

I’m aware of how ridiculous using favoritism of numbers to rationalize being out-of-shape or in-shape is, but sometimes when motivation is lacking, I really do use things like this to get me going. I ended my 24th year with lots of eating and drinking, and started my 25th with my first real run in quite some time. It was also my second run using miCoach, which immediately shut down my phone when I tried to use it at first, but the Android pulled through on my second try.

Here’s what my run looked like, at least as far as pace goes. The random stops are probably stop-lights or Pascal going poop. Or me going poop.