To Whom It May Concern

Lincoln Marathon, May 2008

A year ago when I got back from Iraq, I think one of the more difficult aspects of integrating was, oddly enough, just getting back into cooking for myself. Instead of doing that, every day I was going out and eating fast food, twice a day. In California, there are like a thousand different fast food places in about a 5 mile square radius. This was a bad situation for two reasons. 1) I was wasting money I had saved while I was in Iraq probably at a rate of about 15 bucks a day on food, and 2) I put on about 30 lbs during a three month time period. In December after we found out that belly was going to be getting out of the Marines, so I headed back to Nebraska shorty after to get things set up for us there.

Despite getting a job and a place to live, I never got set into a decent workout routine to lose this weight. I got myself down to 200 but never lower than that. While in Iraq I was typically right around 190, and about 10 lbs of that was from working out upper body at least 4 times a week. So, fast forward, on Christmas Day just a couple of weeks ago I was pushing the scales at 215 lbs, and I really want to be back down around 180. It's difficult to say when I was last at 180 lbs, I was there while belly was at boot camp, but I was also really sick from losing weight way way too fast. As far as being at 180 for an extended period of time, maybe not since before 2000?

So what does a person do to focus and actually lose this weight in a methodical fashion, healthy and feeling great? I'm focusing on the Lincoln Marathon in May. Now, I ran a marathon in Iraq, and while I was able to do it, going 26.4 miles basically without training, I would never recommend doing it and I won't ever do it again. That being said, there is no way I could do that right now. In Iraq, even with a sporadic schedule, I still tried to run whenever I could, usually late at night, I would take a 4 mile run around the base.

The goals? 180 lbs, and I'd like to run the marathon in 3 hours flat. However, if I am able to hold an 8 minute mile pace that means 3.5 hours, which will be acceptable. Right now it's hard to hold an 8 minute mile pace for even two miles, but I know that will get better with time. I've been running for about 2 weeks now, every other night, 2.5 miles outdoors. It's cold as hell but I wear my military Under Armour along with my Army running suit, stocking cap, and gloves. On the other nights I do pushups and situps in the apartment, and of course I am watching what I eat.

Tonite I'm at 208 lbs, and feeling better already. I hate being over 200 especially, it's a sweaty nasty feeling, I'd rather be cold and thin than sweaty/clammy and out of shape. I am not fat, I'm just not in shape. I can fit into most all of my clothes, however some of them, including my new ACU uniforms, are rather uncomfortable. I have a guard drill this weekend and by that time I hope I can be down just hitting 200 lbs, if at all possible.

There is no doubt that I'll make all of my goals, I just hope that my running times improve as my weight goes down, I really do want to hit 3 hours flat, but I'll need to do a lot better than I did in Iraq. Training Training Training!!!