Training up to catch the fitness wagon

I'm back!

Yes, yes. It's been a while. Real life and work and all those things.

A recap of my, um, fitness regimen recently:

I stopped running at the end of November 2013. In the weeks previous, I had greatly improved my ability to run, even getting to a point where I was running a 5 kilometres three times a week. Now, I wasn't running very fast: my record for a 5k remained just under 34 minutes (these are all from my own runs, I've yet to run a competitive 5k). I was doing it however. Completing it. Feeling better. Running harder, bit by bit.

Christmas came, and with it all the wonderful food and unhealthy drinks that one associates with Santa Claus and lengthy visits home to Ireland. January brought its usual vacuum of motivation and in February we had a little boy.

The little boy is fantastic, but unbeknownst to him he was giving me a wonderful excuse not to exercise.

Well, things change, and I just started my fourth week back running. I run three times a week and am now running for half an hour each time after building back up. Some days are better than others, but it's a clear improvement. I'm getting a fancy sports watch soon and with that I am stepping up to crazy concepts like timing myself, "competing" in organized races and working long-term towards......

A triathlon.

I must stress, long term. First off, I need to lose some weight and get to a point where I can actually run a decent 5k before moving on to other goals. I don't see myself completing a sprint triathlon in 2014, but I would very much like to complete one in the spring of 2015. Here we go. It's happening.

Inspiration is a funny thing. Mine remains strong: I want to drink beer and eat chocolate. However I know deep down, and in truth not all that deep down at all, that this journey will change me. It's no coincidence that my long history of falling off the fitness wagon has an interlapping history, an opposing waveform in fact, of jumping gleefully on to the beer wagon. The one with chocolate wheels. And axels of fried chicken. It's some vehicle, this contraption of my imagination.

So I may become one of those weirdos I don't understand, someone that eats healthily and seems okay with it. Far more likely though, I think, is that I'll become something else: someone that loves to eat and drink all kinds of terrible things but postpones the fun because "I have a run/ride/swim in the morning." I'll be okay with being that guy. I'm a father now after all, and laughing off various medical warnings (regardless how slight) is suddenly considerably more selfish than it once was. Here we go!