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Pique N Yer Interest

Less than zero
andrewbyline

Flesh is weak. I oughta know.

Every winter I promise myself that I’ll be better than I was the winter before, gain less weight, eat well, and maintain the aerobic fitness I built up over the previous summer.

Then it gets cold outside. Then I catch something. Then I catch something else. Then it’s the Christmas holidays feast time. Then coworkers bring mounds of uneaten holiday junk food to work. Then work gets busy. Then I’m tired out from powder days on the mountain that are probably even worse for my body than sitting at a desk all day. Then winter carries on late into early spring. Then the snow won’t melt fast enough to play outside. Then I catch something else that’s really nasty.

Before I know it, it’s Loonie Race season, and I’m planning trips to Kamloops and the Sunshine Coast to mountain bike. I have less than two months to train for the Comfortably Numb Trail Run, starting at less than zero on the conditioning scale for the third year in a row. I’d go outside and start being active, but I’m not quite recovered from my latest illness yet. Besides, it’s the playoffs…

I tried. I really did. My wife and I started the New Year with a game where we did 20 pushups, situps, or other exercises every time we swore. I have a mouth like Scarface.

I also bought a wind trainer for our spare room last fall so I could ride a bike indoors for a few hours a week. Then we rented out the spare room the bike was in, moved the bike into our bedroom, and then found I didn’t have that many hours to spare.

It’s too bad because I figured out I could play my Playstation 2 for hours while pedaling, thereby combining two enjoyable things I rarely get to do. I even watched a few hockey games from the saddle, standing up to pedal during powerplays to really get my blood pumping.

Despite these efforts, I entered the month of May with exactly four pathetic runs under my belt, two bike rides that weren’t on pavement, and a chest cold I’m quite sure is Pneumonia though the doctors tell me differently. I was away for the office flu shots last November, and I’m sure I’m paying the price.

It’s not that I don’t consider my health a priority, or try to be healthy. It’s just that health, in the Whistler sense, is practically a full-time job. I could probably go back to Ontario and still give most of my friends a run for their money, but by the Whistler standard of fitness I’m a shopping cart abandoned in the parking lot of a Porsche dealership.

I’ll get by in all the events I’ve committed myself to, I always do, but it’s disappointing that I have never felt like I’ve been able to give my best. A few years ago I ran a 42 minute 10K, and was planning to break 40 minutes the following year. Then I got a sinus infection that required surgery, and that keeps coming back. I haven’t broken the 45-minute barrier since then, and switched to trail running because I find it’s easier on my joints.

After a season on the trails I signed up for my first Comfortably Numb Run in 2005, secretly planning to propose to my then girlfriend at the finish line.

I didn’t sleep one wink the night before the proposal and had a horrible, dizzy race. Only the need to finish at least 30 seconds ahead of my then girlfriend kept my legs moving, and then only barely.

I ran the course again last year, free of distraction, but a late snowpack kept me from doing any real trail running until late April and I spent most of May and June training in the rain. A few days before the race the sun came out with a vengeance and I was forced to race in temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius. I don’t handle that kind of heat very well, and my time was even slower than the first year I ran with no sleep.

This year is not shaping up too well either, due to the late spring and the pseudo-pneumonia thing, so I’m already looking ahead to 2008 to break the three-hour mark. When this June 24 rolls around, I’ll be out there just hoping to survive.

By the end of this summer, I’m sure I’ll be fit again, or at least in a condition resembling fitness — not as fit as all the other people who come into the spring fit and only get fitter over the summer, but fit enough to do all the things I wish my body could handle next week.

It’s a vicious, seasonal cycle, and one I wish I could break away from by staying healthy over the winter. There’s nothing worse than going out for that first tentative jog, things jiggling that shouldn’t be jiggling, face going purple, and having to walk after about 20 minutes to catch my breath.

So if you see me out there, please give me a few words of encouragement because I really need them right about now. And don’t be offended if I don’t answer back — chances are I’m trying not to throw up.