running

You are currently browsing articles tagged running.

just an update

July 9, 2011 in Fat Guy by Ben | 1 comment

Not to let this get lost in the shuffle, I’m still doing my “get all healthy and shit” initiative.

As of now I’ve lost over 60 pounds. I don’t have a tape measure to check my measurements, but I’ve lost a bunch. I bought a pair of shorts a couple weeks ago with a 40″ waist, for example. Last winter I was wearing 44″ jeans. The shorts are now a little loose so I need to wear a belt with them, and when I shopped for a belt found that a 38 inch belt fit (not a lot of room to spare, on the second hole). So that’s going pretty good.

I’m running regularly but not yet daily. Some weeks I go four times, occasionally five, sometimes only three. My usual run is 2.5 miles. Not too shabby.

Today, I have had only one cup of coffee (and I’m writing this at 7 PM). That is partly because the kids and I have been doing things all day and I didn’t have the usual downtime to hang out and sip coffee; but I could have easily brewed a pot and had more than a single cup.

So there; a post where I barely mention kids nor whine about daily life. I feel good, I really do, a few people are noticing that I have lost weight which is a great bonus and reinforcer for the work I’ve done. As far as goals, ultimately I want to lose about 30 more pounds and get to an even 200. Don’t worry, I’ll say something if I get there P

Tags: , ,

Access to a computer makes me over share

February 24, 2011 in Fat Guy by Ben

Something is bugging me, in a way that only my convoluted brain can properly follow.

When I blew up the theme to my blog (last week? the week before? Dunno) I lost all the crap I have spent years putting here. Little things like colors and fonts; links in the sidebar (like my badge for the boobiethon, I’ve been volunteering and/or donating for years and years, it’s like gone as if I don’t care about the boobies. Trust me, I care probably more than is healthy). So much wasted time, lost in a careless mouse click.

So I start putting things back. I found a ‘cost of war’ ticker for the bottom, a widget for twitter and last.fm to put in the side bar. You know, it’s the little things. I don’t have a ‘pretend celebrity girlfriend’ for the footer because (and I’m a little ashamed of this) we actually broke up along time ago, when she had a baby with her husband or something, I was just too lazy to update the picture and/or find a new pretend celebrity girlfriend (meeting pretend people is SO time-consuming).

OK, maybe I should stop my rambling and get to what I really came here to write. I lost all the header pictures that I used to rotate on extremely random intervals at the top of the blog. Pictures of my dog, my kids, the beach, “stuff.” The only picture I could find was of the shirt you see, which is one of my running shirts. In case your eyes are like mine and you can’t figure out the cropped out bits, I’ll spell it out: “Running: Not better than sex, just more often.” As you may have guessed, there’s a story about this shirt, too, and I don’t think I’ve told it in a while, so here it is.

Ahem. There is a neat little company that makes running shirts (they used to make shorts, too, and men’s singlets but don’t any longer) called One More Mile. This company is really cool, and no, they don’t ask me to say that, I’m a very happy customer and have a lot of shirts and the afore-mentioned shorts from them. I love their stuff (my first shirt from them, which says “Sorry, I’ve got to run” is finally too frayed to wear) and when I started running 5 years ago this is where I got stuff to reward myself for not collapsing as often when I tried to make it around the block.

(get to the point already)

This cool company also runs a slogan contest periodically (there’s a t-shirt shaped link from their home page, upper right, helpfully called “click here for SLOGAN CONTEST”). You submit a funny slogan, and people vote, and if you win? You get an item with your slogan on it and they get to use it in the store if they want.

You know where this is going, right?

Yes, I’m the person who submitted the slogan you see above. And yes, the shirt was FREE. (woot!) And finally, cuz oversharing is one of my specialties, yes, at the time I was running a lot more than I was having sex. I used to say that I ran because it was my one chance to hear some heavy breathing and break a sweat.

Well, lemme tell you, that ain’t the case right now. Not in the slightest. Maybe it’s time to submit a new slogan…

Tags: , ,

Empty spaces

July 28, 2009 in Blog news by Ben

I seem to have very much fallen out of the habit of writing here. Even when I have something to say, it’s easier to put it on twitter (because what I usually have to say is something pithy and short) or maybe on Facebook. More often nowadays I just let it go and not say anything.

The ol’ blog was never really anything in particular. I don’t do this for money, attention, or to help a cause. I don’t have any traffic to speak of, not in modern internet terms, so marketers don’t even give me a glance. Not that I want to market anything, but it seems to be a hot topic right now. Let’s just say nobody wants to fly me anywhere or give me something to try and write about. That’s fine by me, because I don’t want to have to meet a deadline for writing about their junk or stop cussing or whatever it would take.

However, having dropped a lot of cash at Ikea this summer rebuilding our entire kitchen, I wouldn’t mind if they’d send some coupons or something. Just sayin’

Whassup with me? I’m trying to teach my body to run again. yeah, I know, things were going great, then I kinda got off track last summer, and then way off track last winter, and when you are as, um, substantial as I am, you can’t just go out and do a ten mile run. Well, maybe you could, but me? Not so much. I’ve been running in the mornings (when it’s a cool 81 degrees, compared to the evenings where it remains well over 90 at 11:00), and waking up is hard. My knees and legs are protesting, but it’s kinda working. I gave up on the heart rate monitor (somewhere in the archives) because either I’m getting a lot of interference or something is broken or both, so why bother. I don’t have the money to replace it, so I just try and run easy right now. If I get to where I can run 10 or more miles again, well, I’ll reconsider.

Other things – we rebuilt the kitchen. It looks awesome. It works great. I’m loving it. I have tons of pictures. I can’t find the fucking cable that connects the camera to the computer, so I can’t show them to you. Just imagine new cabinets, new paint, no soffets, new sink and appliances (except for the refrigerator). There, just as good as a picture.

Other stuff – I went back to Galveston last month, first time post-Ike. Not as sad as I had feared, but still, it’s obvious they have been deeply affected by the storm. Saw some new construction, areas that had been cleared, and also saw wrecked houses still standing, probably waiting for insurance to get straightened out.

My kids can now all swim, and the baby (she’ll always be my baby) is starting to read some, getting ready for 1st grade and taking on the world. Not necessarily in that order.

My boys have grown about a foot this summer. You know how THAT is. Amazing.

I do have a new goal: I need to lose enough weight that they will let me use the slide at the pool. (yes, I’m over the “250 pound maximum” on the sign) (a lot over). So I’m hoping by next summer I’ll be able to go with the kids on the slide. The pool closes in a few weeks, so it’s too late for this year. They can forget about the lilly pads, though, no way in hell I’m doing those…

Y’all take care. I’ll try and post more than once every six months. Maybe.

Tags: , , ,

that navel isn’t going to gaze at itself

September 10, 2008 in Fat Guy, Personal by Ben | 3 comments

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything remotely meaningful here.

I was wondering about that. I mean, my blog is a little like therapy, and worth every penny. Also, you only get out of it what you put into it. I’m sure I can find another cliche to toss in here if I wanted to.

I started this thing years ago, and to this day my most popular posts are anythign that mention Emma Watson, Texas Cheerleaders, liquor stores, boobs of any kind, and granny sex. See? There’s no accounting for taste.

A new school year is upon us, I now have three kids in school. This, of course, is exciting and challenging, as any of you with school kids already know. There is much to be done on a given day, from homework to bathtime to extracurricular things. The other night I spent 45 minutes braiding my daughter’s hair, trying to give my wife a break (she’s the expert), and of course when my wife saw it by the light of the next morning, it all had to come down.

Since I fret here on occasion about energy issues (we are in a crisis, whether folks want to call it one or not), I thought I’d mention how odd it is that oil prices continue to fall (as of today) in spite of most of the gulf of mexico production remaining idle thanks to Gustav and now Ike. Ike could truly hit hard – the forecasters are saying it could be the worst Texas hurricane (himacane?) in forty years. Unless it isn’t. You know how these things are, so so many variables and unknowns. We’ll just wait and see. Now as for me, personally, the most I’ll see is a bunch of rain (if it follows the predicted track it should go right up the middle of the state, and we’d be on the rainy side). I’m a five hour drive inland from Corpus, on a good day, and three hours up from Galveston, so you can see that the brunt of the storm should be spent before it gets here.

We need the rain.

However, my wife is still ticked at me for not wanting to go to the beach last weekend, and this weekend the weather looks like crap, and if the storm surge is as bad as they predict there may not be much beach left to visit the following weekend.

Time will tell.

As you can see by looking around here, most of my blogging is on twitter, and that’s all well and good, but leaves me leaving a bit fractured. I’m gonna check the magic box on this entry and post a link to this to twitter, too. What the hell.

I’ve been running, trying for three days a week. I wound up at 12 miles in August and so far I’ve got 10 in September, which is a whole lot better than July (2 miles! On the same day!) and hopefully I’ll get close to the 40 miles per month I was logging in June and prior. I’m also doing the hundred pushups program, but I had to step back and do a “prequel” to week 1 since I’m so wimpy.

We need to buy a new printer, since we killed our existing one. I’m torn on trying to get too fancy or just saving money since we’ll break this one in a couple years. We really enjoy having a scanner and the ability to print photos, but in reality we don’t print them much, we can do it at Walgreens about as easily. But they dont’ cost toooo much, and are necessary for homework assignments.

Oh, crap, is my time up already? Oh well. Back to reality.

Tags: , , , ,

« Older entries