That run sucked.
I know I am not in the worst shape of my life but it feels pretty close.
Having spent the better part of the past 10 years getting back into good shape, and maybe even the best shape of my life, but then allowing it to slip from my grasp, dealing with my current fitness state is frustrating to say the least.
Back in 2010 (ish) I decided that I had let my work/career focus get in the way of my fitness for long enough and set out to rectify the situation. Starting with running and then discovering obstacle course racing in 2013, my goals were to drop weight (figure I maxed out at over 190 lbs), get toned (I had let my strength training lapse after a 4 year focus on martial arts got me quite strong) and recover some of my previously attained cardio fitness.
Obstacle course racing allowed me to focus on all these fitness areas. In an OCR you run up and down hills (usually), carry heavy things, traverse monkey bars, jump under and over walls and navigate single track trails and muddy swamps during the course of the race. Training tends to be a combination of gym work and, if you are smart, long runs on hilly trails.
I started racing OCR in 2013 and over the next 4 years managed to drop my weight from 190lbs to 165lbs while becoming stronger than I had ever been and running farther than I had ever run.
The cool thing is that OCR racing got me back into running and as a result back into triathlons, which is really my first fitness/racing love.
This adventure culminated (in my opinion) in a 52k Ultra OCR in 2015 and a hilly Half Ironman triathlon in 2018.
Ultimately I let work get in the way again and I am back to where I started (not quite but it feels like it). I was running low 40s for my 10k and under an hour for a trail 10k. Now I am lucky to running under 60mins for a 10k and am about the same speed on the trails. I haven’t been in the pool in 2 years and my biking which allowed me to do sub 1 hour 40km time trials is lucky to hit 30 kph for longer rides.
Time to get back in shape.
danlargo.com 