Race to the Finish

If some of you in Omaha saw me running downtown super fast this morning, don't worry I wasn't being chased by "La Migra", I was just in a 10K race.

What a difference shedding a few pounds can make. One year ago, I was crawling on the sidewalks of Creighton University because my feet hurt so bad after doing a 10K. The pain was so bad I had to ask my wife to come pick me up, while I sat there like a poser-running bum almost in tears.

Not the case this year. My wife and I were both able to finish the race without stopping once. Did I cheat? No sir. Did I take a short cut? Nope. Did I put wheels on my shoes? Never, that would be dishonest, although that would be pretty cool. I ran the whole thing, fair and square. I'm pretty excited about it, a huge improvement from last year.

I want to say the main reason for such an improvement has to be the weight that I lost this summer. I was very active for the past three months. Teaching a lot of tennis lesson, playing soccer twice a week and picking up the sport of mountain biking. I have always been an active person, but I really pushed myself to lose some weight. I'd ride my bike to places if I could, I'd keep my lunches to a sandwich and I'd make a daily conscious decision to work on my weight. I don't think I was ever really over weight, but I knew I could lose some pounds off the old gut.

The result of losing that weight have been tremendous. I shed about 15 pounds. From 203 to about 188. The big differences that I can really see are obviously my pants are fitting me better, they aren't as tight, I'm able to run a lot faster and longer and the biggest improvement is my feet not hurting after a run.

I've had problems with my feet since college. My feet are super flat. According to doctors I have plantars fasciitis. Basically, since my feet are so flat, I have no arch support which makes certain tendons work harder, thus overworking them and making them sore. It really wasn't a concern for a long time, but I did begin to notice pain more frequently when I put on a few pounds. I've tried insoles, which initially worked, but I know the problem was that extra weight that I was carrying around.

So today, after the race I didn't know if I should expect the same results as last year. I was dreading the pain, and even more because we arrived a little late to the race and I didn't properly stretch. To my enjoyment I had no problems during the race (I actually didn't get tired of running until about 1/2 from the finish line) nor after. My feet hurt for about 5 minutes and then I told them to get over it and proceeded to eat 3 bagels. I felt so good that I even went to play some soccer late in the evening. Life is a lot better for my feet now that they aren't dragging a fat ass.