Rehashing

I started "really" running in 2008.  In 2009 I was asked to write an article for the City of Dublin Employee Newsletter about running and why I run.  I posted that article on my blog a couple of years ago, just after I had gotten back to running, but recently have answered some questions from people about why I run.  So...I thought now might be a good time to post it again.  This time I've made a few revisions, but it'll give you an overview of why it is that I enjoy running so much.  It will also serve as a reminder to me, as I sit here at work with very sore legs after this morning's 16 mile run.

Anyone who knew me in 2006 would have found it difficult to believe that I was a cross country and track runner in high school.  They may have also found it difficult to believe that I spent three years as a military policeman in the Army, where running and strenuous physical activity was an everyday thing.  As a matter of fact, running had been such a dominant part of my life for so many years that I had grown to purely hate the thought of it.  I didn’t just hate the thought it…I hated doing it.  I hated going to cross country practice.  I hated going to track practice.  I hated waking up at 4:00am to run and words “double-time march” were words that I grew to despise.

However, the fact that I hated running is not why those who knew me would have found it difficult to believe that I’d ever done it.  Not that my current physique would bring to mind “runner”, but in March of 2006 I weighed in at a svelt 440 lbs.  With a history of heart disease on both my mother’s and father’s side of my family I was on the fast track to an early grave.  I got winded walking from the justice center parking lot to the communications center, so the thought that I would, or could, run anywhere was unbelievable.

I made a decision then that, if I wanted to live more than ten years, I had to take drastic steps.  Within a year, with the help of diet, exercise and weight loss surgery, I had lost over 200 pounds.  My blood pressure, which was borderline, had become good.  My blood sugar levels, which were close to becoming diabetic, became normal.  My LDL cholesterol level, which was high, had fallen to an acceptable level.

While I can certainly attribute most of my weight loss to the effects of the surgery and the restricted diet, I have to attribute the amount of weight lost and the short amount of time in which I lost it, to the exercise that was promoted by my bariatric surgeon and his staff.  There is no doubt in my mind that maintaining my weight loss during that time can only be attributed to the exercise.

But something happened during all that exercise.  I started to actually enjoy it.  I started to realize when people say that exercise is the best way to deal with stress, that’s not just a line to get people to exercise.  It really is true.  As you can imagine, working in a 9-1-1 communications center can be a stressful environment.  Instead of turning to food to deal with the stress, something I had done in the past without even realizing it, I turned to exercise.  Instead of an order of the house Lo Mein, I would put in a couple of miles on the treadmill.  What was more amazing to me was that I was enjoying my time on the treadmill, I had started to like running and in time would run anywhere from two to six miles on the treadmill each day or every other day. 

Then, in the spring of 2008, some friends encouraged me to register for a four mile run at Alum Creek.  I was leery about running out on the roads.  Afraid of what might happen to my knees, which had spent years supporting my 300-400 plus pound frame. I was also afraid of how I would look, with all those runners.  After all, I wasn’t really a runner.  I was just someone who ran for exercise.  I couldn’t possibly keep up with people who register for these four mile road races and run for the competition.  What I found out though, was that the running community is not like that at all.  People of all abilities come out to run, or walk.  As a matter of fact, I didn’t run the entire four mile course.  I ran about three miles and walked for about a mile, but no one laughed at me, no one ridiculed me.  I wasn’t the only one to slow down and walk part of the course, other runners were doing the same thing.  Another thing that I found was that the running/walking community is very supportive.  As I approached the finish line, those who were there to support other participants and those who had already finished the course cheered me across the finish line.  They didn’t know me, they’d never seen me before, they didn’t know that this was my first race since high school.  All they knew was that I was finishing, and that was all that mattered.  From that point on I was hooked.

Throughout the remainder of 2008 I participated in more than thirty running/walking events.  During that time I found that the City of Dublin has its own running community.  Within the Justice Center there are at least three police officers and a mayors court clerk who have run marathons, and several other employees who run for exercise, recreation or both.  It’s not just the Justice Center either.  Employees from all over the city run or walk.

Then, in 2009, I did something that I would have never thought was possible.  Even when I was running two or three or even four 5K events in a weekend, I would have never thought it possible that I would run a marathon.  People who were in much better shape than I was in ran marathons.  I ran 5K’s.  Competitive runners ran marathons.  I ran 5K’s.  But I read a book and it inspired me.  The book, “Marathoning for Mortals”, was written by John Bingham and Jenny Hadfield.  John was someone I identified with.  He was someone who started running to lose weight.  He was someone who didn’t run very fast but had gotten hooked by the running community.  He was also someone who had completed thirty marathons.  After reading the book I decided to give it a shot and registered for the 2009 Myrtle Beach Marathon.  I trained using a 20 week training program in the book, then on February 14 I participated in the Myrtle Beach Marathon.  By mile 16 I was wondering why I had taken on such a challenge.  By mile 20 I swore that I would never do it again.  But I finished.  I crossed the finish line 5 hours 38 minutes and 21 seconds after I started.  I came back home, proud of the finishers medal I had received.  I took a week away from running, then signed up to run seven 5K and 4 mile runs.  Then, remembering my promise to myself that I would NEVER run another marathon, I registered for the Columbus Marathon the following October. 

This is where the story takes a slight detour.  After training for another 20 weeks and running my second marathon in a year, I took a lot of time off running.  I didn't train much at all after that, but ran the 2010 Disney World Half Marathon.  I registered for and completed the 2010 Cap City Half Marathon also.  But again, I did that with absolutely no training to prepare, and my time showed it.  After that I really didn't run much at all for quite a while.  Things in my life had changed, I made excuses and just never took the time to run.  I missed running, but as the time went on it became harder and harder to motivate myself to get out there.  As my running times increased, so did my weight because, while I no longer excercised like a runner, I certainly had no problem continuing to eat like one.

In 2011 I started "sorta" running.  I would get out occassionally, and I did get that joy that I once felt from running.  I started to once again feel the stress relief I had once felt.  So in 2012 I made a commitment to run at least two half marathons.  By the end of the year I had ended up running a total of four half marathons.  This year I've run three more and will be running three more by the end of this year.  I've lost all the weight I regained, and am even maintaining a weight nearly 20 lbs. less than where I was when I ran my two marathons in 2009.  

My third and fourth half marathons this year are far enough apart that I decided to try working a full marathon training schedule in.  The purpose was basically to see if I could, or even wanted to, run another full marathon.  Today's long run was 16 miles long.  I'm happy with how I did, but the decision about running another full marathon is still up in the air.  It may or may not happen, we'll see.  Regardless, in a few weeks I'll begin to taper my training in preparation for the Philadelphia Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon in September.  I expect to have a successful race, and have set my "ultimate goal" at running the half in under 2:00.  If I'm unable to do that, then I do hope to at least beat my current best of 2:04:21.

Do you Need to Know...or Want to Know?

Over the last several years I've tried to do some things to reduce my stress level.  Unless you are completely new to this blog, or to me, you know that running is one of those things.  This blog is another one of those things I've done to reduce stress, as it provides me an opportunity to "vent" at times.  A few years back I stepped down from a supervisor position at work in order to reduce stress.  In this "search" for a more relaxed me, I've also become more spiritual (if that's the right word).

I was talking to a co-worker this afternoon and began talking about some of the changes that are about to take place here where I work.  I think the fact that I've been actively working on lowering my stress level will help when it comes to all the changes.  They are changes that I regard as positive.  But positive or negative, changes...especially major changes, create stress, and these are, what I would consider to be major changes.  I made the comment that the next year will be "fun".  The co-worker used the word "entertaining".  Although they may sound the same, they are very different, and I think his term is probably more accurate than mine.  Don't get me wrong, I will have fun over this next year, but some of what is going to happen may not be "fun", but it will most certainly be entertaining.

We spoke some about the changes and what would happen and then spoke of how much we know, or how "in the loop" we were.  That's when it kind of dawned on me that sometimes being in the loop can create more stress than it relieves.  Through the changes that have been coming we've been kept pretty well in the loop here, while others have not been.  In those cases, knowing a little about what was happening helped to keep our stress levels down, while hearing and listening to the possibilities and rumors has undoubtedly contributed to the stress level of others.  It helped me to realize that I don't need to know what I don't need to know.  I feel pretty comfortable knowing that I'll be told what things I need to know at work.  So if I don't know the story on something, I'm confident that I really don't need to know, cuz if I need to know I'll be told, but if I'm not told then I don't need to know.  Ya know?

Basically I realized that not being "in the know" can be one of those things that reduces stress.  More often than not, being in the loop just means that you know a lot about the rumors and half truths that are circulating anyway.  On top of that someone who is "in the know" adds their own spin on things, and that speculation becomes someone else's fact and by the time the story gets through a few people it becomes so distorted those who think they know what happened or what's going to happen have no clue.

Today Was a Good Day

Once or twice I year I teach a class at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy.  The class is called Public Safety Telecommunicator I.  It is basically a "Dispatching 101" course and is geared towards new public safety dispatchers who are starting their careers (although I've had students in the class with as much as 26 years of service as dispatchers).

One of the things we talk about in the class is that you can't take it personally.  People will call and yell at us for any number of reasons.  As human beings, our natural reaction is to become defensive.  It's not my fault your street hasn't been plowed yet.  It's not my fault your electricity is out.  It's not my fault you were arrested for OVI on Friday night and you can't get your car out of impound until Monday when it's already racked up 3 days worth of storage fees by the tow company.  I try to explain to the students that those people are not upset with us as individuals.  They are upset with the police dept. or the city or county or whatever.  They don't know us as individuals.  To them, we are the police dept.  I am not Chris Burkhardt, I am the City of Dublin.  I even have a name tag that proves it.

One thing that I try to remind the students of is that people very rarely ever call the police dept. or fire dept. because they are having a good day.  If they have to make that call, it's usually to let us know that there is something wrong, sometimes tragically wrong.  But if we, as dispatchers, take it personally, it makes our job even more stressful that it already can be.  It can lead to burnout and lead to a very short career.

Today was a little different though.  Today, the first emergency call to come in to the center ended about as positively as a call to 9-1-1 can end.  It started off a little frantic, and while I hope to be able to get this call in the future, I'm glad I'm not the one who got it today.  The call came from a man telling us that his wife was in labor, and this child was in a little bit of a hurry to make her way in to the world.  Ironically, the call was taken by my supervisor, who herself is expecting a little girl in a couple of months.  She stayed on the phone with dad and provided him with the instructions he needed to help mom if the baby did show up prior to the medics.  It was also the first time I saw her make a follow up phone call to the medics to make sure that everything ended up ok.

To make a long story short, medics arrived prior to the child being born, got mom to the hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl within minutes of their arrival.

That's a good day!!

I've had a few calls of my own that stand out.  Ones that I probably won't forget.  The worst call of my career so far was the three year child that drowned in a swimming pool.  The best, the call from a new father.  Not just new, but BRAND new.  You see, his wife actually gave birth in the car while they were on their way to the hospital.  I asked dad if he wanted to pull over and wait for a medic, but he was close enough to the hospital that it actually made more sense for him just to continue to drive on in to the hospital, so while I stayed on the phone and gave him some directions for making sure mom and baby were ok, and radioed ahead to the hospital to let them know what they had headed their way, dad drove his wife and new born child on to the hospital.

They're not all bad calls, and today was a good example of that.