Make your choices, lose the weight

In the 90s my wife took up jogging. She ran mid-10 minute miles and finished several half marathons. I'm a decade older than her, asthmatic and not nearly as disciplined. Our fitness was so dissimilar I went to our family physician (Dr. George DeSilvester) for help with my breathing. When that improved I tried doing a single eight-minute mile. Hey, it got me out and exercising. I never made my goal. Missed it by a few seconds late one fall, stopped for the winter and never tried again.

Late one summer in the mid-aughts I was driving, windows down, letting my mind drift and realized that in a few months I would be turning sixty. Sixty! Man. That jolted me out of my daydreams and into a very late, pretty minor, mid-life crisis. Sixty. Damn. I couldn't go quietly down that ever steepening hill. I had to do something. Hah! I decided that the next spring I would run the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon with my wife and several of her siblings, nieces and nephews.

When she was training, Maureen would rise early in the winter dark and take off on her runs before readying herself for the office. I'd be up, but only to watch, a little anxiously, with my coffee, for her return. Doing my asthma meds and getting my energy up to run at that time of day was not something I had the umpah for.

However, I worked from home and would go out midday. Much more civilized. (I couldn't keep up with her anyway.) I found Hal Higdon's plan that showed me how to progress to my first half in a few months. I signed up for Runners World magazine and read about shoes, training regimens and found heroes. Not celebrities, but people who ran for the joy of it, even through the pain of it.

Maureen and I both did the Mini that year. Over the next few years I grew a little faster and her knee started hurting. We jogged a couple more together, she skipped one or two, then she had to stop. The last one she gutted through and at the finish line they packed her knee in ice and brought her to us in a wheelchair. Others in her family walked it or ran it - she has a brother who is a fireman who ran it many time in the sevens; not a runner's body, but a fireman's willpower and tolerance for pain. Then our daughter ran a couple - mostly, I think, so I'd have someone to run with. Her hips hurt too much and she had to stop. Her husband hadn't been a runner and got into it; really got into it. Lean and determined he runs the Mini in low sevens! Like his uncle(-in-law) - largely on willpower.

Our Son-in-Law, Joe - the Runner - and Lindsey, our favorite daughter.

Three years ago I did the Mini in the spring and the Indy Half, out on the Fort Benjamin Harrison grounds in the fall. That's a good schedule for me. Keeps me out year round. However, two years ago shortly before the Mini I twisted my knee and took the summer off. Then I took the winter off and much of this past summer. Now I'm back at it. No knee brace. No Aleve. No pain. I am jogging with orthotics in my shoes. And, I'm much slower. It always took me a while to get my rhythm back in late winter, but this year, after two off, is so much harder. It's as though I've never run before. Couldn't be age could it? It's only twelve years since I started. Now I'm in the lower half of a higher age bracket - I could be a contender. IF I could keep jogging and not keep pausing to walk and gasp. But, I remember this is how it was when I started. I just need to train through it.

Me; tired, sweaty, unshaven, bad hair and happy another jog is done.

I finally resumed running every other day about a month ago. Recently, I've run in Scottsdale and several times along the beach in San Diego. If your going to be out there plodding along, those are great places to do it. Today I baked in the hot, dry sun of Quartzsite. Over the years I've jogged in Philadelphia, on the beaches and streets on Kiawah, in Shanghai, Shaoxing, Nanjing, Milan, Denver, Telluride and many times along the Promenade in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Wherever you are, jogging is a wonderful way to get out, see the area and the people, shake off jet lag and clear your mind for the day. (99.3% of places aren't as dangerous as someone has told you. Get out there. Smile. Jog.)

At 71 my resting heart rate is in the upper 40's. Blood pressure is good. I can sleep pretty well, eight to ten hours a night. My weight is within a couple pounds of when I graduated high school. (And I'm healthier now.) My asthma is well managed and I feel happy and rested most of the time. Asthma inhalers are the only meds I take. I am lucky beyond belief. Much of that is due to Maureen's decades of patiently easing me into a healthier lifestyle; away from red meats, kielbasa, fast food, butter-slathered popcorn, vodka and bourbon and into what I call grains, greens and beans . . . and red wine; good ol' red wine.

We enjoy eating this way. Real, fresh foods give us everything we need.

We have not given up flavor. We've given up a lot of fat, salt and added sugar so we may enjoy more and more subtle flavors. I now honestly don't like the flavor of most burgers and steaks. I'll get a veggie burger or fish if available and usually not eat the bun. Most soups are too salty for my taste. I haven't had a soda for years and don't miss them a bit. If I see someone walking around with a Big Gulp I feel compassion for the suffering they have ahead. I try not to preach, but if given an opening everyone knows I will coach like crazy. "Portion control!!!" (I know I'm a pain-in-the-butt, but I want you to live longer and feel better. :-)

Some people say my good fortune so far is genetic. And some of it must be, my birth mother lived to 105. But, she and I must also have deadly genes in our make up. We just haven't done bad things to our bodies long enough to let those genes express themselves, or we've done good things to our bodies often enough that our healthy genes are expressed instead. As far as this interested layman can tell, that is the secret to having the healthiest life we can. Luck can still screw us up and none of us get out of this alive, but, do the best you can.

My favorite saying is by Benjamin Disraeli who was twice the UK's Prime Minister, serving Queen Victoria, the last time for six years ending in 1880. Modernized, Disraeli said,

"We make our choices and call them fate."

 We've recently learned that is even true with the genes in our very cells. Treat yourself well.