TLDR || I’m a lazy under achiever who’s done well in life with next to no effort. – Finally making progress with this running thing learning how to hard things.

Statement above intentionally left on a single line because it defines me well and it deserves its own line. It’s not a stretch to say – I’m a fairly bright person. Meaning I’m – High IQ [1], a quick thinker, a talented learner, creative, I have an excellent memory, ETC, ETC. On the other side of the Kev coin, I’m also lazy and far from motived remotely close to the fullest of my potential. I write far from motivated because I’ve almost never needed to be motivated in life to achieve. Other than dealing with custody over Trenton, no part of my life has been hard for me; first world white genius problems, I know. High school GPA was above 3.5 cumulative and I NEVER took a book home of did home work in any class.

When it came to careers I fell into my occupation after being kicked out of an AP CHEM class. From there I’ve nearly max leveled what I do, and I’ve been able to reach that level with minimal to no effort. Money has been simple because I picked a well-paying occupation and spending less than you make, and the power of compound interest are simple math problems to me.

My core talents and passions have done well for me – I love learning and reading, and I am able to quickly turn new concepts into useable things without any effort. ETC – point made? I’m lazy because I can be. I’ve grown up to be comfortable with the level of results my laziness yields. Which is has not been a bad thing; me being lazy puts me in the top 2% smarts, and income wise planet wide.

Why the words above

My words are not to brag they are level set and establish a context to understand my next words. I’ve never had to exert much effort to accomplish things. Running has been / is pretty much the biggest challenge I’ve ever dealt with outside of kid battle in court. Over the past few years I’ve taken up hiking, walking, and tried running a few times. Most all of these attempts have resulted in challenges due to shin pain, and me backing off. Then we took on building a house, and that because my excuse / new focus for most energies.

November of 2015 I set a line for myself. Much like the line I set when I started this blog – no looking back. Kev moving forward and not giving up. From November to now my shins and calves have hurt mostly none stop. I Ice them, take meds, stretch, massage them, all of the things. I’m massaging so much I keep considering saying “fuck it ” and shaving my legs to make massaging simpler. I’ve not shaved because I’m too lazy to deal with answering people asking, “why are your legs shaved” multiple times a day.

Every time I make some progress with running I have to take time off and slow down more. I take breaks for days here, a week here, 2 weeks, then I get back to it and have to take another break. It kills me feeling like a complete failure every time I have to take a break. Then I want to give up because the concept of hard work is foreign to me. Well I’m not giving up on this one – I’m finally at a point where the effort is on the list of things worth doing, plus not giving up has always been on my list, but it was EASY before.

In my attempt to make running work I’ve studied, read, talked to people, joined groups, taken hours of slow motion video, ANALyzed the videos, had people review the videos, bought things like braces, and ice, and shoes, and massagers, and bands; so many things – I’m bloody dedicated to making this work. I’m putting in the time and effort, and the results are not coming like they should. ARGGGGHHH this is hard and I don’t know how to hard.

Running updates – Written March 6

Thursday this week I had a tears of joy moment after I finished running my loop with no shin pain. About two weeks ago, before my Charlotte trip, I randomly found a video on the YouTube about Chi running. Chi Running intrigued me, so I read and watched things about it. After research It did not hit me as I MUST do Chi running. Then I took two weeks off of running. One week at home to recover, and one while in Charlotte because there was no time to run. During my break the Chi running concept rolled in the back of my head and it solidified as something I needed to try.

Wednesday I gave Chi running a try for a short run walk session and the results were promising. Thursday I went for my 2.4-mile loop and was literally in tears of happy jogging into the locker room. Friday I had some muscle pain from the new motions, but no shin pain. I don’t want to ruin things over working , so I was going to take the day off running Friday. Saturday, Traffic loved me on the way in and I had a big chuck of free time. Was going to walk and think with a note book during my time. While walking I found a great level gravel spot on campus, and decided to check my form. I spent 45 minutes filming myself running in slow motion and analyzing my leg motion – pictures in post are from that session.

Running updates – Written March 30

3/30 today, first day of the work week, first run of the week for me. I had a great run today, and am finally starting to feel like progress is being made. Set myself a new best mile pace at 10’44”, burned I love you calories [2] and it’s been a few hours since my run and there is no pain anywhere in my legs. I’m considering more distance, longer duration, less pain, and a faster pace to be signs progress. Signs of progress putting a smile on my face, and giving me a nice runners high feeling all over. Not planning on increasing the running distance for the next few months I’m going to work on increasing the speed.

I’d like to hit an average 11 minute split by June – and add more walking at the end of the run to cool down to keep the total time at 30 minutes. 30 minutes is a good time budget fit for me right now. Maybe end of April / start of May I’ll start adding an extra mile to the runs on Saturdays and bring them above a 5k. For now I’m happy to have overcome the wall of pain I’ve been smashing my face into.

December 5th of last year

I started running in November, but don’t have any GPS data from November. The below run is the first one I tracked GPS data for.

March 30 of this year

About five months of progress, four between the above image and below image. Progress is not huge by the numbers but it feels good. Not sure why that recover time is so bloody huge – research could be needed.

[1] I’ve taken tests before, IQ over 140, I missed 2 on the SAT, MCAT 44Q that one time I wanted to medical school, but they told me no because no BS degree.

[2] 458 on a phone pad = ILU = I love you. A numbers to letters to words game I used to play with someone resulted in 458 being a method to say I love you.