With the lightheaded haziness beginning to dissipate, our hero takes his first steps toward the long journey home...

[kenrudux]

Male

32

overweight

1st priority is weight loss

2nd priority is general healthiness

2rd priority is regulation of eating

 

I, like many of you, stumbled upon NF totally by accident. I was actually doing a websearch to determine exactly when ZombieRun 5K  takes place in the Zombie Run2 storyline arc, and VOILA!, I'm waking up from a forced slumber under an impossibly majestic (i.e. imaginary) oak tree. Bruised and badly beaten, my left hamstring is tender, my shins are throbbing from pain, and my thighs are afire. Worse yet, I cannot recall from whence I came or even when for that matter. All I know is that I'm in pain. That and the gigantic "0" above my head.

 

Mythology aside, I gained far too much weight over the past two years, picking up, at most, 30 lbs since getting married in August 2011 ( though to be fair, right before the wedding I was on a pretty solid schedule of weightlifting and bike riding 2-3 days a week). My biggest problem over the past few years has been consistency. This was even more exasperated by a huge life transition that my wife and I entered into mid year 2013. We uprooted from Charlotte, NC and moved back home closer to family in FL. We spent 2nd portion of the year with my family, an hour away from our new home (waiting for it to be completed) and commuted 2 hours a day. During that time, I discovered Zombie Run and fell deeply and madly in love. It combined so many of my favorite things that I became utterly addicted. Unfortunately my weight (260 Lbs at the time) made it difficult to maintain the consistency as I began to re aggravate an old shin splint problem. Anyways I kept at it, made it halfway through the program and starting suffering swollen ankles (albeit with no pain) Tennis ball sized swelling. This culminated with my family forcing me to take time off. Eventually I discovered that the swelling wasn't necessarily due to the running, but more so to the calf sleeves that I wore to alleviate the shin pain.

By the time I figured this out we were moving into the new home. Due to the shin problem, I have an intense fear of street running. All of my training was done on a treadmill and, as soon as we got into our new home, our treadmill shorted out for a week. I fixed it and then the mat began to slip. I've managed to somewhat fix it, but needless to say this all culminated in a pretty bad lay off.

As of this morning, my digital scale (hardly reliable in the past) placed me at 264, whereas my wii fit swears that I'm 257 in the buff (I love that little guy. The wii, mind. The wii). I began another trek on Zombie run 5K and completed missions on 2/5, 2/6, 2/11, 2/14, 2/18, 2/19, 2/20, 2/24. To be fair I do a combination of running and walking, with more walking than running. The distance of each run, in respect to miles, 1.43, 2.24, 2.01, 2.05, 2.0, 2.0, 2.0, 2.0. @ an average of 34.47. When given free runs, I endeavor to run in increments of quarter miles (or .25 on the treadmill). In my former life I was a 400 meter hurdler and in order to help me stick to the patterns, I count the number of steps in between each distance marker. t's small trick that helps take my mind off the time and lose myself in the rhythm of the run.

So anyways, if you made it this far I truly appreciate it and I didn't mean to bore you. I am a lurker and observer by nature, so this was a HUGE step in my online social progression and my physical fitness growth as well. During my Golem moment (you know, the ever popular juxtaposed self argument) I convinced myself that I enjoyed the immersion of the Zombie run app, than NF would be a perfect way to kick it up a notch. And thus, here am I; badly bruised and broken under an imaginary oak with fat ass "0" overhead. I am serious about progressing and becoming a part of the community. Despite this post, I actually can't spend a huge amount of time on here. If anyone can be an awesome mate and point me in the direction of the threads to help me get up and running I would so appreciate it. Possibly, a noob-torial or articles to read that will assist in getting into the challenges and finding a guild to call home. I mean, I'm really trying to avoid a Skyrim moment here. 5 mins in and imprisoned? check. threat of death? check. Dragon? WTF, check.

 

Much obliged, all. 

[the25r]

Congratulations on that big step forward Ken! Have you posted a challenge in the challenge section? Also, re: shin splints and other issues, I had a big reduction in pains once I went to a real running store and got expert advice on what shoes I needed to adjust to my pronation and gait. The difference between $50 shoes from the mall and $110 shoes from a running store was worth their weight in gold.

 

Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing you level up fast!