The journey started with braces

A 34 year old runner with braces on his teeth, yes that would be me.The former self proclaimed king of partying turned runner. Yes indeed. Its never to late to change. If someone would have  told me 3 years ago I would be running marathons I probably would have told them, "Lets do 15 shots and see who passes out first, what is a marathon, I dont get it, why would someone run that far... wheres the shot glass??"
Did I mention it had been 15 years since I ran even 1 mile. My main goal of this blog would be to show people that its not too late to start running and there is a lot support out there if you need it. It will change your life for the better. If I can run, you can run. Im here to help

The only thing that saved me from 100 percent self destruction was a strong work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit. I was the ultimate weekend warrior when it came partying, I didnt go out for a few.. I went out to see how drunk and how crazy I could get without getting arrested. Monday through Friday - not a drop - but I surely made up for it on the weekends. Fun times I think, I dont remember.

Then one day, out of the blue, I just thought this isnt working for me. I cant keep doing this. I need a drastic change. Im not sure what made me think of my teeth, they were a little crooked but nothing drastic (i thought) no cavities, but could use some straightening. Long story short, I went to the orthodontist about 30 pounds overweight and over the time span of 2 weeks had braces on my teeth and a plate on the roof of my mouth to fix the major problems i didnt know I had. Now I am unable to eat anything that had to be chewed, no chewing for at least 4 months, do you know what foods need chewing... pretty much all of the good ones except oatmeal and yogurt.

Big decision to make now, do I pity myself and eat all junk or do I try to do the right thing and eat things that taste good out of blender and are good for me, which happen to be mostly fruit and protein drinks. Could have easily went back into party mode, it would have been a pity party for myself. I had to keep in my mind that I was trying to change my ways. Time to get healthy.

I go crazy sitting around. So here I am, basically turned vegetarian overnight because steak just doenst taste the same out of blender..  talking funny because of all these dental devices in my mouth and done going out partying. I did feel better, no more hangovers and the weight was falling off, I was almost too skinny, but I liked the way I felt.
Maybe it was boredom, Im still not sure. Maybe it was because I talked so funny and was trying to avoid people,  but I just went for a run one night in January just over two years ago. I couldnt run a mile, but I kept trying. My neighbor who happens to be a marathoner saw me about 3 weeks into my running. He asked how far I could run and I told him I could finally make it around the block which was 1.8 miles. He told me the best advice anyone could give a new runner... SLOW DOWN... within a few weeks I was up to 3.5 miles which is the distance to entry way of our neighborhood and back. I became obsessed with improving my time to the entrance and back. every night i would run it. In my mind 3.5 miles was the most i could run because i still wasnt fully understanding SLOW DOWN. My neighbor stopped me again weeks later "Slow Down! I mean it this time! you can easily run a lot farther if you would slow down"
Ok I thought I will run slower and see how this goes... so now Im obsessed with distance, I remember my first 5 mile run. What a great feeling! 5 miles... I need to run more... I will run my fast 3.6 one night a week and run slow the rest.  I was doing speed work and I didn't even know it. I still didnt know how far a 5k was. I thought it was 3.6 instead of 3.1 for the longest time. I didnt know anything about running except that I was slowly learning how to do it right. I should have bought a runners world or asked my neighbor more, but I didnt. The next time I talked to him about running which was months later he asked me how long it took me to run to the entrance and back. I told him 25 minutes. 25 mintues roughly.. He told me to enter a race and thats when things really started changing, but thats for next blog......