running for my life

A few days ago I went for my first outdoor run of the season.  I had been running on a treadmill and the track at the YMCA, but was warned that running outdoors was much more challenging.  I did not find this to be the case.  Running on asphalt is less comfortable than on a treadmill or track, but there is so much more going on.  Treadmills offer nothing to look at except the televisions in front of them, and the indoor track is only slightly more varied.  Outdoors, however, there are birds, trees, creeks, rivers, and fields (I live in an agricultural part of the world).  I usually listen to music when I run indoors, but outdoors I felt no need for it.  So I ran 11.5 km, which took me an hour and a quarter. There were not a lot of hills, so I'll have to find more hills to run on.  The race is in hill country, and I don't want to start the race having neglected hill training.

I will be writing about running.  Specifically about my return to running after a 25 year absence. When I was in high-school, I was on the cross-country running team.  I enjoyed it mainly because it was a sport I could do on my own.  In my twenties I stopped running, except sporadically, and I never really got back to it.  Now I am 44, and I've started running again.  In January of this year, I weighed 114 kg (250 lbs).  I am 185 cm (6'1") tall, so that is considerably overweight.  My wife signed me up for a YMCA membership (she's very subtle) and now I weigh 105 kg (231 lbs).  My motivation for now is to loose weight and get back in shape, improve my endurance, get my slightly high cholesterol down to a healthy level, and generally feel good about what I look like, and how I feel. I have signed up for a 10 km run on June 10, and I am using one of Garmin's training plans to get me ready.  A good friend of mine gave me her fenix 2 and thi...