Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Colder than the Girls

A few days ago I had a totally unique experience. A first time experience. I was driving my van with an athletic girl riding shotgun. About 15 minutes in my fingers and toes were still cold and she asked if I could turn the heat off. I did immediately and smiled to myself that I had won... against myself.

You see women generally get colder faster than men. I think they have more nerve endings close to the surface of their skin. In the past few weeks I've been riding in cars with some boys and they turn the heat off way too early and I start shivering. No joke. So having a woman the same age as me, one that is in shape too, tell me to turn the heat off was a victory in the war on fat.

When you show up at road races that offer decent money you will probably see the Kenyans wearing track suits and stocking hats and maybe even gloves even if it is in the 60s or 70s. They have so little fat they get cold very quick.

Since 2006 I have gradually gotten more and more in shape and lost fat little by little. the last five months I have gotten into the best shape of my life. A few days ago I was coughing because I was sick and I happened to look in the mirror with my shirt off at the same time. I saw a muscle that I had never noticed before. It was diagonal and on the side of my stomach. I didn't even know it was there.

I don't mean to be vain and brag but this was pretty exciting. I've never considered myself one to have a six pack or even someone with muscles that you can see. This kind of changes things. I think it is in part because I have been drinking skin milk the last month instead of 1% and those two gallons per week have contributed to losing that next quarter of a percent fat. Also I feel that just living at altitude your heart and lungs are working harder so you burn more calories in the average day than at sea level. I guess the consistent 90+ mile weeks for four months help too.

One of the side effects of this is that it has motivated me to do more core workouts because I'll probably see the results quickly. In fact, on a per minute basis, I think that core workouts and lifting weights does more for my running than running. Just an hour of hard cross training per week goes a long way.

It's just so exciting! It's like when I go to the gym and I can tell when girls check me out. That has not happened my whole life and I like it. On a side note, this whole exercising thing that I do, that's not going away anytime soon. I do plan to cut back a lot when I get older and have more fulfilling commitments like a wife and kids but then again 50 miles a week would be cutting back a lot.

Men in general reach their athletic peak at age 27 and marathon runners often peak later with Haile G setting the current world record at age 35 and Meb winning the most recent NYC marathon at age 34. The reason they peak later is the accumulated aerobic conditioning over those years which translates to half a minute or a minute for elite runners. The point is that if I'm getting in better shape so quick at age 23, how much better will I get?

I should point out one final thing. Losing weight is only good to a point. There are very dangerous and life threatening consequences to becoming too light. Due to some experiences in my past I will never get too skinny. I have seen how eating disorders destroy lives and thus I error on the side of having an extra pound. I like eating too.

4 comments:

  1. Isaiah-

    I think you may have come to the wrong conclusion. First off, if guys usually turn the heat off before women, and a woman wants you to turn off the heat before you are warm, you must be a woman. This, too might explain the looks you're getting in the gym. Many girls look with pity on very ugly girls, and trust me, Isaiah, you were a pretty good looking dude, but you would make one ugly lady.

    You run more than anyone I know personally so the only conclusion I can draw is that running a lot turns you into a woman. This is supported by all kinds of evidence that is easy to find once you've figured it all out. For example, consider the phenomenon relating running and speed. As everyone knows, running too much makes you slower, and women are slower than men. A simple explanation for an already known phenomenon!

    In closing, Isaiah, you should stop running before you ruin your knees and your uterus falls out.

    Lane

    <\humor>

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  2. Hahaha, well I had not considered that. That would explain some things. I have been thinking about changing to extra small clothing from just wearing smalls. That's like moving from a size 4 to a 2 right? Another thing is that where I am now in longer races the women are often my biggest competition. However, wearing dresses is not for me. I already had that phase...

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  3. Don't let your new found ripped-ness go to your head...I was in a similar situation not too long ago and w/o even realizing i got on track to become a douchebag...over the course of maybe a year or so confidence morphed into arrogance/self-righteousness/over valuing my physical appearence/overvaluing superficial flurtatious relationships with the opposite sex.

    The worst part was I didn't even realize this was happening i thought I was just becoming more confident but I ended up really hurting certain people important to me as a result and am currently working to reclaiming my former humility and selfless-ness.

    I legit became a bad person (in retrospect)...got burned pretty bad (as I deserved)...and went through a period of intense self-loathing which allowed me to start to rebuild...

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  4. Thanks for the advice Eugene. I can see where that could happen. Hopefully I can learn from others before I repeat their mistakes.

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