THE SECRET! How to LOSE ALL THE WEIGHT YOU WANT and get to that GOAL RACE WEIGHT….

This should be a short blog I’d imagine.

Ok, so here goes,

 

The real secret to losing all of the weight you want and getting down to that ‘ideal’ race weight, is to be absolutely fanatical, generally miserable, mostly self-loathing, and often un-necessarily measuring your body image up against other ‘more successful’ people. You may also need to harshly judge every calorie that enters your body, avoid many of the foods you enjoy, and develop anxiety at every social gathering, particularly when everyone else is drinking and eating freely and you're on the 'strictly only water and foods-that-taste-like-soggy-Lego-Diet'.  

Easy!

Or so it seems.

DISCLAIMER: Now before I get the objectors here saying that this is demonising healthy eating and smart training, whilst glamorising lazy eating habits and poor choices, this is a (mostly) fun blog that examines my own experiences on the fringe of the very elite running community here in Queensland, Australia. I am NOT a doctor, I’m an art teacher. I’m not pretending to be a doctor, nor do I have any qualifications to give advice or prescribe diets or drugs. I have no interests in checking prostates, however for the right amount of money (and with a decent waiver signed) I will have a shot at a select few surgical procedures (we probably won’t be friends after though!).

Short story; I am not an expert, this is just a blog. If you're currently checking the internet for medical advice this is your glowing red sign telling you to see a real qualified ACTUAL human. 

While I’m at it, probably avoid doing your banking online through African based financial institutions too…but that is a whole other blog, for a whole other time friends. 

The real story starts with me (as it does with most narcissists) and my own battles with the search for the perfect athlete’s body. 

(at the risk of giving away the ending) I’ve only recently begun to appreciate and enjoy my own body….at age 33! 

For all of my awkward teenage years I was shy and reserved, hiding behind a nervously pudgy body that was awkward and barely capable. I grew up in the age when the internet was beginning, the Backstreet Boys were redefining (read: brutally murdering) popular music, and the ‘ideal’ teenage boys body was scrutinised if it didn’t have Marky-mark’s (or Peter Andre’s if you will) chiselled abs or the thin and angular body of a moody grungy Nirvana-wannabe.

The market for dumpy, optimistic jokesters was about as minimal as the market for ‘weirdos that stand alone openly smelling their sandwiches in public’….aka non-existent.

I guess that’s where the focus on body image began for me.

Luckily, being so ‘gosh-darn-optimistic’ meant that I really wasn’t committed enough to give up my comfort food to embrace an eating disorder, so I settled into reluctantly hating the way I looked in cargo pants and (already quite painful) 90’s fashion choices.

It wasn’t until I began working out (almost incidentally) and running (for fun….really!) after Uni that I began to change things.

I guess this is the juncture where I thank my friends and family for NOT instilling a need to obsess over body image. Perhaps the pressures of society hadn’t intensified so much then, the internet was

mostly ‘dial-up’ (for those younger readers….that means; painfully slow and rather pointless…kind of like a road-trip to and antique clock-store). So mostly, we were left to our own devices, to innocently be kids, most of the time. Which was nice.

Eventually, though, I DID lose the weight, and I lost it by generally eating ‘nice’ foods (aka nothing with a cartoon animal on its packaging giving the thumbs up, and generally from shops and stores that you have to leave your car to get things from) and working out to a level that I enjoyed.

I wasn’t fanatical, but this was early days.

It was when I fit my first extra-small t-shirt that a 'hunger' was instilled in me (that's a really bad pun I know). I hadn’t even started running competitively, but I began finding myself anxious if I missed a day of working out, or I ate without carefully thinking. Somehow, I had gone from being on quite a casual adventure, to being stuck on a carnival ride, where the hill-billy teenager operating it had passed-out hours ago, his pig couldn’t reach the ‘stop’ button either.

And throughout all of this, the strange thing is that my opinion of my body was the same!

When I was a husky 120kgs I looked pudgy and bloated….and when I obsessively dropped into the mid 60kgs I was never as taut and defined as I wanted to be. The loose sections of skin had shrunk….kind of, but only to the point where they’re disguising the fit body underneath. I was no-more happier.

I remember running the 7km loop around my block with my arm in a cast, because I couldn’t take a day off….even with a fractured wrist! I wrapped the cast in a plastic shopping bag and ran with it uncomfortably aloft….like a student in a class with his question being constantly ignored by the teacher.

But then I found my running community, my Ipswich Triathlon Club, and eventually Intraining

Running and Triathlon Club and things levelled out a lot. I ran socially, and ran races. I learned to embrace the success I was having.

I trained smarter, and found that I could relax into my diet. I turned out to be pretty good at running too; worse than some, but better than most. I won races, often.

Eventually though, the competitive me built. I wondered how close I could get to those guys that I saw on TV, running so fluidly. To me they looked so thin, yet powerful; while I was bigger and chunkier. Perhaps if I streamlined my body, the excess weight I lost would translate to glory and success? Perhaps my face would be on the side of a cereal box that I (ironically) could never eat?!

So the wheels turned again, and I trained harder, and ate smaller, but the times remained the same. I stood at the start line with Olympians that were thinner and leaner, and (frustratingly) had to watch them drink beers and eat luxury foods at the post-race celebrations. It didn’t make any sense.

Eventually I began getting frustrated with the sport I loved.

And I wasn’t the only one. I saw guys just like me, who acted just like me. They deprived their bodies in secret, and trained harder, and harder….to the point of injury often.

At one instance I saw a good friend and accomplished runner tell a young (at the time 18) up-and-coming runner that he’d need to ‘drop some weight, to really see an improvement ‘. This young man was already thin and more than holding his own on an elite level. It was all well-meaning and never intended to offend or upset, but I still remember watching the information float from a mouth, through the air over to impregnate an impressionable mind.

I began hearing stories of young runners (male AND female) injuring themselves, forced away from running, struggling with diets and nutrition, uploading impossibly thin profile photos, and/or simply not running happily, or well. I saw magazine articles and fad diets come and athletes clamber for them like young girls to a floppy haired prepubescent heart-throb.

A cog finally turned in my mind. Something was wrong.

I began to look back at my own running. I looked at the photos (that I was too tight to purchase) from the races that I’d run. It turns out, and here’s the secret:

I ran the best when I was happy.

I looked strong, thin and fast when I was happy.

I was a nicer person when I ran happy.

What a revelation!

It turns out that millions of years of evolution (or a few thousand years of intelligent design…if that’s your caper) has equipped me with an amazing body that craves certain things only when I need them (like carbs, or proteins, or...dare I say it? Sugar!). It tells me when I’ve eaten too much (by feeling full or regretful when I’ve binged). It is an AMAZING machine that is capable of practically anything, but only when it has fuel.

If I couple my fuel intake with regular exercise (doing things I enjoy), it functions really well, it begins craving more of the ‘good foods’ and less (or rarely) the ‘bad foods’. 

And the best part?

We ALL have this same machine! So perhaps, if any of this blog has resonated with you, I recommend talking to someone, trying to look at your machine with fresh eyes, rewarding your exercise with fuel, or rewarding your fuel intake with a nice run. Learn the difference between training hard (and intelligently), and running dangerously on empty!

And try to find an excuse to smile. It’s true, our machines will depreciate in value as they age, they will likely be superseded by newer models, however if you treat them well, perhaps you will be left with a eye-turning classic.

And who amongst us, does not want to spend our twilight cruising along in a head-turning classic? I can’t think of a better way to take your mind of the bald patch on your head…but (again) that’s a whole other blog.

Run happy!

Til next time,

Clay Dawson

Intraining Sponsored Athlete and huge fan of his body! 

The FINAL Three Act Comedy and Tragedy of Marathon Running. PT3: The Sunshine Coast Marathon 2014

After two relatively successful marathons over two months and at this juncture, it made sense that my ego and the confidence in how to finally run a marathon properly would encourage me to accept the offer to run the Sunshine Coast Marathon and a third marathon in 3 months.

It didn’t matter to me that some quality runners had reportedly signed up. It wasn’t about podiums for me; it was about chasing that sub 2hr30min marathon and rounding out the most surreal year of running results that I’ve had  (modest for some, unthinkable for me). If a spot on the dais came too, that would only be icing.

So when I heard on the morning of the race that a Kenyan (ANDREW KIMANTHI) had just signed up, the only words that went through my head was the mantra I’d adopted since Gold Coast; “DON’T GO OUT WITH THE KENYANS”.  

I made my resolve.

Similar to Brisbane, my lead-up had been none-too-spectacular, with a few hard runs, not a lot of good form, and a lack-lustre 10mile (16km) race the Sunday prior.

True to my vow, when the gun went I shot off and ran smoothly and strongly. I ran so well in fact, that at it wasn’t until over 2kms into the race that ‘the kenyan’ caught me. I hadn’t just gone out with the Kenyan, I’d left him for dead! 

With my mantra in shreds, I knew it was going to be a tough day at the office now.

As Kimanthi swept past me he motioned for me to pace him on, showing much more confidence in my early ability as he should have! “No, I’m a 2:30 guy…too slow!” I managed to say, not sure if he’d get the message, regardless we gave each other a ‘thumbs up’ and he pushed on.

Some 5 more kilometers down the road the third place runner caught up as well, a very established

runner Stephen Dinneen caught up and ran with me. “How you going mate?” he asked, probably knowing what was in store for me. “Pretty good” I lied, “You push on mate!” I insisted, but to Stephen’s credit he hung back, offering to pace me. After a further 10kms together he let me know that his coach had strictly warned him to take this race easier. EASIER?!!! It hadn’t dawned on me just how ‘hard-core’ Stephen was, but I soon realised as we cruised headlong towards a half split that would see me sitting on course to break the 2hours 30min!

Of course the perfect ending to this story would involve the two of us stoically working together for the remaining hour and a half and crossing the line in glory.

This clearly didn’t happen, and whilst the Third Act of this story is hardly Shakespearean in scale of its tragedy, it did play out a little differently. First of all, Stephen ran on (reluctantly) not long after, the pace was way too slow for him, and I couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t fall apart and potentially DNF when the dreaded 30km ‘wall’ came. I wished him luck, and with Kimanthi we set about encouraging each other as we passed each other at each turn-a-round.

And, I slowed…..clearly the fatigue had finally set in, and the idea of running a sub 2hour 30min marathon faded very quickly. Suddenly the idea of holding onto 3^rd place was the only way I could manage to motivate myself to finish. I ran on, and on, and on, through gritted teeth and slumped across the line to my slowest marathon time of (2hours 39minutes and 16seconds) but also 3^rd place. Kimanthi and Stephen powered on to amazing times in their own regards (2:20 and 2:28 respectively) and I was stoked to see them and chat to them both post-race.

It was all done, and although I was sore in my clearly tired legs, I hadn’t fared too poorly.

Until a few days later, as I type this, with almost constant nausea, a quarantine-able outbreak of cold-sores, surging headaches and chronic tiredness. I guess sometimes we pay a price to the running gods for the ability to feel such amazing emotions, and my bill has been long over-due.

Needless to say, I am very firmly in recovery…..and the idea of running another marathon is at least a

few more months away.

Let’s just hope I’ve finally learnt my lesson, or that there are no Kenyan’s on the start line (Said in the nicest possible way, of course) to curry my clearly poor resolve.

Till then, keep running!...in moderation…and always with a smile!

Clay Dawson

InTraining Sponsored Athlete and Glutton for Punishment

(GALLERY BELOW)