True confessions of a slow runner

So for the most part I have hated running my whole life. Running just for the sake of running has always seemed like a useless effort. You know if you couple it with running to tackle the quarterback, score the goal, etc then it was something to be tolerated. And to be honest I think that the reason that I have hated running so much is that I am slow. All the smirks, eye rolls, and general bad attitude to the track/ cross country teams was because I was so bad at it. I remember my coach in football switching me out of the starting lineup in football, just so that when the team was introduced to start the game that he wouldn't be embarassed to watch me poke my way across the field during warmups.
All that is to say that when I decided to do a triathlon that I didn't really do two thirds of the sports involved....I love to bike and have logged about 4000 miles in the last 2 years, but the other two disciplines were just something stuck on either end of the fun.
But let me back up, five years ago I finally admitted that I really hated my job as a machinist and my wife who knew that I had hated it forever, made me go back to school. I had always been interested in medicine, but with two small children couldn't go back to school to be a doctor, so nursing was the route I took. I hadn't been in school for almost 13 years, and stepped into an old school honest to goodness boot camp for nursing. I was forced to sit on my butt for days on end to study and so ended up ballooning to almost 260 pounds. My total cholesterol ended up being over 300, and I could barely stay awake during the classes. I begged my wife to let me get a bike in the spring of 06 and put on 1600 miles that first summer. I did the trek across Maine and felt a little bit better come fall to end out the program and help me graduate, but all the extra weight I was carrying around did little for my piece of mind or running around on the telemetry floor that I was working.
I moved to my local ER in the summer of 08 just before the birth of our third child and was still pulling 230's My waist was still a 38 and I knew that if I didn't do something that the genetics that I am cursed with were going to have me at a cardiologist before I was 40.
Knowing myself like I do, I knew that I would have to have some goal to get myself motivated to really do something about the weight. So this spring I decided that I would do a triathlon. I had watched the Ironman coverage growing up, and had always been fascinated. I would be glued to the TV for hours watching those people push themselves to the limit. I had always wanted to be the one there doing it. But hence the slow running, not ever been taught to swim... you can see the dilemma.
I decided that no matter how slow I did it I would finish a triathlon and signed up. I started to train, and having three kids and a very busy job in the ER I found the time that I had to devote to training was so small. Couple that with the fifth rainiest June July in the state of Maine's history and the time was quickly getting away from me. I did my first 5k a month before the tri and finished a dismal 30:06. I continued to pound away at the running but I have been unable to get any faster. Not to say that I haven't met with success, I have never run 3miles in a row on purpose ever! I have dropped a full three inches off my waist, I dropped a total of eight percent bodyfat (since January), and have seen about thirteen pounds come off that number peeking at me from the scale.
I have decided in the course of this little empowering journey of mine, and with the successes that I have accomplished that I would continue it and try to get to that Ironman dream. Who cares how slow I finish it as long as it is before they shut down the finish line.
To end, this morning I was perusing the web and Trifuel, and saw that one of the folks had posted about getting ready for the Timberman 70.3 in New Hampshire and decided that that would be my next step. I got so excited in fact that I went out and ran my longest run ever! I did a 10k and was able to keep my very lethargic time of ten minute miles! I know that the real triathletes out there might be sniggering, but for the few who won't or don't tri because they might be that slow, there is my confession. I am slow and I love triathlon. Keep triing!