Get It Girl!

For those of you looking for some inspiration this week, please look no further than my sister Ginny Swearingen. This past weekend she finished her SECOND half marathon this year. And she only started running this summer!

So proud of her!

Ginny keeps me motivated every day. Such a lucky brother. Love you Ginny.

It's 6:00 p.m.---Breakfast time!

I'm not much of a cook. Correction, unless I have a full kitchen and an sous chef, I'm not much of a cook. My primary cooking tools are a cell phone and a debit card. But, I have learned a few tricks when it comes to breakfasting. It's not exactly a laundry list of dishes, but it's enough to keep it interesting.

I have learned to love the egg. In all it's forms. Well, actually I guess there's only one form, but in all it's uses.

The only problem with breakfast is that it's so early! Why!

As many of you know, I am spending a few months working the overnight shift at my job. The schedule certainly does not reflect my dream hours, but there are some benefits. Namely, now breakfast occurs for me at 6 p.m.! It's amazing.

Of course dinnertime is somewhere around 3. In the morning. Hmmm...

The Squeeze Down

Let's face it. One of the main reasons I decided I needed to lose weight the first time around is because I like nice things...specifically clothes. There was a whole world of men's apparel just waiting for me to have a small enough waist, chest, tummy and arms to cram myself into them.

I won't tell you that I ever got small enough to walk into a store and buy a standard pair of jeans off the rack...though once I did actually buy jeans from Neiman's without having to special order them...but I did have some luck with things to be worn above the waist line.

Now, I love a button up shirt. Truly, there's no substitute. You can wear it to work, wear it to dinner, wear it cleaning the house. They are the most comfortable and flexible garments I own. And when they fit...perfection. When they don't....depression. And, as you may have guessed by now, during my recent, shall we say, inflationary period, some of my favorite button downs have fit me in a fashion more befitting a straight jacket.

So...I thought I'd post updates on my favorite of shirts...just to keep things interesting. It's a purple check Isaia button down that I bought last winter just after completing the marathon. Hopefully this will provide some visual evidence of my victories. Hence the picture above. To you, gentle reader, this picture may look fine. But to me, all I see is a shirt that is too snug through the shoulders, the stomach and the arms. And anyways...I thought this would be fun.

Stay tuned.

Timmy

A Street with a View

This was my view last Sunday. If you ever need inspiration to push yourself farther than you thought possible...look no further than Central Park South on marathon day.

I'm Sorry, I've Been Away...

Hard to believe that it's been a full 12 months since I ran the NYC marathon. A few minor things have changed since my last post on this site...let me summarize

- I had hip surgery

- I turned 30

- I quit my job

- I moved to New York

Frankly, I'm still recovering from all of those things. Living in New York is something I have always dreamed about. The transition to the city has been a surprisingly easy one--granted, if you asked me for my thoughts on August 1st when I showed up with no place to live and no long terms plans for where to sleep until my apartment was ready, I might have indicated otherwise.

Now I am settled in the Upper East Side and feeling very much at home.

One thing you may not know about NYC is that there is food literally everywhere. Sure there are fancy pants places to eat like Per Se and Daniel...but those are for special occasions...like a Tuesday...when you are paying. I have already found my favorite gyro place, favorite bagel shop, favorite diner, favorite cupcake and, of course, my favorite pizza place. The list just keeps on growing. I'm in heaven.

You'd think that all of the walking I do would offset said gyro-bagel-diner-cupcake-pizza-apoluza. You'd be mistaken.

With the lingering pain I am still dealing with in my hip and my basic desire to sleep at all times (in some future post we will discuss the wonder of working nights at a luxury hotel and the joyous effects this has on my sleeping schedule), I am teetering on the edge of disappointing myself when it comes to my weight and general fitness goals. Correction...I have fallen off the edge, but am hanging to a branch that will either break and send me plummeting or will rocket me back upwards onto stable ground--Wylie Coyote styles.

Last Sunday was the 2011 NYC marathon. I wrenched myself out of bed at noon (after 2 hours of sleep) and walked the block down to 1st Avenue. As I approached the runners I could see the participants streaming past me at earth shattering speeds. I thought "I must have looked like such a bad ass last year." It was at this point that I realized the people I was watching were on pace to finish the marathon in approximately 3 hours. Trust me...I looked nothing like those people.

After reconvening with my bed, I awoke later to cheer on "my people"...the ones who were on pace to finish the marathon in 5 hours or more. I walked down to Central Park South and set up my own personal cheering section in the middle of marathon way. Within minutes of watching those exhausted, weary, agonized souls trudging the last few pain filled steps to the finish line, I knew I wanted to do it again.

So...here we go people...it's off to the races.

This blog is going to be a little different than last time. If you recall, I wanted to start a blog to keep people posted on my training status because I was raising money for Fred's Team...the charity I ran with during the NYC marathon. I pretty much limited my blog entries to running related items...frankly, folks, I have given all there is to give when it comes to running exposition. So, no more running-only boundaries.

I also am going to focus a little bit more on my general fitness goals. Since running the New York City marathon I have gained back about 30 pounds of the 90 pounds that I lost. That is not something I am proud of. When I initially lost my weight and passed the sub-300 pound mark, I told myself that never again would I weight more than 300 pounds. Well, I failed myself in that regard and I feel like I have failed you too. When I stepped on my scale last week, it read 303. I cannot express to you the disappointment I felt at that discovery. I feel like I have let a lot of people down, but particularly, I know that I have not lived up to my own potential--which, of course, hurts the most.

This, however, will not be a pity party. Instead, it's going to be an embarrassment free forum for me to talk about all of the ridiculous things I am doing. To gloat about my successes and to air my frustrations about my set backs. I'm going to make some interesting changes and try some new stuff.

So here we go...