Today I started run­ning again. I have started run­ning three times now (?), and I’ve never been able to make it work. I always chicken out for some rea­son. But I’m tired of being fat, so I’m gonna make it work. New year, new goals, right? I am using the book Run Your Butt Off writ­ten by a few of the edi­tors from Runner’s World mag­a­zine. It’s a tiered approach toward a goal of run­ning con­sis­tently for 30 min­utes. They start out with inter­vals, walk­ing a few min­utes run­ning a few min­utes, until you can build the sta­mina nec­es­sary for sus­tained run­ning. I have made it as far as step 4, what­ever that is, I can’t remem­ber right now, but that’s where it ends. So I’m start­ing over again, but at step 2. Step 1 is walk­ing for 30 min­utes straight. I’ve been doing that for­ever, and if New Year’s is any indi­ca­tion, I’m still pretty good at it – we walked home from the Lone Star because there were no cabs or buses to be found. It’s a nice walk, when you’re drunk. Any­way, step 2 is walk­ing for four min­utes, run­ning for one. I have made a playlist for my iPod with a bunch of songs that are 4 min­utes, plus or minus, where I walk, and a cus­tom track of one minute of silence, where I run. I do this for a week or so until I’m com­fort­able with it, and then I advance to step 3. It’s pretty effec­tive, and I really like it. I just have to keep going.

So, this morn­ing, Wii Fit mea­sured me at 243 pounds. Ugh. What a num­ber. My goal is 180-ish, but any­thing under 200 would be great. I hope that by putting this out to the world (and who­ever reads this), I will moti­vate myself to run and lose weight and keep this record of the experience.

So, happy new year, and that is all.