Running + Lifting

As a kid, I hated sports, but I did enjoy lifting weights with my dad in front of the TV, using these tiny little silver dumbbells. I also realized that I hated running less than other sports because it was exciting to see who could win a race, and it didn't involve getting hit by a flying ball. I joined XC in high school and grew to love running after only about 2-3 weeks of it. Despite being slow with zero athletic talent, I knew that I was going to push myself to be a great runner anyway, even if I had to work ten times as hard as everyone else. I went from slow to mid-pack and then immediately got injured. 

I spent all of college injured, basically, hardly running. And I got super fat. Until 2022. Over the fall, I did a small cut, and I lost all the extra weight at a rate of 1 pound per week. And this time I have a tiny little 4-pack, though it can only be seen in harsh lighting because I still have too much fat around my midsection. 

I have tried 3 separate times in my life to get into lifting, and I think this time it's actually going to happen. The first time was in high school, where I tried to add it on top of running plus seminary and a bunch of AP classes, and I think music too. That tanked and my mom told me to not do it because apparently it would stunt my growth (I later found out that this is false unless you use roids). 

The second time was my sophomore year of college. I was super pumped to lift after my mission, and combine it with running. But lifters told me I had to stop running, and runners told me I needed to tone down my lifting, my mom told me bodybuilders looked gross, and I thought I had to eat nothing but broccoli and boiled chicken and brown rice (all 3 of which I think are disgusting). Plus I was taking too many credits in a competitive pre-major and working too many hours. I crashed and burned, hard. I ended up neither lifting nor running very often, and eating like complete garbage (some semesters I effectively lived off of the vending machine, thanks Eyring Science Center and Physics 121). 

Now, in my final year of grad school for computer science, I have started for real this time. Lifting and running are my top priorities, closely followed by computer graphics and digital art and writing, with that followed in turn by control systems, cybersecurity, general CS, gaming, lucid dreaming, and music. 

I'm following IIFYM for a recomp eating at maintenance, lifting 5 days a week, running 6, and stretching like a maniac. I'm curious to see what happens -- unlike Nick Bare I won't be using any steroids or PEDs and I want to see how far I can take this. There's only one problem, and its name is plantar fasciitis. If I can get over that, I'll have a lot of fun experimenting with doing a full body recomp at 147 pounds, 5'9", while doing marathon training. If I can't, well, we will just have to see. 

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