Starting to run a lot has kind of changed my life

When I say this I mean that it has change my life in a very positive manner. I was never much of a runner and I have to say that even now it isn't something that I actually look forward to, but it is something that I do because I know that I have a very irresponsible lifestyle in that I drink beer almost every day.

For example: I have lived in Vietnam since 22-Feb; I have had at least one alcoholic beverage (mostly many more than 1) on all but 3 of the days since then.

I also don't pay much attention to diet. I try to avoid sweets and processed sugars and what not but for the most part, if i want pizza, i'm gonna have pizza. Like most people, when i neared my 40's I started to gain weight, particularly around my belly which is where all the beer goes to hang out long after the party is over and it aint pretty, that is for sure.

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Then I started to run on a regular basis which at the start when I weighed the most I have ever weighed in my entire life was not a very long run and involved lots of breaks. I can't remember exactly, but I think if i could run an entire km in a row i was very happy with myself. These days I can run a 5k without stopping at a decent pace and with some effort, I can do a 10k without stopping.

Of course having the correct tunes pumping into my ears helps a great deal. Metal is what encourages me to run and I have a bit of gangster rap mixed in there for good measure. Strangely (well, it might not be strange to everyone) I also find inspiration in Sia - the Australian singer with a very unusual and awesome voice who never shows her face when performing on stage or in interviews.

I wouldn't say that I am necessarily losing a great deal of weight because I still meet with friends for happy hour almost every day and this results in me having I would say on average about 6-8 lagers per night, which is about how many calories a 5k run is going to burn anyway. I can only imagine that I would be a real wreck if I hadn't decided to introduce the running into my life.

Now I want to brag a little bit. I entered an online competition to see if I could run 100 km in the month of November, which as it turns out was a great inspiration to get me out the door with my boots laced up to see if I could do it. I had already done 100 km by the 15th and was very proud of myself for that.

I want anyone out there to keep in mind that you could do this as well if you wanted to, it just seems so impossible at first. When I first began as captain fatass running on the beach for a few minutes in a row, I felt terrible but these days I actually feel really good AFTER a run, especially if I push just a little bit harder to go a tiny bit further than I did the day or week or month prior.

I would love to report one of those online stories about how I "feel great, look great, and my life is so much better since I made this change" but that wouldn't be entirely true. I still have a lot of issues in my life and a couple of them I have no intention of changing. I have toyed with the idea of not drinking so much but as an expat in a city with 1 million people in it, there are only a couple of thousand that speak the same language as I do. Therefore, my meetups with friends at the pub every night is basically the only social outlet that I have. It is essentially the only "fun" that I have in a day and therefore I am not going to stop drinking beer.

I often wonder what sort of results I could have if I were to focus on diet as well as just exercising.

It is also worth noting that on many of my longest runs I have done them because of a feeling of guilt when day drinking turned into night drinking and then i was 15 to 20 lagers deep and hammered. Then I would go on a night run and although my pace was garbage, I was still able to pull off a 5,10, and my record was a 16k AFTER drinking all day.

I'm thinking this should become a sport - but I can understand why there would be some opposition to it due to the obvious dangers of exercising when you are near blackout drunk.