It was not a hard decision this morning on whether to go for a run in beautiful 70 degree sunny weather or do a Beach Body Insanity workout.  I am all for the fast and furious Beach Body workouts that seem to exercise just about every muscle known to man and ape.  But 70 degrees and sunshine in December?  No contest!  An even better decision would have been to skip the workout and head to the beach in Santa Cruz.

I hit the road rather late this morning around 9 ish for my regular Saturday morning run.  I am starting to feel like a retread and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  Years ago, over the road truck drivers as well as families that got hit with hard economic conditions purchased retreads or recaps rubber tires to use on their vehicle.  The tire casing was still the original with new rubber vulcanized to replace the worn out tread.  The tires look nearly brand new when finished.  I have been working on giving my body a retread over the last year and I am a work in progress-slow progress!

You may be wondering why I feel like a retread.   If you look at me, I don’t look like a 20 something marathoner runner.  Things are getting a little gray if you know what I mean.  My 2 young boys said that I have 1/8 pack abs rather than 6 pack abs!  I am within 10 pounds of my best ever marathon time back in 1985.  The muscles on the outside have been replaced with mean and lean muscle that somehow do not seem to perform as well as the 80′s version.  But damn do I feel good under the hood!

I discovered a way to perform as well as I did in the 80′s with a well known smoke and mirror technique.  I find a few old fat guys on the trail to run by and leave them in the dust.  I sneak up on them and then speed up just as I pass them.  I turn around and give them a cool nod like I am someone to really contend with.  You have to know how to pick your battles.  Sometimes it pays to be a mental bully.  Aging skinny runners just find bigger runners to pass to look good.  If I could pass a younger skinny runner I would.  Most of them are passing me and as they give me the wise-ass look.

If I was still racing, I would do the same thing.  My strategy would be to start out in the back of the pack with the plodders.  I may even give them a few minutes head start so I have more people to pass.  It’s not about time anymore.  Gone are the sub 5 minute mile pace for 10 k races.  Any time under an hour is good for me.  Let me re-phrase that-finishing a race is good enough for me.  When I hit 70, I will enter races and pick up the t-shirts and skip the race altogether.

Let’s get back to this retread body transformation that I have gone through.  Back in high school and college, I hardly trained at all and was able to finish races in the top 1%.  As kids, playing was training.  I played hockey, soccer, baseball, football, basketball, broom ball, etc.  I bicycled after football and track practice.  I could not get enough of sports as long as most were neighborhood pick up games.  Who needed practice when you played all day?

After college, like many of you, I had the misfortune of having to work for a living.  What crappy deal if you ask me.  I no longer had the time to play hockey all day at the local ice arena.  Just getting to work on time seemed like a work out!  I did my hour run every day during my lunch hour and left it at that.  By the time I hit 40, things began falling apart because I never cross trained.  I  bicycled occasionally and inline skated every Saturday morning.  But it still was not enough of the right things to do.  Plantar fasciitis came alive in stereo as I got it both feet.  I completely ripped my calf muscle while doing simple kicks to a padded bag during defensive tactics training.  I strained my back while moving an office chair on wheels.  To ad insult to injury, I threw my back out while getting a massage!

Last year a buddy let me use his Beach Body  Insanity DVD.  After just one work out, I felt worse than I did after freshman wrestling practice.  The only time that I have ever passed out other than drinking too much alcohol was after wrestling practice and running an ultra marathon.  One session of Beach Body Insanity hurt worse than anything that I have ever done.  My fingers and toes were sore.  Walking up stairs and getting into a vehicle was nearly impossible.

I had to ease into it.  It’s a 60 day program.  After a week of doing it, I quit because I still liked running better and I could still walk after the run.  Then I got hurt and could no longer run.  Long story short, I got back on board  doing my Insanity work out back in April.

I am on my 180th or so day because I am a little slow at learning and my retread body is taking some time to replace the worn out rubber.  Most people that do workouts like Beach Body P90X, Insanity, and Cross Fit do so to loose weight and get in better shape.  I started the program at 180 pounds when I first tried it a year ago and I am still at 180 pounds.  However, my pants sag, my undies don’t fit, and after nearly 50 years I finally figured out what my “core” is.  I feel good and don’t get sore picking up the newspaper on the curb.

As a professional retread, I now run 10-11 minutes per mile rather than 6 minutes per mile pace.  A long run is an hour long rather than 12 miles.  Who wants to count the miles?  Not I!  The only weights that I lift are occasional 12 oz beers and exercise resistance bands.  I do lots of muscle confusion exercises like Beach Body P90X and Insanity.  When I feel like getting more exercise, I watch my kids play.  Works for me.