So I’ve been running for a month or two now and I can see measurable differences in my endurance. From not being able to run 50 feet to being able to do most of a mile. I didn’t really start with any plan, just run until you couldn’t and then walk a bit and run some more. That’s generally worked well but I feel like I can push myself harder, so I’m going to start the Couch to 5K program.

I figure I’m good enough to skip the first couple of weeks. I was waffling on rather to start at week 4 or week 3. I kind of think week 3 will be too easy but I’m going to err on the side of caution and start with it. If after tonight I find it’s too easy I’ll try out week 4 on Tuesday.

There are quite a few folks who’ve created podcasts to push you through the segments. I couldn’t find any with music I particularly liked, so I’ve created my own! You can have it if you want it. I’ll do one for each of my remaining weeks. If, for some random ass reason there’s a call for  weeks 1 and 2 I’ll create those… just ask.

Here’s week 3’s tracklist and their run walk cylce (note: all walks are at a brisk pace and runs are at a jog)

Overall it’s 26 minutes and should be approximately 1.3 miles (give or take depending on the pace you set)

Click here to download!

Other running things

On another running note, I’ve been barefoot running for the past month. More specifically I’ve been running in Vibram Five Fingers, the classic model. For a very long time I’ve wanted to figure out how to love running. I think I loved it when I was a kid.. I think all kids love running. Somewhere along the way I began to hate it, it was punishment in gym class and I was never fast so sprints were kind of embarrassing. But I always wanted to be good at it! I’d see these people running crazy distances, and so freaking fast! I wanted that! How were they doing it, how did they push through the wall? Why did they keep at it?

I’ve been overweight most of my life. At least since I was 15 or 16. I’ve tried tons of diets and while I’ve lost some weight, it never stuck. I knew that if I figured out how to really love running I could lose the weight that’s dogged me for 14 years and really and truly get healthy.

Around May of 2009 I was sitting at 263, my highest weight ever. I had to do something, so over year I’ve been slowly reshaping the way I live. I started with walking and weights, I didn’t mind either. I didn’t love them, but they were something I could get myself to do. On top of that I drastically changed my eating habits. Much smaller portions and a lot more fruits and vegetables. That worked out pretty well, I lost something like 15 or so pounds over the course of 6 or so months. Good loss, loss that sticks and quite a bit of muscle growth. But over the winter I really slacked off and kind of plateaued.

Anyway, around the time I was slacking off I started reading about running. I really, really wanted to get into it and I wanted to love it. I knew there was something there, I just didn’t now what the hell it was. I would run once every few weeks and it was agony. My back was constantly giving me troubles and every time I ran I’d have to sit out a couple of workouts because my lower back was so messed up. Finally I got to a point where I could deal with the pain but I hated it. I was wearing a pair of old Reeboks that had seen better days and figured I needed a new pair of running shoes. Better padding would probably fix my back right?

So the research started. I was going to find the best pair of shoes I could, figuring that would solve my issues and let me run enough to figure out what the hell was so special about it. Well in my research I started running into mentions of barefoot running. My interest was piqued, I’ve always been of the opinion that generally our engineering ability isn’t anywhere near as sophisticated as natures, not yet anyway. I did some more research and found a lot of talk about lower back problems and how it would all but go away when running barefoot. Well hell, I figured it had to be worth a shot right? So I decided to go for it.

I was a bit too scared to try straight barefoot on the streets around here, I didn’t want to have to get a tetanus shot after every run. Vibrams were the most widely recommended solution. Turns out there were a couple of stores around here that sold them! I went to check them out. After figuring out my size I picked up a pair of classics. They look ridiculous, they really do. Kind of like clown shoes. But, what the hell.

So, I gave them a shot. I could almost immediately tell a difference. After my first run with them, a run longer than any I’d made before (about 3/4 of a mile), I had no back pain. None. I was flabbergasted. It had to be a fluke right? Two days later I was out for my next run. Again, I was running farther and didn’t have a lick of back pain afterwards. After my third run with no pain I was sold. I can’t see running in anything else now.

OK, so no more back pain. Awesome. I kept running, and started noticing a change. It was getting easier and I didn’t really dread it. Then, one night about 3 weeks ago it happened. I was on the last leg of a mile and things just sort of melted away. In that moment there wasn’t any pain, my breathing slowed and I was just sort of flying. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. My body just sort of, switched. I finished that run and realized what had just happened. It was dynamite! I wanted to do it again, right then!

The next day  at work all I could think about was going for a run. I wanted to get home throw on my running clothes and go out. It didn’t matter that it was half snowy and 30 degrees. I needed to run. The best part is, that need has stuck around. I haven’t missed a run in the past 3 weeks. Generally I run Sun, Tues and Thurs but I’ve been sneaking another run in here and there. 

I’ve been steadily shedding pounds now. Overall I’m down 31 pounds from my peak weight. Probably 5-8 pounds of that has just been in the past month. My ideal weight is about 170, I figure if I keep this up I’ll be there in about a year. Maybe less. I’m hoping to hit 200 by July or August. Honestly it may be sooner, the speed of weight loss seems to be increasing.

If I can shed another 10 pounds before C2E2 I’ll be pretty stoked. I think I’ll pull it off, especially if I stick to Couch to 5K. If I don’t hit a snag on any week I should be at week 9 by that time. I figure 15K a week will have a pretty solid impact on weight loss and should greatly ratchet up the speed of my metabolism.

Also, a great book I’m currently reading Born To Run has been a ton of inspiration. The descriptions of running in that book make me want to drop everything and go for a run (I have a couple of times).

In the meantime science has soldiered on and a new study in January’s Nature (it’s a paysite but here’s a link to WebMD talking about the study) makes a pretty good evidence based case for barefoot running.

Right, I’m going for a run

New Years resolutions, I don’t usually make them. You know, I think that sentence starts every blog post having to do with New Years resolutions. Most anyway. Seriously though, I usually don’t. I tend to toss the practice aside as a useless gesture that people rarely take seriously.

After reading a lot of fellow comic book creators resolution posts, however, I started to realize that I did, in fact, make some resolutions. I just don’t call them resolutions. I don’t know why, maybe because I’m too cool (I’m not) or to jaded (I probably am). Either way, I realized I have some resolutions and I might as well air them for the public, well what little public actually reads this beleaguered little blog.

So here we go:

1) I’m going to write at least 5 nights a week for at least 2 hours a night. If I can push to 6 or 7 nights a week, I’m going too. So far this is working out. I usually write for more than 2 hours but I’ll set that as goal.

I’m doing alright on this. I think this year I’ve only not written maybe 2 days total. Most of December I wrote every night. I’ve outputted around 60 total pages plus lettering a few in the past 4 weeks. That’s an average of about 2 pages per night. I’m pretty good with that.

2) I’m not going to let my social anxiety screw up my comics career.

Last year I really let this get in the way of how I approached people at New York CC and WW Chicago. I could have networked a lot better if I hadn’t been so damn scared. That’s what it is too, I get deathly afraid of talking to new people. It’s crippling, but I won’t let it screw with me this year. I need to talk to editors, I need to introduce myself and I need to network. This is my biggest one I think. No matter how much I do the work if I can’t get myself in front of people to pitch concepts, I’m getting nowhere. It’s hand in hand and I have to make this happen.

3) Get more work published.

That goes without saying I think, but I’m still saying it. I have two short stories that are going out for publication this year. I want to have a couple of OGN projects green lit and maybe a miniseries. If I can get in front of the right people and start pitching concepts, I think I can make this happen. It all becomes very dependent on #2. Either way, I’m making this happen.

OK, that’s all. Those are my resolutions. That’s what I’m working on. 2009 is shaping up to be a great year and I hope to make it an outstanding and life changing one.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve updated and I hate to see such a stale blog.

So, what am I doing now? Well I’m right in the middle of scripting an OGN called UNCLE CHARLIE. It’s a sort of true story about mistaken identity, dealing with death, and the impact one person can have on another. It’s coming along really well, should hopefully be done with it in the next week or so.

After that I’m going to work on another story I’ve been throwing around. A real cyberpunk, shadowrun esque update of a classic fairytale. Really looking forward to digging my teeth into that one!

As to mini-a-month. I want to apologize about that but I just can’t see focusing time on that when I have gigs that are getting published. As excited as I was about that project at first, it’s just not feasible. Something I really should have investigated initially. I do still plan on a couple of other minicomics but just not anything on that grand a scale.

Speaking of published. Just a couple of days ago I saw the final pages for KOMORI, the short that will be included in the WORK! anthology. It looks stellar and you should defiantly check out it’s artist A.D. Puchalski! I hope to work with her on a future project as well.

I’ve also been getting pages in on another submission for 803Studios Sequential Suicide. It looks stellar and the artist, Joe Nosochu, is really something else. I think he’ll definitely have a future in the industry.

Alright, that’s enough for now I think. I’ll see you later!

Oh! I’ll be in NY for Comic Con in February. Hit me up for a drink or a chat!

So Shadowline is running a contest for writers. They want you to create a new Super-Heroine for a 3 issue miniseries. Kris Simon the editor-in-chief of Shadowline is going through them and will choose the top 10, those 10 write a 5 page script and from those scripts 5 will be chosen to be voted on by the public at Newsarama.

So I submitted something like 8 proposals so far but I realized …. I’m not giving them what they want! Shit! Yeah so I misinterpreted what they were asking for.. or actually I just got confused by some of the thread. I initially submitted what they wanted on two proposals; a full breakdown of the series in about 7 or so sentences with ending and all. Then after reading some of the thread it seemed they wanted just a quick synopses sort of like a blurb. That was wrong so I wasted like 6 good ideas on that.

Ah well I’m to an idea I really like and I’m going to give some good thought.

In other news, my new comic Misspent Youth is going into art production later this month. I’m really happy with this one. I collaborated on this one with David Boozer, one of my buddies. We have a guy named Paul Williams doing the art. He’s quite the talented Brit! We’re really excited that he’s doing the art and I think the series will be really fun.

As far as Right Way Wrong goes Anna has finished something like 20 pages and she’s working on the cover! We’ll start pitching that pretty soon, so hopefully we’ll have some good news soon.

–Steve