Sorry for the lack of updates the last few days.  I have a valid excuse though, I got a big boy job!


So, you want to know how to run a marathon, huh?  You've been running at least 5 miles a day EVERYDAY for the past few months and you think you are ready to take on something that most people can't even imagine doing!?!

Good for you, have a cookie!

Seriously.

You need carbs.  Eat a cookie right now!

Everyone else, if you are curious about how to prepare for a marathon I suggest checking with sites made by professional runners or physical therapists, because trying to run this far without conditioning your body and mind for it can be quite damaging.  (Also, because I'm an idiot and I built up to this point over years of adding more distance and reading random articles on running.)

The night before running a marathon it is absotively posolutely imperative to your survival that you eat lots of carbs and drink lots of water.  Carbs are energy, which you will need a lot of once you start going the next day.  Organic cheese pizza is the perfect food for vegetarian marathon runners to eat the night before a long run.  Cheese is loaded with protein, and sauce (white or red) is delicious and has some vitamins, and the crust is delicious carbs.  If you want to go hardcore-awesome, top that bad boy off with some noodles and you will be in carbohydrate heaven!


I'm not being immature (well maybe I am a little bit), but you are going to piss like a mo-fo.  Just sit your candy ass down on the toilet while eating and chugging water because you will be going peeing so much that your piss would count a purified water.

Feels goooooood, man.

Next, you freaking DIE!!!

Close enough anyway, a food coma will hit right around the time your pee-hole starts to go numb from all the pissing.  This won't be the best sleep ever, but a food coma is a pretty deep sleep...which makes it fantastic for being well rested for the running!

YAAAAAY SLEEP!!!


Once you emerge from your food coma, you will have to poop really badly.  But that's too bad for you because you need to eat some motha-freakin' oatmeal, cousin!

Oatmeal is great for a last meal, it is small and gives long lasting energy without making you feel bloated and slow.

Also, drink more water.

Now that all those carbs are digested and you are well hydrated, it is time to get pissed off!

[sqwee!  This is the fun part!]


Think of the worst possible things your mind can come up with.  Things that really infuriate you.  (Here's a few to get you started since sinister thoughts aren't something normal people think about too often.  ...though, you are reading my blog and that makes you suspicious already.  O___O)

• A loved one being killed and the murderer getting away with it!
• Everyone you know and loved is being raped, tortured and slowly/mercilessly killed right now and there is nothing you can do about it!  (Except run really far and really fast!)
• Heat seeking missiles are flying directly at you and everyone you care about!  You have to outrun them to save everybody!
• Puppies are being set on fire and kittens are being microwaved!  
• There's no toilet paper left in the whole restroom and nobody bothered to re-fill it and now you are stuck with a nasty ass and your cellphone is dead! 

Anger helps psyche you up and get you focused.  Maybe you can prevent all those things from happening if you run fast enough?  (Maybe a magical cupcake will appear on my desk while I go get my headphones from downstairs...who knows?)


Angry music might not necessarily be your favorite music, but it keeps the adrenaline pumping.  I don't necessarily like angry music, but certain sounds, rhythms and lyrics really freak me out and tap my adrenaline.

I highly recommend the following bands (and these songs in particular) for running any distance:

• Incubus - A Certain Shade of Green
• Finch - Insomniac Meat
• Rage Against The Machine - Killing in the name of (Bonus points of awesomeness if you scream along with the entire song in public with complete sincerity and gusto.)
• The Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far, Kid
• My Chemical Romance - Destroya (Bonus points of awesomeness if you scream "You don't believe in God!  I don't believe in luck!  They don't believe in us!  But I believe in the enemy!" while sprinting as fast as you can.)
• From Autumn to Ashes - The After Dinner Payback
• Linkin Park - Given Up
• Marilyn Manson - The Fight Song
• Mindless Self Indulgence - Bring The Pain (Method Man Cover)
• Flyleaf - Perfect
• Maximum the Hormone - What's Up, People?
• Rammstein - Mein Teil
• Seether - F*ck It
• Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

I also recommend thinking about zombies.  A lot.

I love running so much that it very nearly killed me.  Ooh joy!

Grab yourself some hot coco, kids, because Uncle Matt is going to tell you the magical tale of how I nearly froze to death while running outside in the winter.  (Warning, this story contains gratuitous amounts of hyperbole.)


Modern living is dangerously safe, painfully comfortable, and frustratingly simple; so I like to push my limits just to see how far I can go and how much I can handle.

 One way I do this is by running obscenely far distances with no cellphone and just enough money to buy Gatorade along the way.

 While running an independent marathon (26.6 Miles) the weather changed dramatically when I was about 6 miles away from my house and only 18 miles into the run.  I only had my running shoes, regular adidas shorts and regular under armor shirt (not the kind that keeps you warm, but the thin kind that keeps sweat off the skin)...so basically this means I was naked and soaked in sweat from the waist down as the temperature plummeted from 70 to 30.


I could spend my post-college-job-hunting period of unemployment sitting safely at home on the couch waiting for responses from job applications.  I could relax with all the comforts, luxuries and safety that mankind has spent thousands of years progressing toward obtaining...but that's boring.

There's no real struggles in every day life unless you want them.  We don't have to hunt for our food, we don't have to make anything by hand nor do we have to repair anything ourselves.  Every service imaginable is just one phone call away and all of this makes me feel soft.


I ended up seeking refuge in a public restroom at the riverfront for a while.  The hand driers were excellent for thawing out my hands and sweat soaked hair and shorts.

When/If society crumbles for any of the number of reasons that The History Channel and Discover Channel say that it could, I don't want to die due to my inability to fend for myself.  When something horrible happens I like knowing that I have more options than just curling into a ball and crying for help.

I find out a lot about myself when I'm completely outside my comfort zone and sometimes the things I learn aren't too great.

I'm normally extremely environmentally conscious, I recycle everything that can be, I walk or use my scooter instead of my car whenever possible, and I never leave anything turned on or plugged in unless I am actually using it.

However, when I thought I was freezing to death after running 18 miles, I wanted global warming more than anything in the world.  I regretted every recycled can, every trip I took that didn't involve burning gas, and I definitely regretted downsizing my vehicle from a massive pick-up truck to a tiny car.  I even regretted losing weight, because when I was fat I was never cold.


I grew up in Iowa and have basically never traveled.  The only climate I know is this one.  It gets hot as hell in the summer and insanely cold in the winter.  I used to be okay with this because when I had an extra 85 pounds to keep me warm, winter wasn't a painful experience and during the summer I could just hide out in the air conditioning.

Because I was never in a situation where I thought I might actually die due to the weather, I had no idea that I was capable of feeling like this.  


My adrenaline addiction and constant desire to push my limits has resulted in the following:

1.  I pissed blood for two days due to drinking protein shakes with creatine in them because I ran so much that my sweating and the contents of the shake dried out my bladder, thus causing the walls to rub as I ran...then my bladder kept filling up with my own blood.  (It's called Runners Hematuria, look it up, it's nasty and painful.)

2.  From August till October I had an insane case of Milaria on both my arms from using a cheap iPod armband when running long distance everyday.  I didn't give my skin time to recover from the massive heat rash the arm band caused and over time it got worse and worse until my skin was literally starting to rot off my arms. 

3.  I got lost when running out in the country, I had no glasses, no cellphone, no money or water.  I had no idea where I was because I thought I was on route for making a big loop around  the residential section of northern Iowa City.  Instead, I ended up at Coralville Lake.


View Larger Map

So what has pushing my limits taught me about who I really am as a person?

1. I don't care too much about the environment during the winter
2. I have a terrible sense of direction
3. I am kind of stupid

It's a miracle I haven't died from trying to figure myself out.

On the plus side, all of this has made my ass look fantastic in jeans.  (It is good to have priorities.)  

I didn't exactly have a happy childhood.  Tons of divorces, drug addict relatives and I got bullied quite often at school...so I became an emotional eater and I played video games obsessively to escape reality.

The world sucked, but I was a god on Xbox and cake was always delicious!
I worked part-time at Arby's and had basically unlimited access to junk food and soda.  At the time, dn-L (Upside-down 7-Up) was my drink of choice.  It was sort of like Mountain Dew, but fruitier and loaded with sugar.  IT WAS DELICIOUS.  So I drank about six bottles of it a day, and was filled with caffeinated rage.  (The worst kind.)

Eventually my teen angst turned into the realization that the world didn't suck because I saw other people enjoying life.  It was at this time that I realized that I was the problem, not the rest of the world.

I started out by playing Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) obsessively.  As a video game, it was automatically interesting enough to me that I could do it all the time and not get sick of it.

I BECAME THE KING OF DDR...and discovered that I had the ability to keep moving at faster and faster rates.  Eventually, I summed up the confidence to go running despite having massive manboobs bouncing all over.

I mostly ran at night so nobody could see my massive man-tits flopping around, but also because I didn't want anyone seeing me run.  I was fueled entirely by rage and would often be blinded by tears of pure hated at everyone and everything that ever pissed me off and made me feel like life wasn't worth living.

I decided to literally run my problems away.  I would run until I couldn't feel anything, my body or my emotions.  I ran until I was mentally and physically numb...then nothing else mattered.

I found nirvana, and it was in my running shoes and headphones.

It was this release from my prison of anger that made running so enjoyable that I became addicted.  The pounds started to fall off and I was actually feeling good about how I looked and how far I had come.

But, I knew I could do more.

[Dropping this much weight meant that I had to buy new clothes all the time, which totally sucked because I hate shopping...so if you plan on dropping 85 pounds like I did, make sure your bank account can fund a new wardrobe every few months.]

After years of running and several new pairs of pants, I was still socially inept and insecure.  That's about the time I got an e-mail from the University of Iowa advertising Hapkido...a Korean Martial Art of self defense that uses the opponents strength against them through join locking and precise positioning.  Perfect for a scrawny runner like myself, and ideal for building the confidence I craved.


Sure, I learned how to break boards and defend myself...but that's not all I got out of it.

When you spend 5+ hours a week throwing someone around, all social barriers break down.  I finally had something to do with other people on a regular basis and over time partying became a part of the experience as well.

I found happiness.