This city needs a hero. A hero who is eating a banana.

So, day two is today, and I woke up early and went running, managing to make it maybe a mile before I felt like the guy walking his saluki around the junior-high track where I run was laughing at me. I need some workout clothes more appropriate than pajama pants, dollar-store sneakers and a tattered hoodie. Right now I look like a methhead having paranoid, albeit quarter-mile-circuit, seizures and I don't blame the other early-morning runners for looking at me strangely while I cough and swat at the air.

That aside, I feel terrific this morning, having tore into a close-to-raw steak and some vegetables last night, eating with my hands and letting the juice from the meat run down my chin. Did I exult in that? Hell to the yes. I'm just grazing on nuts, raw vegetables and minimal fruit during the day. I've had my morning banana and my tea (I'm also trying to curb caffeine intake) and my body is humming along after a workout last night and the jog this morning. Tomorrow, though, is when I crank it up, because that's when I start martial arts-ing.

I went by Pikes Peak Combat Sports during my lunch hour yesterday, which works out well since I no longer eat lunch. Along with doing Crossfit and women's kickboxing, they instruct in mixed martial arts, muay thai and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I picked up a copy of their schedule and spoke to a few trainers about my course of action, and tomorrow I'll be attending a lunchtime session called Combat Conditioning—which is, I can only assume, a way of whipping my doughy, smoker's-coughing body into good enough shape to actually begin the muay thai training without having an embolism or choking to death on my own phlegm. I'll let you know how that goes. Tonight, another gym workout and another run tomorrow morning before Combat class.