Week 9, Day 1

Today's weight: 213

Today's blood pressure: 157/91

Today's food: can cherry pepsi, 4 clementines, yogurt, beef 'n' cheddar, curly fries, dinner at buddy's (bread, nachos, fries, french dip, part of sundae), pork roast

Today's exercise: (run 8 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X3

Week 8 Wrapup

I ate a lot this week, because it's Christmas, and there was a big Christmas dinner, and a big Christmas Eve dinner, and Christmas parties, and Christmas candy and... We were able to run during the day a couple of times by taking advantage of the presence of family and running at other people's houses while they watched kids.

The day after Christmas I went to a big paintball match with a lot of people from my parents' ward, friends of friends, etc. Playing paintball evidently involves lots of short sprints, then lots of squatting for long periods of time while waiting to get shot. For a couple of days afterward, I had such soreness in my thighs that I found it hard to walk. It usually felt better while I was running, but Thursday I didn't go out because it hurt so bad. Other than that, the running went well.

I got a new scale this week, also. This one would be rather unremarkable except for the fact that it can give me the same reading 10 times in a row, which I could never dream of with our previous one. It also reads in .2 pound increments, so that's nice.

My original plan was to do this whole exercise thing for eight weeks, than reevaluate all the various health things I wanted to try to improve. Some things I can't check for improvement without blood tests or medical evaluation, but other things are easier for me to check myself, like blood pressure and weight. I can run farther, and I'm down almost 10 pounds on average from the highest weight when I started, and that's encouraging. But, my blood pressure hasn't dropped at all. The readings are all over the map, but on average aren't any lower. So, I'd like to keep this thing going for a little while and perhaps lose a little more weight to see if there's any chance the blood pressure will change.

I'm going to extend this until one of the following happens: I finish the running schedule and can run a half hour straight, or I lose another 10-15 pounds, or my blood pressure just suddenly drops on its own.

Week 8, Day 7

Today's weight: 213.2

Today's blood pressure: 142/86

Today's food: cracked wheat cereal, 4 clementines, can cherry pepsi, ham soup, gummy bears, waffle & ham, hot tamales, popcorn

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 8, Day 6

Today's weight: 214.8

Today's blood pressure: 142/86

Today's food: banana, pork roast, cheese and cracker, candy, cookies, cracked wheat cereal, turkey sandwich, baked potato with chili

Today's exercise: (run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes) X3

Week 8, Day 5

Today's weight: 213.8

Today's blood pressure: 148/76

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, doritos, green corn tamale, beef taquito, cup of squirt, enchilada casserole, orange juice, turkey soup, party food (shrimp, mini quiches, flan, other hors d'oeuvres)

Today's exercise: (run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes) X3

Week 8, Day 4

Today's weight: 214.5

Today's blood pressure: 133/91

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, beef and cheddar, curly fries, ham sandwich, hot tamales

Today's exercise: Didn't go for a plethora of excuses. Hurt from paintball, too cold, no babysitter, etc.

Week 8, Day 3

Today's weight: 212.5

Today's blood pressure: 141/86

Today's food: can mountain dew, wendy's single, fries, can cherry pepsi, slice and a half of pizza, ham sandwich, cookies, hot tamales, prime rib

Today's exercise: (run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes) X3. Also National Paintball Day

Week 8, Day 2

Today's weight: not home, didn't take

Today's blood pressure: not home, didn't take

Today's food: bacon, eggs, candy, biscuits and gravy, oj, candy, ham and stuff, candy, clementines, candy

Today's exercise: 1st Annual Christmas Family Fun Run - (run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X5

Week 8, Day 1

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: 136/93

Today's food: cocoa puffs, christmas eve dinner (prime rib, potato, shrimp, crème brulee, chocolate mousse, etc), candy

Today's exercise: (run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes) X3

Week 7 Wrapup, Colossal Failure Edition

Week 7 didn't really go well at all. We had a stomach flu-type virus going through our family one by one this week, with the resultant puking and diarrhea, and it finally got me at the end of the week. We also were out of town for a couple of days for my brother's wedding. I normally wouldn't have let that interfere with running, but we got checked in to our hotel really late, and the next day I got sick.

So, not only did I not run for four days, but I didn't do a very good job of tracking weight, blood pressure, and eating. So, I'm giving a fail for this week, and will start this week's running schedule again next week.

Week 7, Day 7

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: scrambled eggs, bacon, shrimp, OJ, pork roast, mashed potatoes, popcorn, hot tamales

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 7, Day 6

Today's weight: forgot

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: panda express (orange chicken, beef broccoli, chow mein), wedding reception food

Today's exercise: none. sick.

Week 7, Day 5

Today's weight: Didn't take. Out of town

Today's blood pressure: Didn't take. Out of town.

Today's food: hotel breakfast, wedding luncheon, 2 pieces pizza, 2 pieces cake

Today's exercise: none, sick

Week 7, Day 4

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: 149/100

Today's food: ginger snaps, lots of candy, 2 sloppy joes, 4 clementines, quarter pounder and fries, chile relleno, 2 mcnuggets

Today's exercise: None. Stuck in hotel, Becki sick, etc.

Week 7, Day 3

Today's weight: 216

Today's blood pressure: 144/100

Today's food: yogurt, manuel's chile verde, candy, roast, 1/2 bowl cocoa puffs, grapefruit

Today's exercise: (run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes) X3

Week 7, Day 2

Today's weight: forgot

Today's blood pressure: 134/93

Today's food: yogurt, 3 clementines, fried chicken salad, piece of bread, all that homemade candy that patient brought in, 3 1/2 fuddruckers sliders, hot tamales, nachos

Today's exercise: (run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X5

Week 7, Day 1

Today's weight: 214.5

Today's blood pressure: 148/99

Today's food: yogurt, roast beef sandwich, Dr. Wyatt's candy, 3 clementines, 3 hot tamales (actual tamales this time), popcorn

Today's exercise: (run 7 minutes, walk 3 minutes) X3

Today's run was great. I felt great like I had a ton of energy. My foot or knee didn't hurt. 7 minutes didn't feel like too long at all. It was one of those days where it's easy to remember what it is I like about running.

Week 6 Wrapup

The running this week went well. I felt like I was prepared for the 5 minute stretches of running finally. However, my foot started hurting a couple of times this week and ruined the runs on Tuesday and Saturday. My foot doesn't hurt at all any other times, but hurt so much on those days I had to stop. I can't really find a pattern to it at all. I can't find any thing that I'm doing that's making it hurt any different from the times when it doesn't hurt, so I guess I'll just keep going and see how it plays out.

Saturday's run wasn't just foot problems. I had absolutely no energy running that day, and felt like it was a huge struggle just to lift my legs. I'm hoping that my day of rest today makes it all better tomorrow.

The other thing I noticed a lot this week is that it's getting colder. Colder for us is still downright balmy for some of our far flung friends and family. But, considering that most nights we aren't able to get out until 10:30 or later, we end up starting when it's around 45 degrees or so outside. I still don't have the right clothes for running in cold. I can bundle up, but once my body starts warming up, I get too hot and sweaty. But, if I don't bundle up, I'm uncomfortable when I first start.

What we normally do is walk about a half mile to a nearby park (running the last one or two minutes of it) to warm up. There we do our stretching. By the time I'm halfway done stretching, I'm not that cold anymore. It's that first few minutes that are miserable, though. As an experiment, I ran the whole way from home to the park on Saturday, and still didn't feel any warmer until after I started stretching. So, evidently, it takes a while for the body's core temperature to rise or whatever happens to make you feel warmer when you exert yourself. The end result is that if it gets too much colder, we'll probably have to run in place or something at home to warm up, then stretch at home and hit the ground running when we get outside.

Week 6, Day 7

Today's weight: 216

Today's blood pressure: 128/87

Today's food: steak, yogurt, pop tarts, chicken sandwich, leftover shrimp/calamari pasta, popcorn

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 6, Day 6

Today's weight: 214.5

Today's blood pressure: 130/94

Today's food: turkey soup, banana, office party (bread, calamari, shrimp and calamari pasta, etc.), tootsie rolls

Today's exercise: should have been: (run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X4
was actually: massive failure (foot hurting, completely drained, quit during 3rd run)

Week 6, Day 5

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: 132/96

Today's food: yogurt, banana, cheesecake, hot chocolate, turkey soup, snickers, slice of bread, popcorn

Today's exercise: (run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X4

Week 6, Day 4

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: 142/86

Today's food: yogurt, banana, 1/2 serving pringles, 2 sloppy joes, some more of Dr. Wyatt's fancy candy, ridiculousuly large Red Lobster dinner (salad, biscuits, lobster pizza, salmon, baked potato, shrimp, some more shrimp), potato chips

Today's exercise: (run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X5

Week 6, Day 3

Today's weight: 213.5

Today's blood pressure: 139/92

Today's food: yogurt, chile relleno, taco, Dr. Wyatt's candy*, 1/2 cup turkey pumpkin chili, hot chocolate, sloppy joe, 2 clementines, pork chop

Today's exercise: (run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X4

*A local endodontist to whom we refer sent a bunch of fancy candy over.

Week 6, Day 2

Today's weight: 213

Today's blood pressure: 141/86

Today's food: 1/2 banana, yogurt, casino buffet (salad, fried chicken, roast beef, potatoes, gravy, ceviche), lemon sandwich cookies, cheesecake, pork chop, hot chocolate, cheesecake again

Today's exercise: (run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X5*

*This is what was scheduled. Right when I walked outside my house, my left foot started hurting badly again. After three of the runs, I gave up and walked home.

Week 6, Day 1

Today's weight: 212

Today's blood pressure: 145/93

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, cheesecake, parmesan crusted chicken, graham cracker frosting sandwiches, big juicy burger

Today's exercise: (run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X4

Week 5 Wrapup

This first day after the half-marathon, I had a really hard time even walking on my left foot. I attempted to walk around the block that evening, but I just hobbled around. I tried to jog for a couple of minutes to see if that was any different, and it was worse, so we hobbled back home.

I iced it that night, and the next day it felt better enough to do the normal Tuesday light workout of two minute runs. I iced it again, and by Wednesday I was ready to pick up repeating the previous week's schedule, which was already a repeat of the week before, and which was already another week behind from what that schedule was supposed to be. So now, 5 weeks into my 8 week plan, I'm finally done with week 2 of a 10 week "get into shape for running" schedule.

Somehow, I don't think I'll be able to compress the remaining eight weeks of the schedule into the three weeks left of my goal period. This week, though, we finally felt really good about the running and felt absolutely ready to move on to the next week, and its 5 minute running intervals.

Week 5, Day 7

Today's weight: 215.5

Today's blood pressure: 139/92

Today's food: cereal with banana, cheesecake, pot roast and potatoes, 1/2 cheesecake, clementine, can cherry pepsi

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 5, Day 6

Today's weight: 216.5

Today's blood pressure: 125/89

Today's food: cereal with banana, 50 cent burger, crab legs, clementine, popcorn

Today's exercise: run 3 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes, run 4 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes, run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes, (run 3 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X2

Week 5, Day 5

Today's weight: 215.5

Today's blood pressure: 130/89

Today's food: yogurt, banana, t-bone steak, 1 slice bread, ward christmas dinner (turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie, ham, rolls, etc), apple cider, hot dog

Today's exercise: (run 3 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X2, run 4 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes, (run 3 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X2

Week 5, Day 4

Today's weight: 214.5

Today's blood pressure: 123/87

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, snickers bar, lean pocket, parmesan crusted chicken, pasta side, 1 slice bread, nachos

Today's exercise: (run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X4

Week 5, Day 3

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: 116/83

Today's food: cupcake, yogurt, 3 clementines, chips and salsa, jello, mushroom cream sauce sausage, pork chop and potato, 1/2 rice krispie treat, apple cider

Today's exercise: (run 3 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes) X5

Week 5, Day 2

Today's weight: 217

Today's blood pressure: 137/107

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, chicken caesar salad, sausage skillet, cupcake, apple cider X 2

Today's exercise: (run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes) X4

Week 5, Day 1

Today's weight: 215

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, onion rings, BK italian chicken sandwich, jello, egg and sausage skillet, cupcake

Today's exercise: Hobble 1 1/4 miles. Attempt to jog for two minutes and fail.

Week 4 Wrapup

This week, the exercise got sidetracked because I took Thursday off, then it rained Friday, then my sister asked me to go with her in the Tucson Half-Marathon.

Running in a half-marathon doesn't really seem like it goes with the conservative philosophy that I espoused last week, and sure enough, I've hurt my left foot something fierce. My muscles are only a little sore, and I don't really feel as exhausted as I'd think, but it's hard to even walk on my foot. I doubt that I will be able to do the scheduled exercise for this week, so I'll definitely be paying for overreaching with the Marathon. Daedalus flies too close to the sun, yet again.

I'll mostly rest for a day or two, then try walking and a little jogging, repeating as much of the last week as possible, then do this week's exercise (which was originally last week's) next week. Got that?

Week 4, Day 7

Today's weight: 217 (taken after the race)

Today's blood pressure: forgot to take it

Today's food: before race: bowl of cereal, energy bar, apple cider; during race: energy bar, clif shot, 1/2 energy bar, gatorade; after race: peanut butter honey wrap, banana, tortilla chips; dinner: graham cracker frosting sandwich, 3 hot dogs, jello

Today's exercise: Half-marathon

Week 4, Day 6

Today's weight: 217

Today's blood pressure: 147/88

Today's food: pancakes, 1 macaroon, pork chop stuff, beef 'n' cheddar, curly fries, 1 slice bread, apple cider

Today's exercise: rest for half-marathon tomorrow