Friday, February 29, 2008

Week 17, Day 5

Today's weight: 202.4

Today's blood pressure: 140/91

Today's food: yogurt, can pepsi, corn nuts, jack in the box sirloin melt, curly fries, root beer float, 1/2 reeses blizzard, dirty rice with 3 scrambled eggs

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; 40 pushups

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Week 17, Day 4

Today's weight: 202.8

Today's blood pressure: 115/80

Today's food: wendy's fish sandwich, fries, yogurt, pork loin, mashed potatoes, orange, pepsi, popcorn, root beer

Today's exercise: none

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Week 17, Day 3

Today's weight: 202.2

Today's blood pressure: 138/91

Today's food: wendy's single, fries, yogurt, banana, can of pepsi, mashed potatoes, meatloaf patty, cedar planked salmon, ritz crackers

Today's exercise: run 4 miles; 40 pushups

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Week 17, Day 2

Today's weight: 204

Today's blood pressure: 152/81

Today's food: banana, yogurt, orange, pork loin sandwich, cedar plank salmon, popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Monday, February 25, 2008

Week 17, Day 1

Today's weight: 205.6

Today's blood pressure: 134/89

Today's food: wendy's single combo, slice pizza, bacon wrapped meatloaf patty with gravy, root beer

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; 40 pushups

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Week 16 Wrapup

I had run pretty good times last week, and by Wednesday of this week had run 4 miles in a time of 9:35/mile. That's longer than a 5k, and faster than what I would need to run the 5k in less than half an hour. So, I essentially had already made my goal, and just needed to enter a race to make it official.

I found a race in Scottsdale on Saturday, and woke up at 5 to drive up there. The race was a charity event to benefit the MMRF (Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation). There was a wide cross-section of people there. A few were obviously serious runners, but most seemed to be there to support someone afflicted with cancer, or in memory of someone they lost to cancer. That kind of makes it more fun, but it's a little different environment than that you'd get from a race that only had serious competitors.

The course itself winds through Papago Park in Scottsdale. It's right next to the Phoenix Zoo. It's kind of in some foothills, and is really desert-y and hilly. I looked at a map of the course beforehand, and couldn't tell anything about hills or anything from that, so I really went in blind. As I ran, I could see that they had worked hard to try to bypass the hills by running along a path for a long way, then doubling back, and running along a canal for a mile. This lulled me into a false sense of security so that I wasn't quite prepared for all the hills they had saved up to throw into the last mile. The hills kind of hurt me at a time when I was already fatigued from running the first two miles. Fortunately, they didn't hurt my time much, since I had run pretty fast the previous two miles.

The official results have me down for a time of 28:33 (and a pace of 9:11 per mile). I beat the majority of other entrants; however, there were a lot of walkers there. There's no way real way to tell how I fared against the set of people who were intending to run the whole way. Still, I beat my goal handily and am now ready to move on to training for the 10k.

There were a lot of families there running together. In one group was a 6 year old boy who took off sprinting at the start, then stopped and stood there while the rest of his family caught up to him. As soon as they got close, he'd take off sprinting again. I must have been right there close to his family, because it usually happened that right when I got to the kid or overtook him, he'd take off again. It was really frustrating to know that I was giving it my all, and this 6 year old who was just toying around was blowing past me. It's true that he probably weighed 1/5 of my weight or less, but still. I don't recall ever passing him for good, but according to the results, he finished over a minute behind me. I'm hoping it's because he collapsed from exertion or got caught in a cactus or something, but he probably just kept back to finish with his family.

The results also show a 10 and 12 year old beating me, but I totally saw them cheat by cutting through and bypassing a really long switchback.

Week 16, Day 7

Today's weight: 206.6

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: corn bread, tetrazinni, fried egg, 2 slices bacon, corn bread, more tetrazinni, corn bread, hot tamales, granola bar

Today's exercise: day of rest

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Week 16, Day 6 (5k day)

Today's weight: forgot to take it as I was leaving at 5 AM for the race

Today's blood pressure: 137/75

Today's food: corn bread, clif bar, post race food (muffins, bananas, cookies), costco samples, hot dog, churro, pork roast, mashed potatoes, corn bread

Today's exercise: run a 5k

Friday, February 22, 2008

Week 16, Day 5

Today's weight: 205

Today's blood pressure: 142/79

Today's food: cornbread, yogurt, 1/2 slice pizza, baked chicken sandwich, 1 mozarella stick, grapes, gyro

Today's exercise: walk two miles

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Week 16, Day 4

Today's weight: 204.4

Today's blood pressure: 149/87

Today's food: yogurt, spaghetti, tangelo, leftover pork, cornbread, peanuts

Today's exercise: run 30 minutes

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Week 16, Day 3

Today's weight: 203.8

Today's blood pressure: 138/87

Today's food: chile relleno, rice, beans, donut, yogurt, orange, 1 cheese stick, 2 1/2 slices pizza

Today's exercise: run 4 miles; 40 pushups

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Week 16, Day 2

Today's weight: 202.8

Today's blood pressure: 144/88

Today's food: yogurt, denny's fried chicken salad, 1/2 of the bread that comes with it, dinner at black angus (potato skins, sirloin, baked potato, 1/2 chocolate cake)

Today's exercise: none

Monday, February 18, 2008

Week 16, Day 1

Today's weight: 205.4

Today's blood pressure: 128/89

Today's food: wendy's single, chili, tortilla, birthday cake, potato chips, cornbread

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; (run balls out for 20 seconds, walk for 45 seconds) x6; 40 pushups

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Week 15 Wrapup

Last week, the most I had ever run at one time (since 2001, that is) was 30 minutes. This week, I ran 3 miles Monday, 4 miles Wednesday, 3 miles Friday, and 5 miles Saturday. The 3 mile run I can do in just shy of 30 minutes, and the 5 mile run was about 53 minutes long. For the math challenged among you, that's way more than the 30 minutes I ran last week.

The remarkable thing about this weeks running is that going up to 5 miles was not really a whole lot harder than running 3 miles. The jump between 3 miles and 5 miles was nowhere near as difficult as the jump from 3 minutes to 5 minutes. It's really enlightening to look back and see that there was this definite "wall" separating us from our goal, and that it really took perseverance and tenacity and all that stuff to break through the wall. Now that we've broken through, I feel like this week more than any other before really shows me what I've accomplished.

Since I can do 3 miles in just under 30 minutes, all I have to do is squeeze an extra .11 miles in there and I've beaten my 5k goal. I'll just need to find a race to go to sometime in the next couple of weeks to make it official, at which point I can set my sights on the 10k.

For what it's worth, my spreadsheet gives me weekly averages as well:

Average weight: 205.7
Average systolic pressure: 138.4
Average diastolic pressure: 90.2

Week 15, Day 7

Today's weight: 205.4

Today's blood pressure: 146/88

Today's food: cornbread, grapes, turkey terazinni, panko encrusted tilapia filets (aka fish sticks), side pasta, peanuts, can of root beer

Today's exercise: day of rest

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Week 15, Day 6

Today's weight: 205.4

Today's blood pressure: 133/89

Today's food: cornbread, banana, m&ms, hamburger, potato salad, potato chips, baked beans, hamburger

Today's exercise: run 5 miles; 30 pushups

Friday, February 15, 2008

Week 15, Day 5

Today's weight: 208.2

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: slice bread, yogurt, orange, necco candy hearts, 1 red potato from leftover pot roast, left over 1/4 rack of ribs, 4 slices bacon, 3 eggs, cornbread

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; 30 pushups

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Week 15, Day 4

Today's weight: 205.4

Today's blood pressure: 137/90

Today's food: 2 cookies, yogurt, half order of fries and half chicken sandwich, banana, dinner at BJs (onion strings, clam chowder, baked potato, roast chicken, ribs), peanuts

Today's exercise: day off

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Week 15, Day 3

Today's weight: 204.8

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: 2 cookies, yogurt, orange, lean pocket, steak, hash browns, cookie, another cookie, many more cookies

Today's exercise: 4 miles, including two 5-minute fast spurts; 30 pushups

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Week 15, Day 2

Today's weight: 204.8

Today's blood pressure: 139/93

Today's food: cookie, yogurt, cookie, chips and salsa, ribeye steak, apple, cookie, spaghetti, many more cookies

Today's exercise: day off

Monday, February 11, 2008

Week 15, Day 1

Today's weight: 206

Today's blood pressure: 137/91

Today's food: can of pepsi, slice of bread, 3 cookies, teriyaki pork loin, creamy mushroom noodles, 1/2 slice bread, many more cookies (lost count)

Today's exercise: 3 miles, followed by (run balls out for twenty seconds) x5

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Week 14 Wrapup

So, this week, I succeeded in finally being able to run 30 minutes without stopping, not once, but all four scheduled times. This means I have officially accomplished my original goal. I win. I have defeated the running schedule. It's only four weeks behind what the original schedule had planned, and six weeks longer than I had even planned to be on the program, but I defeated it all the same.

At this point, I will keep running to try to defeat the 5k and the 10k. I will also sometime in the next few weeks make an appointment with the Dr. to check everything out again, since that was the whole point of starting to run in the first place.

I also added 30 pushups to my routine each day that I run. I never would think of doing pushups if I had to fit them in before bed or after I wake up or something. But, after I run, I'm already sweaty and tired, and an extra 30 pushups isn't going to hurt anything, right? We'll see how long that lasts...

Week 14, Day 7

Today's weight: 208

Today's blood pressure: 124/82

Today's food: biscuits and gravy, 3 1/2 chicken nuggets, tang, 1/2 slice bread

Today's exercise: day of rest

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Week 14, Day 6

Today's weight: 209.4

Today's blood pressure: 130/85

Today's food: a large amount of food at the renaissance fair (including sausage, smoothie, scotch egg, shrimp, fries, pretzel), snickers, leftover salmon

Today's exercise: run half an hour, 30 pushups

Friday, February 8, 2008

Week 14, Day 5

Today's weight: 208

Today's blood pressure: 117/80

Today's food: wendy's fish sandwich, fries, hershey bar, furr's (large quantity of mediocre food), snickers, popcorn

Today's exercise: run half an hour, 30 pushups

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Week 14, Day 4

Today's weight: 206.4

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: 1/2 hot dog, spaghetti, peanuts, hot tamales, popcorn

Today's exercise: day off

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Week 14, Day 3

Today's weight: 207.6

Today's blood pressure: 128/85

Today's food: wendy's single, chili, orange, 2 slices bread, grilled chicken, peanuts

Today's exercise: run half an hour, 30 pushups

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Week 14, Day 2

Today's weight: 206

Today's blood pressure: 126/86

Today's food: pork curry, 4 chicken nuggets, pot roast, 4 slices of bread, bologna sandwich, hot tamales

Today's exercise: day off

Monday, February 4, 2008

Week 14, Day 1

Today's weight: 207.8

Today's blood pressure: 122/86

Today's food: yogurt, orange, 1/2 tamale, teriyaki grilled salmon and rice, grilled peppers, hot chocolate

Today's exercise: run half an hour, 30 pushups

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Week 13 Wrapup

This week was 2 laps of 14 minutes a piece, separated by 1 minute of walking. Everything went fine. Barring some unforeseen difficulty, next week I will finally be able to run 30 minutes uninterrupted.

I've made a couple of short term goals for after that. Before I give up on running, I'd like to be able to have something to show for my efforts, so I've resolved to run a 5k in less than half an hour, and a 10k in less than an hour. I ran a 5k and a 10k when I last ran a few years ago. I can't remember the times, but I think the 5k was around 33:00 and the 10k was around 1:10 (edit: actual 2001 10k results 1:09:38). Those aren't good times. 30:00 and 1:00:00 aren't good times either, like they won't win any medals. But, those times are probably better than those likely to be achieved by the rube who hasn't trained but is in okay shape and feels like a race would be fun. That's all I can hope for: feeling slightly superior to a small segment of the race entrants.

To achieve this goal, I have to pick a couple of races, and make sure I can work up to being able to finish 10k (6.2 miles) in a pace of less than about 9:40 per mile. The 5k should be easy, as I'll be running almost 5k next week, and I had one day this week where I finished both laps in under a 10:00/mile pace. A couple of more weeks to speed it up should be enough to beat the 5k. The 10k will be a little harder, because as the math-inclined among you have already noticed, it's twice as long. I figure it'll be at least another 6 weeks before I can get to that.

Finding a race to run is a bit of a challenge as well. I'm assuming I'd be ready for a 10k in the end of March or beginning of April. However, I discovered that there are not a lot of races scheduled in Arizona between April and October for some reason. There are a couple of 10k races up in the mountains, but one of them's too far, and the other one literally runs straight up the mountain. There's one in Phoenix April 12th that I'd probably have to do, and a slightly hilly one in Tucson on May 4th I could use as a backup if I fail the Phoenix one.

If anyone's interested in the output of my Forerunner, I've been meaning to attach an example of what kinds of things it does. Here's a screenshot of the totals screen for Friday's run:



It breaks the run down by lap (including 1/2 mile warmup run to the park, stretching, the actual scheduled run, and the walk home), as well as showing total time, pace, calories, etc.

I've also attached the .kmz file that it exports to show in Google Earth. This part's pretty cool to see the run overlaid on the aerial photography. Every point on the map also shows the elapsed lap time, speed, pace, elevation, and such for that point if you click on it.

Also attached is the actual .tcx file for opening in Garmin Training Center if anyone's so inclined.

Week 13, Day 7

Today's weight: 208.4

Today's blood pressure: 135/89

Today's food: three tamales, chips and queso dip, bread, scrambled eggs, leftover fish sticks

Today's exercise: day of rest

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Week 13, Day 6

Today's weight: 209.8

Today's blood pressure: 125/82

Today's food: slice of bread, can of pepsi, orange, bacon/bologna sandwich, in-n-out burger, hawaiian blizzard, popcorn

Today's exercise: (run 14 minutes, walk 1) X2

Friday, February 1, 2008

Week 13, Day 5

Today's weight: 209.4

Today's blood pressure: 155/93

Today's food: biscuit, yogurt, 3 tamales, pot roast and potatoes

Today's exercise: (run 14 minutes, walk 1) X2