Category: exercise

I got up early this morning (pre-5:00 AM) so that I could go for a run. That may sound crazy to non-runners, but listen; it’s going to be very hot today, and the pre-dawn hours that most people use for things like sleeping are also the coolest part of the day, and so make great hours in which to run.

I did my 5+ mile loop, with the intention of warming up for the first mile, slowly, then attempting 3 consecutive 9:00 miles, a training exercise that runners (and perhaps other endurance athletes) call a “tempo” run. I achieved my goal for only the first mile; the second tempo mile took me 9:38, and I was wrecked after that and ran/walked my way to 11:30-12:00 miles for the rest of the loop. My overall time was 58:22, for about an average 10:47 pace.

This weekend I’m going to attempt another 11 mile run, and then I begin a two-week taper until attempting my very first half marathon, the Helvetia Half Marathon, on Saturday 13 June 2009. I’ve heard it’s hilly, but not as hilly as the 12K Lake Run I did earlier this month.

That’s what I hear, anyway.

Anyone who is going to be attending the half-marathon, feel free to let me know or leave a comment in this thread. And if you want to come drink beer and cheer me on, the race starts and finishes at Hillsboro Stadium, and goes past the Helvetia Tavern (I believe, according to the map .PDF file, around mile 3.8). Should be a good time for people not running their first half-marathon.

Yesterday I ran the longest race I’ve ever run – 12K, or a little over 7.4 miles.

And today I would post my official time – if I had remembered to wear my timing chip.

So even though I ran it, in official eyes, I do not exist.

Un-officially, my time was about 83 minutes. When people told me that that course was hilly, they were right. So very right; so very hilly.

I woke several times last night. I think I was hungry. Yesterday morning I ate a huge brunch at my new favorite place, the Delta (cheddar grits are tasty! And beignets with lemon cream!), then sat around and whined to myself about how rainy, hail-y, and cold it was outside. Basically I was trying to talk myself out of going for the long run I had planned on.

It almost worked, too. By 5 PM, I thought it was going to be dark soon. I had forgotten about Daylight Savings Time, though. Crap, I realized, it’s not going to get dark until after 7 PM! Plus, actual blue sky appeared and the rain stopped.

With a nudge from friends, I was dressed and out in the sun, and, as predicted, I warmed up soon enough.

I kept my pace manageable and even, and if I felt myself getting too out of breath, I slowed my pace but did not walk. And out of the 5 full miles I ran, three of them were under 10 minutes each, which is pretty good since taking a break due to injury a few weeks back.

At one point, tiny bits of hail started hinting at possibly maybe falling on me. I thought it would get worse, and as I considered it, my feet still pounding the pavement, I realized that I was near the half-way point and a little hail would not stop me. But the full hailstorm never arrived, and in retrospect it might have simply been some residual hail being blown off the tree branches along that section of street.

I finished 5.4 miles in 0:55:37, for an average pace of 10:16 per mile.

My reward was an applewood smoked bacon and white cheddar burger (and fries!) from Mike’s Drive-In, while watching the Sunday night cartoons.

And dreams of not being able to sleep. Dreams of having difficulty waking. And waking up from those dreams and having trouble getting back to sleep.

I think I was still hungry…

I overslept this morning and missed the Bridge to Bridge 10K. I’ve been wanting to run this race ever since I started running, since the course goes over the upper deck of the Fremont Bridge, which would lead to some awesome views, I think. I’ve done the 5K before but not the 10K.

I was upset with myself this morning.

As punishment I ran up Terwilliger Blvd., from SW 4th and Mill St. (my start line), up through Duniway Park, all the way up to the Chart House Restaurant and back down again. It threatened to rain all afternoon but didn’t during my run. I got to the restaurant in about 32 minutes, and made it back down in about 30. Per Google Earth, that distance is just a hair under 3 miles, so that’s a good pace for as steep as it is!

Billie Joe and the boys were my musical companion.

Next year I’ll do the 10K… next year. Maybe Max will run the 10K with me next year!

I may have mentioned this before, but I’ve been dieting in addition to my every-other-day run. My dieting plan is quite simple – I’m cutting back on total calories per day. I owe the basic concept to John Walker, author of the online book “The Hacker’s Diet”. Much more detail than I give below can be found in Mr. Walker’s book.

I’ve been playing with the allowance since early February and have settled on keeping it under 2000 calories per day. That (combined with the running) seems to result in about a 1.5 lb loss per week, a nice, steady, healthy weight loss.

The other part of my diet is that I weigh myself every single morning, as soon as I wake up (but after going to the bathroom). I do this in spite of the advice of almost every diet book out there. “If you weigh yourself daily you’ll just discourage yourself with all the daily fluctuations” seems to be the message.

However, I have a secret weapon that I use to obliterate any emotional reaction to the daily fluctuations. I have “rationality”. Scary, huh?

Instead of focusing on the daily number, I focus on a moving average of the daily numbers. Since my actual weight isn’t a constant from day to day even if I’m not dieting, and isn’t constant throughout the day depending on how much water and food I’ve recently eaten (or, ahem, gotten rid of) I have to extract the trend of the overall number, rather than the actual number itself.

By standardizing on a time of day, I control a lot of the other variables that influence weight – people are typically lightest (also tallest but that’s not important here) right out of bed, so it’s closer to the true weight of the stuff that doesn’t (normally) change. And if the number bounces up a bit one day, I can rely on the fact that as long as I cut calories consistently, my actual weight will go down over time.

The best part is (and the thought that triggered this post) that even when my weight bounces up, as it did this morning by a half-pound, if I compare the average of the past 7 days with the average of the immediately preceding past seven days, the average has gone down. That’s the beauty of a moving average. (If I was really technical I could write an exponentially-weighted moving average, but I’m not, and this is good enough for my purposes.) For instance, here are the averages for the past week:

• 196.0
• 196.4
• 196.1
• 195.9
• 195.7
• 195.3
• 195.0

Even though there seemed to be a bounce up on that third day (from 196.0 to 196.4) the overall trend is downward, and in the course of seven days my average loss is 1.0 lb, lower than I’d hoped but still a loss. To give you and idea of the numbers, the high point in that week was 196.0, which appeared twice, once at the beginning and once in the middle, up from a low of 194.5, which would have been frustrating if I hadn’t been tracking the average. It would have seemingly wiped out any gain I’d made up to that point. By focusing on the trend, and not the daily input, however, I know that it’s working.

This post is not about running.

Not technically.

It’s about running shoes.

My Asics are about 6 months old, and since it’s basically the start of the running season I decided it’s time for new shoes. Since I had such a good experience at Fit Right NW, and since I have a 10% off coupon that I picked up at the Shamrock Run last weekend, I headed to NW Portland.

Last time, I bought the afore-mentioned Asics GT-2100s and a pair of Adidas Supernovas. I had been alternating between the two, but never felt fully comfortable in the Adidas. Since the beginning of the year I’ve only run in the Asics.

Since the last time I was there, Fit Right has added a treadmill and video camera, to record my actual stride. Another nice touch. I had to wait a bit for someone to help me but that was OK, I wasn’t in a hurry. Before I knew it, Emily had me take off my shoes and socks and got me running on the treadmill. She pointed out my slightly-toes-out strike, my push-off at the end, and said it was a completely normal type of pronation. She recommended a general motion-control shoe. A shoe made for more stability might over-correct and cause problems.

Of that type of shoe… well, I had a choice between the Asics update, the GT-2110, or the Brooks Adrenaline GT6. Yeah, the same shoe I had gone looking for last time and couldn’t find.

I tried both of them, but felt more comfortable in the Brooks. It kinda felt good to be back in them, actually (I’m such a brand loyalist). The Asics slipped on my heels a bit.

I also planned on picking up some trail shoes and some shoes for speedwork and racing. Unfortunately, Emily told me that they did not have the Brooks Adrenaline ASR trail versions of the Adrenaline GT6. I’ll have to order those online or find them somewhere else.

But for speed… since I have a wide foot (at least for running shoes), Emily suggested a pair of running flats. As I told her, I’m not exactly Olympic material, but I wanted a lighter shoe mainly as a psychological aid. Something to put me in the mental mood for running fast.

She brought out a pair of Filas and a pair of Mizunos. She said that those were the ones she had that had the width I needed. I said I would only be wearing these for speedwork once a week at most, and at races. She warned me that they would feel very different from training shoes. “Lots less support. You will feel the ground through these.” She said that I should try them out on shorter runs first in order to get used to them, since they would not be supporting my feet as well.

Both shoes felt much much lighter and far more responsive than my Brooks, but the Mizunos were less comfortable in the toes. Emily pointed out that the Mizunos actually seemed to fit my upper foot better, but I decided to go with the Filas.

And they’re so… freaking… yellow!

Today was such a beautiful day in Portland. Warm-ish, sunny, blue sky. I wandered around NW Portland for a while after buying my shoes (and a new Brooks short-sleeved running shirt that was on sale). If I hadn’t run for an hour yesterday I would have gone home and gone for a run today.

Um… I still might. Actually.

Oh, sure, I see how it is.

I stop writing about my exercising, and Dooce goes and blathers on and on about her and her husband and an elliptical trainer and farting and a chatty gay exercise nut she used to know.

Web 2.0 is so unfair.

Is that what I have to do? Do I have to write about farting while exercising?

I’m running tonight. After my dentist appointment. And, yes, I might even fart.

Ran this morning. In my neighborhood. Wanted to do a longer run. The original plan was for a full hour, but I got up late and had lunch plans so I cut it down to 40 minutes, plus warmup/cooldown.

It was chilly (low 40s) so it took some motivation but I eventually got out the door. Wore my Asics (duh), shorts and a long-sleeved shirt and hat. No music – feels too dangerous if I’m going to be on the streets much. If I’m on a trail or away from traffic, OK.

Simple plan: run away from home for 20 minutes, turn around and come back the same route. Not very original but I was feeling uninspired. Since it was a long-ish run, I felt OK to walk if I had to. I didn’t walk at all the first 20 minutes, though, but stopped several times on my way back, such that it took me an extra 2:37 to reach my starting point again. So total workout time was 42:37.

My turnaround point was right in front of Club Cabos, which is apparently now a non-strip club. Interesting side note. Checking Google Earth, I ran a total of 3.9 miles. Damn, I would have liked to have done a full 4 miles. Guess that’s what I get for measuring afterward. That makes my average pace 10:55 for the whole route, but 10:15 for the first half.

Yeah. I really need to do some speedwork soon.

In other health-related news I weighed in at 195 this morning. I’m on my way back down… yay. That will definitely help with the speed, too.

Ran last night. I haven’t been running as much as I used to and it bothers me. I only seem to get out and run 2-3 times a week. I want to increase that. Is it because of the cold and the dark and the cold? Probably. Might also have to do with my cutting calories – less energy overall while I burn some of this excess poundage.

Anyway, last night: 30 minutes, treadmill, mostly did a steady 10:30 pace, incline level 2, wore my Asics. Used my (probably only helpful due to placebo effect) inhaler beforehand. Did stop to walk once, around the 24:00 mark, for one minute. I know, I know, I should have just kept going, but I had just done a 4:00 section at a 9:30 pace and needed some kind of rest.

One more thing: I haven’t been wearing my Adidas Supernovas at all for the past two weeks when I run. Just sticking with the Asics. Dunno. Just like them better. Although in a month or two I’ll need a new pair of shoes. Maybe after the Shamrock Run.

I have to start working in some speedwork, and some longer runs, one of each each week.

And calorie-wise, I was only maintaining my weight at 2500 calories per day – kept hovering around the 200 lb mark, not good. So starting this week (as of last Monday) I’m at 2200 calories per day. And the past two days I’ve been under that, so that’s good. I’m guessing that 2500 calories per day would be good to burn fat if I was running as much as I did last summer, but until I get the miles up I need even fewer calories.

Luckily, Starbucks’ cinnamon rolls are only 260 calories! Have you seen those? They’re practically the size of my head! Mmmmm… So, eight of those and that still leaves me 120 calories for other food in a day.

For the second week in a row, my running plans have been dashed to smithereens by reality.

Reality is a harsh mistress. My least favorite kind, actually.

At any rate, after my 1-mile warmup run, I haven’t run again since. Was going to Thursday – didn’t. Was going to on Friday – didn’t. Was going to run today – but I’m not, because there’s a race tomorrow and maybe I’ll do better with rested legs.

I have, however, been continuing with my calorie-cutback, and this morning I weighed in at 198.5 lb., which is significantly lower than the 203.0 I showed a week ago. I’m sure that most of that is water loss and mainly from the severe cutback I did last weekend, but there’s gotta be a half-pound or pound of actual fat loss in there.

As of last night I was actually 399 calories under par for the week, and that’s even after accidentally eating a slice of leftover German chocolate cake on Thursday (yum). I love calorie-counting for my diet because a) I get to eat whatever I want as long as I track it, and b) it’s like having a watch that tells me when to stop eating for the day, so I can focus on other things, like how much I’m not running and should be, argh.

At any rate, I’m going to give it my all tomorrow at the 5K and see if I can improve over my New Year’s Day run time. I will be running with Max – can’t wait to see how he does. It’s gonna be coooooooooooooooooooooooold, though.