Category: exercise

I ran the Three Parks loop this morning. I tried to keep track of my time, and I think, not counting my warm-up and cool-down, my run was just over a 10 minute pace, around a 10:20 or so. I wasn’t pushing myself again this morning, though. I’ll do better. Remember that this route has some hills.

I plan on running to work (long run) on Wednesday, and then I’ll do the Three Parks run again on Friday. At least one day in there I’ll hit the gym for some upper-body and abs work. Then this weekend I’m going to the beach, to do some running on the sand… whee!

Exercise update:

Ran a three-mile run this morning. Decided to try a different route. Usually when I run in my neighborhood, I just run away from my apartment for a mile or so, then turn around and come back. The only variations I’ve tried take me back through Westmoreland Park. The advantages are that it’s a known distance and it’s very flat. But, knowing that I need to start incorporating hills into my running, I changed it up.

I ran downhill towards the river, then turned north and ran through Sellwood Park. Then along the bluff over the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, turned east, then ran back through Westmoreland Park, and even ran by a tiny little park a few blocks from my house, Johnson Creek Park. I’ll call this the Three Parks Run.

I futzed around with Mapquest, which is a pain when you’re trying to use it to map a multi-point route like that, and it looks like it’s over 3 miles. I came up with 3.47 miles, but that’s just along streets and not through the actual parks like I ran, but that’s as accurate as I want to be. I’ll just call it 3.5 miles.

The route includes some mild hills, both up and down, for short stretches of just a couple of city blocks. I like it, though, more because I get to run on grass and trails, and I get to run through the parks. That’s much easier on myself than running on asphalt or concrete. Some runners say asphalt is easier on the body than concrete, but I can’t (yet) tell the difference. But I can tell a big difference between asphalt/concrete and grass, or dirt trails.

I didn’t time myself, so I have only a vague idea of how long it took me. Around a half-hour, maybe. But I wasn’t pushing myself very hard, since part of my brain was engaged with navi-ma-ga-shun. Next time I run I’ll pay closer attention to time.

Diet-wise… I’m not technically dieting anymore. I’m watching my calories but I’m much less strict. F’rinstance, I had lunch with a boss and another co-worker on Friday, and the boss was buying, so I had a large plate of pasta and even ordered dessert. Lunch was at Pazzo’s Ristorante. Soooo goooood. Dessert was a “semi-frozen” chocolate cake layered with pistachio gelato. I knew that if I had even a small dinner I’d go way over 2800 calories for the day. So I skipped dinner entirely. That’s what I mean by “being conscious of my calories”.

And that consciousness is paying off. My weight has had its ups and downs in the past couple of weeks, but it hasn’t varied by more than 2.5 lbs from a base of 171.5. That’s essentially a flat line when you graph it (which I do), which means I’ve found my stable point of weight. My goal has been reached. It’s all maintenance from here on out… for the rest of my life.

Let me just say: Whoo-Hooooo!!

Ran to work today. Managed a 10-minute pace over the 5+ miles of the run. Not too bad. I’ve done better but for some reason I haven’t been feelin’ the run-love lately. Meh.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Been busy and stressed and stuffed.

Hello? *tap* *tap* Is this thing on?

I ran the Waterfront last night with a couple of friends. I brought up the idea of doing two laps, which would be around 5 miles, and they were favorable. Then, during the run, they both sped off like they were being chased by lawyers. When I got to the second lap, I had to stop and walk a bit. I kept thinking of excuses why I didn’t do so well, especially considering that I’ve done that distance before, and recently; it’s 5 miles when I run to work, which I’ve done just last Friday. I thought that it was the weather (rainy and windy), my lack of food (had only taken in 1580 calories that day), lack of good food (ate a lot of junk that day and the day previous), time of day (I normally run in the morning), yadda yadda, blah, blah, blah… but in the end, I didn’t do too bad. I only finished about a minute behind my friend, who finished a minute and a half behind his girlfriend.

Then afterward we went and I pigged out on a Quiznos’ Black Angus Sandwich, and a mollasses cookie and soy chai from Starbucks’.

Tonight I’m going to the gym and doing anything except run.

Oh, and I feel heavier. I weighed in at 171.5 lbs today, but I feel all bloat-y or something. I can still feel the lump of food I ate yesterday in my stomach and parts south, working its way through my digestive system. I’ll feel better once it’s gone.

I’m still uploading pictures to my Picture Gallery. I guess the next step is to modify the CSS to make it match the rest of my site. That will be fun. I’m in no hurry, though; the current layout doesn’t suck too much. Update: My pictures can be found at Flickr under my username “lunarobverse”. – 7 May 2009 BAM

It’s fun going through all my old pictures. Lotta old memories there. Call me self-absorbed, but it’s funny seeing how I looked a year or two ago, while my friends haven’t changed much at all.

I’m going to start listing my races and times on another page. I may include my weight, too. I’ll call it my “Trophy Page”.

This coming week I’m going to step up my mileage and add hills again. Monday and Tuesday I’m going to run the Waterfront; probably after work. I’m going to run one lap on one day, then two laps on the other day. Can’t say for sure which day will be the long one because I’m waiting to hear back from a friend on which day he wants to join me. Wednesday I plan on going to the gym for a workout but no running, then Thursday I’m going to tackle Terwilliger Blvd. again. Friday will be a rest day, then Saturday I’ll have a nice morning run and I’ll try to fit in a workout, too. Sunday, of course, another rest day.

Whoo-HOOO! Next week I get 2800 calories per day! I had to work at eating 2600 calories today, mostly because I was so distracted cleaning my apartment and working on my website. I think I’m still several hundred short for the day. But that’s OK. I feel full…

And my apartment hasn’t been this clean in a long time… it’s good to kick out the clutter once in a while.

They’ve posted the official results for the Lake Run — that was fast!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t that fast, at least compared to my last race. I finished 176th overall, and 11th out of 18 in my group, with a final time of 29:37 and a pace of 9:32.

Gotta work on my hills, I guess. It might also have hurt me that I ran 5+ miles yesterday. And the train might have cost me more than I thought…

Those are all excuses, but, actually, I did well. I’m happy I went. The next race is going to be massively hilly — the Mt. Tabor Challenge. Whoo-HOO! Bring it on! Looks like I’ll be hitting Terwilliger a lot in the coming month…

Quick race-day update before I hit the showers…

I did the Lake Run 5K today. The weather started out nice but it started raining just as I was finishing. My friend warned me about the hills, and, yes, there were a lot of hills, short but steep. There was also a train! I had to climb over the train at one point in the race, somewhere between Mile 1 and Mile 2. I climbed over between cars at the same time as another guy; he was just ahead of me. I waited until he was on the ground and moving and started to jump — I was in the act of jumping when I saw him stumble backwards. I landed on his ankle. I hope he’s OK! I apologized, and looked for him after the race but couldn’t find him.The race organizers were nice enough to allow us to adjust our time, on the honor system. I asked for 25 seconds; I thought that was fair.

I saw 29:40 on the clock when I crossed the line, which (after my allowance) works out to about a 9:28 pace; not bad considering all the hills!

Here I am before the start of the race

My weight is holding steady at 169.5 lb. I think I’m still losing weight, but slowly. I am really happy with my weight where it is, however, so I’ll continue to add calories back into my diet.

I only have circumstantial evidence for the weight loss, however; obviously the graph of my weight over the past two weeks is pretty flat. The evidence is this: when I was on Atkins, my body was in ketosis/lypolosis — in other words, burning fat for energy, transforming my fat stores into glucose for my muscles to use as fuel. During that time, my body chemistry changed, as revealed by the odd taste in my mouth, and the change in the scent of my sweat and urine.

Well, even though I’m now eating as much as 2600 calories per day (2800 yesterday — I was weak and had a cookie), I still have that same odd taste in my mouth. Since I’m running every other day, and getting lots of walking and other exercise in throughout the day, my rate of calorie burn must be higher than 2600 calories per day, because, circumstantially, I think I’m still burning fat to replace the calories I’m not taking in.

At any rate, I ran to work today. I picked up some more time — Left the house at 5:14 AM, and crossed the Hawthorne Bridge at 6:10 AM. Subtract the 10 minutes (approx.) that it takes me to walk to the starting point, and that means I ran 5 miles in about 46 minutes, or a 9:12 pace. Whoo-Hoo!

I totally rock. I’m so ready for the Run on the Lake this weekend.

Let me quickly post my running schedule for this week. Truncated because of last weekend’s road trip.

I ran 2.5 miles this morning, I’m going to go on a street ramble with the Mazamas Club on Thursday night, run to work on Friday morning, then run the Lake Run 5K on Saturday.

My weight’s at 169.5 lb this week. I’ve added in another 200 calories per day, putting my daily intake at 2600 calories.

Oh, and damn, I feel great. Except that when I tanned in the desert this weekend, it accentuated my stretch marks. Hmmm. Not sure what to make of those. I guess I should be proud of them, since they’re evidence of my skinniness… I could always claim that they’re from my pregnancies, I suppose. Hee, hee, hee

I’ve got my calories/day almost to maintenance level. Well, it’s at maintenance level for all intents and purposes: my weight has held steady around 171 for the last week, and that’s where I’m stopping for now. Amazing — from last fall, I’ve lost 54 lb.

Ran 4+ miles yesterday morning, as planned, and ran to work today (5 miles running, another half-mile at each end walking/warmup), and I feel great. I did better than last week, I think. I left the house at 5:15, and the time when I crossed the Hawthorne Bridge was 6:15. Assuming I did the first half-mile warmup in 10 minutes, that means I covered the 5 miles in 50 minutes; almost exactly a 10-minute pace. I feel like I could do it again tomorrow morning. Not that I will, of course; I need to be well-rested for the 18 hour drive to the Mojave Desert where I’m going to party my ass off.

Whoo-hoo!