Category: exercise

I finished the race. I have no idea what my time was; things got confusing at the end. Right before the end, I went past a guy with a stopwatch who was calling out the time, and he said something like 33 minutes or so, but then we got to the finish gates and we all slowed to a crawl. OK, we slowed to a walk, but still, it felt like a crawl. I wanted to finish, dammit!

Most important, however, I finished right behind the guy dressed as a pint of Guinness. My friend, who had been passed (on a hill, no less) by the beer guy last year, managed to finish before the beer this year. His personal best!

Sadly, I didn’t get many pictures. My friends girlfriend was going to be the photographer, but sometime last week she decided she was going to run instead of spectate, so, no pictures. Oh, well.

I am currently wearing size 34 inch waist 501s!

When I started this diet back in November I wore a 38 inch waist. And it was getting snug. At the time I thought that it would be nice to get down to a 36 inch waist, a comfortable 36 inches, where my gut wouldn’t hang over my belt and I cut my circulation off when I sat down.

Little did I realize just how much I could lose on this diet. In the store today, I actually tried on a 33 inch waist pair of jeans, just to see how they fit, and they were a bit snug but still do-able. In the mirror, I could almost see my future…

I’m still a bit amazed. I was so impressed that I bought two pairs of pants when I only intended to buy one. And in a month or two these pants will be baggy.

I’m wearing size medium shirts, and 34 inch waist pants. I’m the incredible shrinking man. Here’s hoping I don’t have to fight a spider with a sewing needle.

Consider my mind boggled.

I did it!

I ran all the way from Duniway Park up to the Charthouse, and back down again!

Today was such a glorious day anyway, I was looking forward to my run all day long. Sometimes nervous (can I do it?) and sometimes confident. The weather has been perfect all week long; warm and sunny. And it’s contributed to my mood a lot! I am so ready for this race, and everything that lies beyond it. I wish I could bottle up the past six days, as insurance against the doldrums that plagued me all fall and winter. Granted, not all of that depression was my fault. Still…

Anyway, I’ve got this great new body. I’m in the best shape of my entire life.

And I want to share…

I changed my daily calorie count to 1600 (down from 1700), in the hope that it would break the plateau I had reached, and it appears to have worked. My weight is once again dropping, and this morning I weighed in at 181. I’m so very close to my goal now…

Still training for the Shamrock Run (on Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!) Yesterday was a rest day, Tuesday I did a lower-body workout and 30 minutes on the bike. I tried to use every lower-body machine in the gym. Would you believe almost all? How about some?

I did leg curls (both pushing and pulling), squats, hip abductor and inductor, inclined stomach crunches. Hmm… that doesn’t seem like a lot. But the backs of my calves still feel sore.

Tonight I’m going running up Terwilliger, 5 miles round-trip. All the way up to the Chart House and back down to Duniway Park. Should be fun. And by “fun” I mean “painful but good for me in the long run” sense (pun intended).

I found a cool website that lists various places to run, called, subtly enough, Running Places. (The link is to the Duniway Park page) According to them, it’s 4 km from Duniway Park to the Chart House — 8 km round-trip would be 4,97 miles.

“Coach” made a change to my workout this week:

Let’s change Friday’s workout to 35 minutes with 4x 200m pick-ups. That
should be sufficient.

She also suggested a different warmup for me before the race:

To be ready to race, I think this would be a good warm-up:

• Walk briskly for 4 minutes
• Easy Jog for about 2 minutes
• Do 2x 100 meter pick ups
• Walk briskly for 2 minutes
• stretch as necessary

The entire warm-up should not exceed 10 minutes, and since the race starts at 7:45am, you should start your warm up at 7:25. This will give you some time before the race starts.

Just wanted to note the change here for my own reference.

“Coach” suggested for today:

Monday – Run around your house where it feels good. Do a run of 40 minutes, with 3 x 400m of the pick ups. *Should be a hard effort. Really try and push the pick-ups, they are what will help you in the race… TREMENDOUSLY!!!

I ran farther than I normally do, about 2.5 miles, and I did four total sprints. I can’t estimate distance (or time, for that matter) very well, so when I did the pick-ups, I ran for at least two blocks. And my total time was around 35 minutes total (I warm up by walking briskly for a couple minutes before and after). I pushed myself, and on the way back, I stopped to walk a couple of times, but for no more than half a block.

My legs felt like depleted uranium this morning, but part of it might be psychological — for some dumb reason I gained a pound and a half today, which bummed me out. Also, I went for that long (5 mile) walk yesterday. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not…

Oh, well, I’m continuing with the program.

I’m planning on not getting into an elevator today if I can help it; and I work on the 8th floor and have to support another 7-story building. Gotta keep moving. I’m dancing in my chair right now; I haven’t had this much energy in a long long time! I feel great!

Next week’s running schedule, courtesy of my friend the “coach”:

Monday – Run around your house where it feels good. Do a run of 40 minutes, with 3 x 400m of the pick ups. *Should be a hard effort. Really try and push the pick-ups, they are what will help you in the race…TREMENDOUSLY!!!

Tuesday- Do lower body weight workout. Like squats, leg curls, calf raises, etc. AFTER weight workout, Do 30 minutes on the bike at medium effort.

Wednesday- OFF you need the rest. Make sure and drink lots of fluids and make sure you eat a good amount of protein.

Thursday- Run Terwilliger *Goal is to go up hill 2.5 miles/down hill 2.5 Miles.

Friday- Do a 45 EASY jog, with 4 x 200m pick ups mixed in as you see fit. This should be similar to what it will be like race day!!!!!! (If you would like a race “plan” make sure and let me know how this day’s workout was. Where were the hard parts? What felt easy? What felt good?)

Saturday- Today it is NECESSARY to get a SMALL amount of exercise in. You want to do a warm-up routine very similar to what you plan to do before the race tomorrow. Again, this helps with pre-race anxiety, and avoiding OVER-warming up because you are nervous. I have done that, and it makes the race rough. Make sure and drink lots of fluids.

Sunday- RACE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Been doing so-so on the diet. Had a delicious lunch yesterday with some friends at La Terraza (no link for this location; here’s a review of the location on SW 10th and Morrison) — I had fettucini and pesto e pollo and it was amazingly good. It was also very expensive in terms of calories; when I calculated it later, that one bowl (and I did, in fact, eat the whole bowl in one sitting, plus bread) was at least 1100 calories. Since I’m allowing myself 1700 for the day, and had already had breakfast, I only had a snack for dinner. I couldn’t calculate the exact calories, so I wanted to leave some room for erring on the high side, to keep me under my limit.

Exercise, I’m doing good. Thursday was a rest day for me (Thanks, coach!), but I still managed to take the stairs up and down several floors in the several buildings I support, in addition to carting around some PCs and monitors as part of a project, and this morning I ran over 2 miles before work, with three sprints of several blocks, and no walking. I know my coach said to do 3 miles; but I still think I’m doing OK. Tomorrow I’m running the waterfront with my slow-but-steady friend, and my goal is to keep up with him. I think — I mean, I know I can do it.

I weighed in at 183 this morning, after remaining steady at 184 for the past few days. Onward to my goal!

I did it!

The weather was nice yesterday, in the high 60s and sunny, but the weather today was cold and cloudy, and it rained or drizzled all day. I was not looking forward to running tonight after work, but I wanted to at least try. My friend put some effort into creating a plan for me to follow, and I believed that she wouldn’t ask me to do something that was beyond me. So as soon as I got off work, I headed to the gym to change. I realized that I had been counting on warmer weather, because I had only packed a short-sleeved t-shirt and shorts. Oh, well, I figured I’d warm up once I got going.

I ran 10 minutes on the elliptical trainer to warm up, then did some weights; upper body stuff. That’s when I realized that I was stalling and headed outside.

From the gym I walked about 6 blocks up to Duniway Park. I started jogging about halfway there. I went halfway around the track at Duniway, then ran up the hill. I just kept a steady but not blazing pace; my goal was to do the whole thing, up and down, at at least a jog.

Past OHSU, past the Veteran’s Hospital… past the stairs where I and my friends had gone to last Monday… I just tried to zone out and not think about what I was doing. I worked out scenes for my next (unwritten) novel in my mind. Even with the clouds and slight rain, the views were great; the city spread out below. It’s a pretty dramatic climb.

Past the VA hospital, it started to go downhill a bit. I kept going, until I reached a playground on the left (downhill) side of the road, with a restroom and water fountain. I stopped to take a quick drink, turned around and headed back. I kept up my steady pace. Once I had reached OHSU again, it dawned on me what I was so close to accomplishing: farther, and steeper, than I had ever gone before.

Yet another milestone for me. With more to come.

When I went to dig up URLs for my previous post, I saw that according to the City of Portland website, the Esplanade is 1.5 miles long. I don’t know if that includes the sections on the bridges or not, but regardless, I ran at least 3 miles last night.

Whoo-HOO! Just don’t tell my trainer… she said to only do 2 miles last night. Hee, hee.