Victory!

I did it.

Even though I didn't do it as fast as I'd wanted to, I did it.

On a lovely London Sunday in October I made my way around, with much less problems than I thought I would have, 13.1 miles through the Hyde, Green and St.James' Parks, plus a short venture out on the Strand and Westminister Bridge in 2 hours 16minutes and 32 seconds.

I'd hoped for a sub 2.15, but considering this was my first half marathon ever, and that my training hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped the last 4-6 weeks before the race, I'm still pleased.

What I'm not entirely pleased about is that my weight hasn't shifted the way I'd wanted it too.

Clearly I'm much fitter than I was when I started, but instead of being on the southern side of 14 stone, I'm just below 15. Admittedly a 10 day holiday to the US a month before the race did not help (as US visits rarely do), but should still be in better shape.

So, to avoid the post race sloth-like existence, I have set the following goals:

• Slightly modify my food intake: Less processed carbs, bring lunch to work and try to eat more healthy snacks throughout the day instead of the 3 larger meals.
• Sleep more: My Achilles heel. I sleep entirely too little, sometimes as little as 4 hours per night. With the MLB playoffs over (at least for my Red Sox), it should be easier to attain. No later than 1am on work nights!
• Create goals: I am now signed up for a 10k at the end of October, one more in November and a 6k race in December. I hope to find a few more races which should force me to maintain a decent running regime.
• Start preparing for team sports: I will start my baseball pre-season in a few weeks, working my core and hopefully strengthening my throwing arm to new heights.

Although the race is over, my path to fitness continues.

Niggles

Over the last month I have rolled over on my ankle, had back spasm and felt a resurging twinge in my hamstring. I guess all part of the training regime.

Or in my case more a lack of. I recently went to New York and wanted to run a lap around Central Park when it's closed for traffic on weekends....I lasted a total of 2 miles before my stiff back prevented any further forward motion.

So, what I envisioned as a running filled holiday, including the Central Park run and a 11 miler along the Charles River in Boston turned out to nought.

After a week of resting my weary and very inflexible back I restarted my programme, but was limited to 1 boot camp and one 4-5 mile run per week...until yesterday.

Feeling the pressure of the half marathon 2 weeks away, I decided to fit in one last long run to build mental strength more than anything, and managed to drag myself around 18km of Thamesside paths, my longest run to date.

Although my IT bands are killing me today, I feel more confident about the half now and can finish my programme with shorter runs and some speed work.

Getting there...

So now my training schedule defines an 8 mile run as an "Easy Run".

Well, not quite there yet. After going through another bout of sensational procrastination, I managed to drag my lazy posterior outside and trawl along the Thames in 1h15mins, keeping the pace below 9m30s mile.

Whilst the distance is still a novelty to me, I know I can run faster than this, so the next weeks will see if I can sustain the 9m flat pace on runs longer than 3-4 miles.

To break 2 hours for the 13 miles I need to run faster than 9.09 per mile, so I clearly have some work still to do.

So far in August: 43km.

Target: 60+

Weight: threatening to drop below 15 stone.

Next barrier

So I finally broke the double digit barrier....

10 miles in 1h36min along the Thames from Mortlake Bridge to Putney Bridge and back.

Despite not feeling very energetic during the day and procrastinating until 6pm before I finally put the running gear on, the run itself went very well and I had a fair amount of energy left at the 10 mile mark.

This coming weekend I'll see if I can lower the mile average from 9m40 closer to the 9min mark, which is a pace I'm more than capable at keeping when I do 10k or less. As this was 2 miles further than I've ever run before I suspect I was unsure of my capabilities and although my pace never varied more than 10-15 seconds per mile I think I can start out faster on Saturday and still complete the run without problems. As the baseball season finished with our loss in the playoffs on Sunday, I will now focus completely on running and training until picking up the ball again after the race. I also started doing military fitness type training in Chiswick with www.chiswickbootcamp.com, and in about a month I've seen a marked difference in my core strength and posture.

I've also lost about a stone since mid June, and although I suspect my initial target weight by the half marathon might be difficult to reach, I'm aiming for at least another 10 lbs by October 11th, which is quite feasible in the 6+ weeks to the race. My diet on occasion falters, but in general I eat healthy food....although my sweet tooth is still there.

This week's target is 27 miles; 3 miles today, 8 tomorrow, 3 on Thursday, 10 on Saturday and 3 more on Sunday. Quite looking forward to it!

PB

I broke the 8 mile mark today, and the pace has increased quite markedly.

I now run comfortably around the 9 min/mile mark and did my 8 miles in 1h13, also breaking my 10k PB in the process, now down to 57m.

Next week is a catch up week, so relatively easy runs before getting back on track with runs closing in on the dreaded double digit....

Yes, I've got some ways to go before I can challenge Paula, but considering where I started I'm pretty chuffed :)

Running...

Although I'm not completely up to the 4 runs per week mark the distances are increasing. On Saturday I did my longest run this year, 7.55miles, albeit in a somewhat slow time of 1h18m.

Yesterday I clocked another sub 60m 10k, and this weekend will break the 8mile barrier.

Now it's just about getting the miles into my legs and slowly but surely increase the pace.

Current weight: 97.7kg

Total km this month: 34.5

Back on track

Not too long after my last post I had a re-occurence of my hamstring problem, so I had to endure an enforced rest period of just over a month.

After 39km run in March, I managed 75 in April, just short of my target of 81k, but the injury in early May limited me to 21km.

After taking the first few weeks off in June, I managed to squeeze in 47 k in the rest of the month, including my first organised race of the year, a 10k in Crowthorne, Berks, which I despite the heat got around in under an hour, 59.17 seconds.

During the injury period I also decided to quit my tobacco consumption, which inevitably led to my sweet tooth coming back with a vengeance, and as its eternal compatriot, the weight gain followed suit.

My scales broken in a moving related incident ( :) ), and I finally bought a new set, but I suspect they are showing a little heavier than the old one. Still, I'll use the new bench mark, and I'm now hovering around the 98-99k mark.

I've now started my proper 16 week programme leading up to October 11th, and my target weight for the race is 85kg, which would be the lightest I've been since my early 20s.

I'm currently running at a 9.30 min/mile, or just under 6 min/k, but will try to get under the 9 min mile by the end of the month.

Runs this week:

1/7: 4.54 miles, 44mins.

Stay tuned.

Improvements

I'm now on week 7 of my first 16 week running programme, and I'm astounded how quickly things improve.

As I've mentioned, I've never liked running, in fact I've tried to avoid it as much as possible, but now the endorphins are slowly taking over. I run every other day, ranging from 2 to 6-7 miles, and it's no longer very difficult mentally to gear up for my longer runs.

My stride length is increasing, and thus the pace, now comfortably below the 6 min per km pace. I've now done three 10k runs below 60 mins, and I now recover much, much quicker after a run. I haven't started using my old heartrate monitor, but will dig it out this weekend to start tracking that too. Once upon a time I had a resting heart rate of 46, but that was close to 20 years ago.....

The scales haven't moved much the last few weeks, but the waist has clearly shrunken a good few inches since the beginning of the year.

I reached my initial target of 50k in a month by the 16th, so I'm now upping the target to about 80. In the next few weeks the milage creeps closer to the 20mile mark per week, and in 4 weeks time the schedule introduces a 4th run per week.

I don't want to go overboard with too much pace and distance increases too soon, but while I can stick to the milage, I seem unable to run as slowly as the schedule dictates. Ah well, that's a problem I can live with.

Today's a day off, but tomorrow will see a new distance record - 7 miles. I've found a nice extension on my normal weekend Thameside route, so here's hoping the weather isn't too bad.

So far this week: 21.31km, avg pace 5.53 min per km. (Due to last weekend's long run being pushed to Bank Holiday Monday.)

This will be the first week I surpass 30km in one week :)

Will be interesting to see how far I can push myself before the race, considering I've got another 175 days to go. Theoretically I should be able to get 100 runs in before then, so I guess something around 500 miles. I suspect I might need to buy another pair of running shoes....

Road to ruin...eh...fitness

Moving to a new flatshare has meant that doing the P90x schedule is somewhat tricky as I'd have to use the living room....and I don't know my flatmate well enough yet to expose him to me working out there :)

So, with my gym membership cancelled due to cost, I decided that running would be the way to fitness in 2009, and the culmination being the Royal Parks Half Marathon on October 11th, 192 days from now. Last year I did finish the British 10k in 1h7mins, but a torn hamstring prevented me from really any serious effort for most of the year.

Now it's getting healthier, and I'm running.

After setting up a training schedule with the Smart Coach on Runnersworld.com, I began my training on the 12th of March with a very slow 2mile (3.3k) run. That run, plus a very tough baseball spring training session put me out of action for a few days, but I have since managed to complete just over 32km in 2 weeks, including a 5.2mile run last Sunday.

My current training schedule stipulates 3 runs per week, with 1 to 2 days rest between each with a longer run on the weekend.

This week I'm doing a 2 mile run today, a 5 mile on Thursday and a 6 mile run on Saturday. Right now I'm averaging a 6.10-6.15m km, but I'm hoping to push that below the 6 min mark in a few weeks time. My target for the half marathon is under 2h15min!

All exciting stuff.

My moving house also somewhat surprisingly pushed my weight down a fair bit and I now tip the scales around 96.5kg, although I haven't weighed myself for a few days.

Stay tuned

Twists and turns

Despite my previous post a huge obstacle - life - intervened and I never really got started with the p90 programme.

To make it worse, I recently moved in to shared accomodations, and until I get to know my new roommate better, I'll be a little bit reluctant to do the P90 in the living room....and there's not enough space in my room to do it.

However, I've signed up for a half marathon in October, so I'm starting a running programme to get in shape for that. Hopefully come summer I'll have the opportunity to do both running and some P90, but for now this will be more a general exercise blog.

Stay tuned...

The beginning

My "athletic" life has had more up and downs than a roller coaster.

As a kid I played every sport imaginable; football, ice hockey, table tennis, tennis, a dabble in martial arts, downhill skiing, and so on.

In my late teens I stuck with karate for a few years and got very fit, and this was combined with discovering free weights, so I was quite buff, but not big, in high school.

Last year in high school I tore or at least severly strained a muscle hamstring, and had to quit karate completely for several months. Once healed, I'd more or less lost interest, and as I was moving away to college I never really got going again. Of course during my recouperation I for the first time put on weight more than I should weigh, and it was the start of a 18 year long issue. I went from just under 70kg to about 75kg at the end of high school, and at this point I reached my adult height, 179cm.

At college, I began well, joined a gym, played sports, but beer and food became the my nemesis, and although I now added on a fair amount of muscle, my middle section also became quite soft. I went up past 80kg and kept on increasing.

At the end of college I'd slowly but surely crept up the scales past the mid 80s section, and showed really no signs of improving. At this point I would be a binge gym goer - I'd be frenetic for a few months, and then nothing. Working late shifts with easy access to junk food hurt even more.

A long distance move to a new culture and unemployment a feew years later didn't make the situation better, and I now went past the 90kg barrier for the first time.

The next decade again saw spurts of gym going, but no team sports at all, nor really any decent food intakes. I closed in on 100kg, and had hit 30 years of age.

The 6 months in the run up to my wedding, I decided I was very unhappy with my looks, and more importantly with my physical abilities. I wanted to get more energy, so I found a book by Mark Verstegen, called Core Performance, and started following his programme, whilst starting a low carb diet.

This was tough, 4-5 gym sets per week, and lots of cooking, but it paid off, and I dropped down to 92kgs during the summer of 2004.

2005 and 2006 I did post grad studies, not visiting a gym more than once every other month, with extremely poor eating habits and sleeping no more than 4-5 hours per night.

I peaked at 102kg, closing in on a 38-40in waist, but managed to drop down to roughly 96-97 by summer of 2006, simply by cutting down on junk food and snacks. However they came back during the latter parts of the summer, and I think I was back to around 98-99kgs.

In the autumn of 2006 I went through a family crisis, and lost roughly 9kg in 2 1/2 weeks. The drop continued due to a complete lack of appetite, and as the hunger pains were something I could deal with, I ate very little. I bottomed out around 89kgs, the first time below 90 in more than a decade, and about 5-6kgs above my perfect weight.

I kept this off for about 4-5 months, until I moved into new accomodations on my own. A new active social life, with lots of eating out and lots of alcohol saw the scales creep up again, and I ended up back past 95 until I decided enough was enough.

On a trip to the US, I saw an ad for P90x, and decided to give it a try. I will be following the exercise routine as close as possible, and I'll try to stick to the eating plan, but as my time is somewhat limited we'll see how well I can do that. I will also be doing a fair bit of running, as I'm doing a 10k run in the summer.

This blog is supposed to be a carrot for Me, and I might even make it private - we'll see ;)

Here we go - let's bring it.

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Edited to add: About two weeks into the initial test of the P90x programme in March 2008 I got a grade 1 tear in my left hamstring, and had to do nothing at all for 8 weeks. After about 10 months I now feel able to restart my fitness programme.