Not gonna make it

I'm never going to hit my stretch goal. I was 192 this morning. I will never hit 189 by Christmas day. That's cool though. You don't have to meet stretch goals. My primary goal of 170 by August 1 is still very doable.

Perfect Pushups Cycle 2 starts today

Awesome progress was made in Cycle 1. My Cycle 1 starting Max Reps was 8 Reps. My Cycle 2 starting Max Reps is 23 Reps. I almost trippled my max reps. That's pretty good.

Running is going well. I'm doing about 20 mins a day plus my normal morning walk. I want to get to 20 mins 6 days a week before I try to start increasing the duration.

I only have 15 days left to try to hit my stretch goal of 189 by Christmas day. I don't see it happening, but I'll keep trying.

Couple days of running done

So far so good. I'm pretty jazzed about testing for a new max perfect pushups for Cycle 2 tomorrow. I know it'll be more than 8, I just don't know how much more. I'm trying to get up to being able to run 20 minutes every day. Then I will start adding on a 40 min walk to round out to 20 run/40 walk. When that's comfortable, I'll starting shifting walk to run. 30 run/30 walk, 40 run/20 walk. Hopefully I'll end on 60 run at some point.

3.5 pounds from my stretch goal, 2.5 weeks to go. I might make it.

Some firsts

Did my first run yesterday. 20 Minutes, nice a slow. It went very well.

Did my first chair pushups this morning. 8 pushes, 6 pushes, 4 pushes, 2 pushes. It went a lot easier than I thought it would. I should have a very much increased max for my next cycle.

Day 2 results

OMG The perfect pushups kicks my ass! My soreness starts somewhere near my right hand and ends somewhere near my left hand. My entire chest is sore to the touch, almost like a bruise. That must mean it's working huh?

Day 1 results

Perfect Pushups = Awesome. I'll stick with those

6-second = Suck. I'm switching to regular crunch routines.

Welcome to Perfect Pushups!

Alrighty... the walking component is going well. I'm walking everyday, and usually twice a day. I'm going to start running in December.

Now I am going to start the muscle/toning component. This will be a two-pronged attack between Perfect Pushups and 6-Second Abs. These two devices came recommended from a personal trainer I spoke with. He's very realistic about all these work out devices you see for sale on tv. Here's what he says about 6-Second Abs. It's not revolutionary. All it does is force you to do proper sit-ups. If you can do proper sit-ups, don't buy this device. I, however, cannot do proper sit-ups, and so I will be using 6-second abs. It's basically a spring-loaded piece of plastic that slides together and then slides apart. It even clicks 3 times on the contraction, and then 3 more times on the release. So it's called 6-second abs because you are supposed to move at a rhythm so that you get 1 click per second. 3 clicks down, 3 clicks up, for a total of 6 seconds per rep. Doing the sit-ups nice and slow and controlled is the secret.

Now on to Perfect Pushups. This is the pair of handles that rotate as you do a pushup. It basically has you doing a punch motion on each pushup. Again, the notion of varying your hand position during pushups is nothing new. The army has been doing it for decades. You do 10 pushups with your fingers pointing up, 10 with fingers pointing in to work for backs of your arms, 10 with your fingers pointing out to work the fronts of your arms, etc... What the perfect pushup does is combines all of this into a single rep, thereby reducing the time you have to spend doing pushups. The program works by figuring out your 1-set max at the beginning of each 21-day cycle, and then calculating your reps per set based on that max. The 1-set max is simply the number of Perfect Pushups you can do before you start losing your form. I'm starting at a paltry 8 pushups. Before you think that's not a lot, come try a Perfect Pushup. It is WAY harder than a regular one. So then after the 21-day cycle, you re-test your max and use that to calculate the next cycle.

You'll notice a few more elements to my Blog. I have a new personal record for my Perfect Pushups 1-set Max. I also have a cycle starting max tracker where I will hopefully see my Max increase with each completed cycle. Finally, I have a cycle activity log at the bottom where I'll be checking off the various sets by placing an "X" next to them. You'll see that I started today, and already have 1 set checked off.

That's all for now. I'm 3.5 pounds off my stretch goal, and 23.5 pounds off my final goal. With 6 weeks left for my stretch, and 9+ months left for my final, I think I'm in good shape (no pun intended).

Much better

Back down to 193.5

I'm a walkin' fool!

Ok.. I'm walking my butt off here. I hope this is doing wonders for getting my legs better prepared for running because it sure as hell isn't doing a whole lot for my weight loss. Most days sees me walking 30 minutes in the morning and 60 more in the evening. I'm pretty well convinced that a single 30 minute run would burn more calories. I'm not waiting until January to start running. I'm starting in December.

Oh, and I'm going to start a weight lifting routine as well. Now that I'm losing the torso fat, I need to start building/firming muscles.

Black Thursday!!

Well... I did my weigh-in today, and I now see the consequences of vacation/not working out due to injury/eating crappy for a month. I gained 3 lbs this month!!!

Bread and Water for me......

Morning Walks Going Well

I've started morning walks this week. So far, so good. I'm shooting for a 30 min walk in the morning, then either an hour walk or a 30 min walk plus Gym in the evening. Gotta hit 170lbs by July 1st 2008!!!!!!!!

The plan for the rest of the year

Alrighty.... I'm off running until January. I will gearing up a walking routine to prepare my legs better than I've prepared them in the past. This will also be a time for me to get back to the gym 6ish days a week. My goal is to be under 190 by January 1, and be up to walking 1 hour 6 days a week. Hopefully this will make for a good start to running injury-free.

I have very much been slacking in the exercise department due to so many injuries and needed rest days. On our vacation, Cathy and I got a nice wake-up call as to how badly out of shape we were. First off, trail hiking about killed us. The biggest thing, however, was when we stopped at one of her childhood playgrounds and tried to do the monkey bars. HAHAHA Oh my God I could barely hold my own weight by one hand, let alone swing across the bars. I then watch those fools on Ninja Warrior who are going through entire courses where they're hanging at times from only their finger tips and think, "Man!!! I have a long way to go."

Hopefully I've stabilized my weight enough over the past couple months that I can start dropping again. My goal is now, as it always is this time of year, to be in the best shape I can be in by the family reunion in July. I would LOVE to be down to 170 by then. It's only 22ish pounds in 8 months; it should be achievable. That's what, 2.75 lbs a month? Or a little over a half lb a week? There is no reason I can't reach that goal.

Stay tuned!!!

Picture from the race

Here's a shot of me at the race.

Race Report

So I ran the Run for the Bear 5k on Sunday. I would say I had a good run. I was still plauged by a side stitch that actually caused me to have to take a 15 second walk break. I managed to come in at 26:05 (adjusted down 3 seconds to account for starting 3 seconds back from the start line). That's 10 seconds off my PR. The rationalization, however, is that this course was hilly, and had a hairpin turn-around. My last race was won by a guy who ran it in 17:33. This race was won by a guy who ran it in 18:45 or something. I think that if this course was a minute slower, and I was only 10 seconds over my PR, that on a flat course I would have shattered that PR. This was my last race this year. I will tell you all this much, I WILL be destroying that PR next year. I want to get down to a 20ish minute 5k. I'm going to be logging a lot of miles this winter both outside and on the dreadmill.

Thanks again to the family for coming to support me. I hope your first small race experience was fun. It's not all that exciting, but when you get up to something like the Chicago Marathon where there's 1.2 million spectators, it's a lot more fun.

Oh...and I clocked in at my lowest body fat percentage yet today. 19.3! I'm .3% off being "average"!!!!

Back to training

Ok I gave my fascia a good week off. I'll be in the gym this whole week. I'll then kill myself at the race Sunday. I then can begin ramping up my miles over the winter. This race Sunday will be my last race of the year I think.

Another 5k

Running Another 5k. I'm running the Run for the Bear to support Bear Necessities, the children's cancer place. It sounds like I have a cheering section too. Mom, Dad, Cathy, and possible Megan and Dan might come out since the race is in my hometown. Plus, there's a pancake breakfast afterwards that's open to the public!

Now I just have to get myself put together so I can give them a good show. I'm going to try to be smart and run a negative split this time. For you non-runners, that means run the second half of the race faster than the first half. The novice runner runs hard at the beginning and steadly slows down as they run out of endurance. This is bad bad bad. I'm shooting for a 8:00ish minute pace for the first 2 miles, and then a 7:30 pace for the last 1.1 miles. That should have me finishing in 24:15, which would be a 1:45 shave off my last race. We'll see...

Race Report - Histio Hop 5k

I ran the Histio Hop 5k on Sunday. I'll say it was a good race because I got a personal record on a certified course. I finished in 25:55. I am annoyed, however, because I turned the first 2 miles in 15 minutes. On that pace I should have finished in 22:15 or so. Unfortunately, I got a NASTY side cramp at about 2.2 miles that slowed me WAY down. Then with less than a half mile left, I watched the three dudes who took first, second, and third in my division pass me. That sucked. I have another race in 2 weeks, and hopefully I'll have figured out a trick to avoid or overcome a side cramp.

Stay tuned for a new personal record!

Plantar Fasciitis

So I have plantar fasciitis. I have all the symptoms. It's not a big deal, but it means no running for a couple weeks. I'm still racing on the 16th, but other than that I'm taking it easy for a couple weeks. Looks I'll be seeing a lot more of the gym.

So close to average

Another 2 weeks, another weigh in. I managed to maintain my 192, but drop .6% body fat. This makes sense, as I started lifting for this 2-week circuit. 19.5% body fat puts me .5% from Average. An average male my age has 15-19%. It's funny that I'm excited about being close to average, but when I started at Obese, and then have been Overweight for a year or so, it will be very nice to get down to Average. Hopefully this circuit, ending 9/15, will see me under 19%. I run another race on the 16th, maybe I'll just measure after that. As much ass as I kick in these races, that should be good for another .1% or so :)

Race Report

I completed my first 5k on Saturday. My best training run was just over 28 minutes, and I managed to do the 5k in 25:53! That is over a 2 minute shave, thanks mostly to the race day rush and having other people running around me. I talked to a couple people there, and they said anything under 30 minutes is awesome for a first race. Out of 60ish people, I finished around 14th or 15th place. I think I'm running another in two weeks.

Another contender in the contest!

I have a contest going with my cousin that reads something like this "First one to a six-pack abs buys the other one dinner". It's a good motivating factor, and we chose the six-pack because it's generally the last thing you get on the road to being fit. I've never seen a guy with six-pack abs and man-tits, ya know?

So I met up with my best friend Ryan last weekend, and he's now in on the bet. There's one problem though, I have a big headstart on my cousin, but Ryan has a headstart on me! I need to kick it into high gear if I'm going to beat Ryan.

The second half of the bet is when both of us are in shape, we're going to do a week-long backpacking trip somewhere. It would be awesome if all three of us could get in shape by late next summer and do a trip together. We'll see. I sure as hell plan to be ready.

New picture!

Got a new "After" picture up. Cathy snapped it in my kitchen. It's kinda grainy due to lighting, but whatever, you get the idea.

I ran my first practice 5k!!

For the first time, I was able to run a full 3.2 miles without stopping to walk. I think I nearly passed out by the time I got back to my house, but I did it. I damned respectable time too, 29:32! Sub 30:00 is AWESOME!

I swear...I've never been beat by anything in my life, I will not be beat by running. I don't care how many times I injure myself, I will figure it out.

Oh, weight update today as well. Not as much as I'd hoped, but it's still less.

ACCOUNTABILITY!!!!

I added a new training log. Maybe this will make me more accountable to the days I bum it up.

Day 1: 3 miles run. I'm hitting 100% WOOOHOOO

New running plan

I think I figured out why my running seems to screw my legs up all the time. I go a week at 3 3-mile runs. I have no pain, so I'm like "OK all's well, let's start increasing by 10% next week". Then next week I run an extra mile and screw my legs up. I'm going to try to run 3 weeks at 3 3-milers and see how that feels. If that goes well, THEN I'll increase the milage. I never give myself a chance to see if I truly was pain free after a 3 3-miler week because I immediately start increasing milage.

Caching my blog

For some reason the cached info on people's computers doesn't seem to want to update when I update my blog. If you're still seeing weight as anything but 195.5, then you're looking at an old copy. Perhaps try dumping your temporary internet files and see if that helps.

New Picture!

A new photo from the 4th of July weekend is up. When you put them side-by-side you can kinda see a difference. My progress is still slower than I hoped, but there are upsides to this as well. By losing the weight so slowly, I'm incredibly stable, and don't seem to put a bunch of weight back on when I fall off the wagon for a few days (such as the 4th of July weekend). Also, I don't get that nasty loose skin that a lot of fast weight droppers get.

I should get some fancy graph of my progress up or something. My little runner guy is plugging along down at the bottom of the blog, but it's nice to see the trendline over time slowly falling. We'll see.

Oh! I have a new hit counter as well. If you don't see it, it's under my little bio on the left. Since there's only like 5 people who read this thing, I have it counting all hits and not unique visitors.

Saw a podiatrist

Hmm... ok so I saw the podiatrist and here's what he says. My feet are fine, bones fine, legs fine, biomechanics fine, everything is fine. My shoes, however, are the worst pair he's seen in his career. I run in New Balance 1010s, the ultra motion control shoes. He says first off, the heel is all wrong. It's a varus heel. Basically, the heel is slopped upward towards the outside of the shoe. He says this causes your foot to supinate on impact, and then harshly snap pronate when your full weight hits. He says this was a design used in walking shoes, and for New Balance to think you can just use walking biomechanics in a running shoe is insane because it's a completely different motion. Second, the roll bar in the 1010s is absolutely insane. He says huge roll bars like that were designed for recovery shoes for people who had surgery and could barely walk through rehabilitation. The roll bar completely arrests my pronation.

So add them together and my foot motion is like this: I impact and supinate due to the angled heel. Then when my weight hits full, I snap pronate back in, but when I hit the roll bar I immediately stop pronating and send a shockwave up my leg. He says that shoe should be outlawed. It is making people predisposed to all sorts of foot and leg problems. Putting healthy people in shoes that are designed to fix severe foot problems is not only bad business, but can and will actually CAUSE foot problems for the healthy person. He equated it to a disease. If you don't have a disease, but take the medication for it anyway, you could actually cause a lot of harm to yourself. He says shoes like the 1010 were designed for a very specific rehabilitation purpose, and to put a healthy runner in them is crazy.

Interesting...I like that he was wearing a pair of New Balance shoes while he was telling me this. At least I know he doesn't just hate the brand. I'll try some new shoes and see how that goes. Races are still out because I don't enough time to train now, but at least I should be able to run injury free.

Nah... no racing this year.

The last thing I want to do is seriously injure myself or completly piss myself off on the whole running thing. I like running. I'm not going to ruin it by pushing too hard.

You know me, I'm always back and forth on decisions

I may do these races after all. The focus, however, will be shifted. I'm going to let the next month or so determine if I can do them, but now, I just want to finish. Before I wanted to "finish", but I really wanted to run them decently. Now, I don't care if I'm crawling across the finish line, I want to finish. I see a podiatrist today. Hopefully he'll tell me "Jeez Rob you have the wrong shoe and that's what is causing your shin pain. Put these shoes on and you'll be fine." That would be freaking wonderful. What I told the forum folks I chat with is this.

"I want to at least hobble my way through the race. I'm so frustrated with this whole thing... I could really use a win."

We'll see.

Oh, also I think I was running too fast in training. I was running tempo for all my training runs. This is too fast. I should be running a good 30 seconds under race pace in training. My thoughts were "I'm running pretty slow, and I plan to run this slow at the race, so it's all good." They should be "I plan to run this slow at the race, so I better slow THAT pace down by 30 seconds for training." I just worry at some point I'll be going so slow that I'll come to a stop :)

The Marathon has been postponed....

Here's a math equation for all you smarties out there in blog-world.

No running base + Aggressive training program = Injuries, Pain, Depression, Stalled Progress, Frustration, etc...

Here's another one.

Spend the next year getting in great shape and building a running base, then doing the marathon next year = COMMON FREAKING SENSE HUH?

So ya... no marathon this year. I not only have caused untold amounts of pain to myself, I also haven't lost a pound in almost a month because I've spent much time recovering from injury. The primary goal was lose weight and get in shape. My secondary goal of running the marathon was causing the primary to fall apart. That's bad business. I will now refocus my efforts on my primary goal, and defer the secondary for now. I think this makes a lot more sense. I only wish I hadn't shelled out the $160 bucks for the races already. Oh well. My doctors bills to repair the damage I've done to my legs was approaching that amount already, and I'm only 1 week into my 18 week training plan. Forget that!

So bye bye marathon for now; hello weight loss and pain-free exercising!

Still stay tuned to this site for useless updates on my progress.

Later,
Rob

First 6 miler

I did my first 6 miler on Saturday. Wow... it's hard to run 6 miles. I had no idea. The good news is although I'm sore as all get out, I don't think I'm injured. New week, and MORE RUNNING! WOOHOO!

2 days in the books

Two 3-mile runs in the books and the shins are feeling great still.

Countdown to Tuesday

Tuesday is the day. My shins haven't hurt in a week; I'm ready to run. I'll be taking it slow, but man I'm itchy to get back into it. Wish me luck!

2 weeks off now :(

Looks like I may have a stress fracture or two. I'm going to be taking two weeks off and see how it feels. If it still hurts after two weeks, I'll go get a bone scan or MRI done. I'll still be working out and losing weight, just no running. I'm not officially supposed to start training until June 4th, so I could in theory be ok, but we'll see.

Like I always said, the marathon was only a motivation tool to encourage weight loss. Even if the marathon is out, if I'm still losing weight, then I'm still reaching my goal.

Marathon Training starts in 2 weeks

I have 2 weeks of maintenance, then I kick it into gear. I'm itchy to start running outside. The treadmill is starting to not be my friend.

Shhhh. I've got a secret

I weighed in at 199.5 this morning. That officially puts me past the next milestone in this journey. I can't update my current stats until 5/15 though, so don't tell anyone.

Last workout Day before having to take 4 days off

Stupid Margo getting married and making me miss 4 days of working out. This will be a no loss week. That's cool though. I find these no loss weeks every once in a while help to really cement in the weight loss. Until next week...

The body fat checker works!

Good. I had Dan, who is almost exactly my height and weight, test using it. I know Dan has much less fat and more muscle than me, and the body fat checker agreed. It registered Dan a good 5% lower than me, just what I expected. I guess I can trust it after all. I know it's not showing my "true" body fat, but at least it's calculating. I was also worried because it's so damn consistent that I thought it had to simply be calculating based on input values. Well.... if it's showing a 5% swing between Dan and I at the same height and weight, and it's dead on consistent, then I can truly use this device to gauge progress.

Training Continues...

I'm up to running a half mile before taking a 1 minute walk break. This will continue to ramp up on a predetermined schedule until it climaxes at running almost 3 miles before taking a walk break. When I get into actual marathon training, I will do walk breaks every 1.6 miles, as this lines up to the aid station on the marathon course. This weekend is supposed to be beautiful. I just may take my first outdoor run.

I was trying to hit 200 for Margo's wedding. I'm not sure I'm going to get that done. I was 202.5 this morning. I don't think I'll lose 2.5 lbs in a week, but we'll see.

Also, I'm going to test my body fat meter tonight. I was VERY discouraged when I plugged in Cathy's height and weight and let her test, then I tested using her stats and it showed the exact same body fat %. That's just not possible. That would mean that Cathy and I truly have the exact same body fat, i.e. if I really was her height and weight we'd be twins. I don't think so. I think it's more likely that the device simply calculates based on the height and weight that was input. Right now, Dan and I are the same height and within a couple pounds of the same weight. I KNOW we don't have the body fat, at least not exactly the same. So I'm going to have both of us test on it using the same height and weight and it had better not display the same body fat. If it does, it's a worthless device.

Boston Marathon Day!

A guy I work with is running in it. It must be fun with the flash floods and whatnot.

Training is going well. The shins get sore, but don't appear to be injured. *knock on wood*

Week 1 in the books

Week 1 of rehab training is complete. Shins feel great.

Also, get this! I had two gigantic Easter dinners this weekend, and still managed to lose a half-pound! I can't figure it out for the life of me. I'm not complaining though. Now if only I could figure out how to lose the weight from the spots I want to lose from. So far, I've done an incredible job shrinking my fingers and wrists. When I got married, my wedding band fit tight and was hard to put on and take off. Then I lost some weight and it got loose, so I bought a plastic size reducer thingy. Now I can pull the ring right off with the size reducer thingy on it. I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get the actual ring size reduced.

The milestone of 200lbs is within sight. I have no memory of when I was under 200lbs. My best guess is 1998-99ish. I'm pretty sure I had peaked 200lbs before I graduate highschool.

Day 1 in the books

Day 1 of rehab training is in the books. The shins feel great.

Shin Splint Recovery Training Starts TONIGHT!

My idea of "starting slow" after recovering from shin splints has twice failed me. I thought starting with an easy 12 minute run (1 mile) would be slow enough. I guess I was wrong. Now I have a runner-prescribed recovery plan that starts off running for 1 min, walking for 1 min, back and forth for 30 mins. Ya, that's surely starting slow. But hey, if it means I don't have shin splints anymore, I'm all for it. I'll let you know how it works out.

Momma said they's my magic shoes

Momma said they's my magic shoes. Said they'd take me anywhere.

Ok enough Forrest Gump. These should be the key to ending my shin splint pains. Super Fancy Motion Control shoes to fix my semi-retarded feet.

TADA!

Welcome to my new blog

The race is on! I'm working to de-fat-ize myself in preparation for marathon training starting this summer. I'll keep you posted as to my progress.