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Progress log from the Granite State


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I've cut back on some dietary excesses.  Last year I gave up the diet sodas (and I drank a LOT of those).  This year it's been more about portion control and just trying to scale things back.  Now that the weather isn't terribly conducive to bike riding, I haven't been doing that on the 'off' days and I think I'm seeing the result.  My wife is a tribute to what dancing can do for your endurance - out of nowhere she was able to do a 20 minute jog when she was just coming along with me.  The bar brawls?  Well, reducing the risk of injury was paramount when I started this odyssey so the bar brawls will have to find someone else to participate....

 

Now I just have to figure out where to start if I'm going to take a walk down Yoga Boulevard...

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Early on, the dietary changes are easy to figure out.  Eliminate the pop tarts and buy more apples - that sort of thing.  But I was raised on a "meat and potatoes" diet and that's what makes me salivate.  Kale?  Feed it to the rabbits.  I seem to remember kale being practically unwanted and akin to a weed many years ago.  Things like zucchini or squash or eggplant are revolting to me.  Heck, I'm working on being able to take *tomatoes* - in ketchup, marinara or pizza sauce, they're fine but the texture of a tomato on my tongue is unpleasant.  George Carlin used to have a routine about them.  Tomatoes look WONDERFUL on the outside!  But, cut them open, and clearly something has gone wrong!  All the jelly and seeds in there - it's still in the larval stage!  Evolution isn't yet done with a tomato!

 

But, as far as the yoga idea goes, I definitely think I have to see someone.  I got off my ass to start the C25K program so I can get off my ass to do this...

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Be open minded. Try new things.

Lay out vegetables on a cooking trap. Dust/toss/spray with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in oven then turn on broiler to brown them up a a bit and give that a shot. I've seen a lot of people say they hate vegetables and 6 weeks later have found the trick to preparing them so they are tasty. If you want to be lean, fit and healthy, it's worth the try!!!

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I was raised on and still eat a mediteranian diet... lots and lots of vegetables. Try throwing oranges into your salad instead of tomtoes. Try throwing vegetables sliced or whole on the barbeque.eat with tahini sauce. Look for anti pasti recipies... switch your potatoes with whole grain basmati rice which is delicious... think of it as an adventure..

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Yesterday the weather finally broke and was supposed to do W11D3.  I was well on my way to completing it - just about to finish the 2nd interval when my tracking program crashed (MapMyRun+).  The music stopped, I checked my watch and it was saying "Saving", my phone was syncing...  By the time I got everything back under control, I was at a loss as to what I should do to try and finish things properly.  In my frustration I walked back to the parking lot and headed home. 

 

Didn't want to screw up my schedule so much but I wanted to get back on track.  Then I came up with an idea.

 

Just for the heck of it, I'd been looking at some of the schedules for the half-marathon and marathon trainers in the last few days.  I noticed a lot of the training runs were 4:00/1:00 intervals, repeated a LOT.

 

So that's what I'm going to do today.  Even though I'm still "feeling" yesterday's run, I'm going out again today and see how many 4/1 intervals I can do.  After all, I've signed up for races on consecutive days - a 5K and 10K - and I did just over 5K yesterday.  Then I'll return to my regular schedule on Sunday and probably start Week 12 since it's so close to Week 11 - it only bumps up to 18 minute intervals from 17 minutes.

 

At least..  That's the *plan*....  So far....

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I ran 10K.

 

I can't believe I just typed those words.  I kept doing the 4/1 intervals and, after a while I started thinking about how far I wanted to go with this.  I didn't want to go to exhaustion - but 10K started to seem "doable".

 

That distance does NOT include warmup or cooldown intervals - that's all 'meat'...  In the next few weeks, in theory, I'm supposed to be able to jog for an hour straight.  This 10K with the walking intervals took me 71:40 to finish.

 

I think I need time to process this...  Couch potatoes just don't DO 10K - especially not after 5K the day before!

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I ran 10K.

 

I can't believe I just typed those words.  I kept doing the 4/1 intervals and, after a while I started thinking about how far I wanted to go with this.  I didn't want to go to exhaustion - but 10K started to seem "doable".

 

That distance does NOT include warmup or cooldown intervals - that's all 'meat'...  In the next few weeks, in theory, I'm supposed to be able to jog for an hour straight.  This 10K with the walking intervals took me 71:40 to finish.

 

I think I need time to process this...  Couch potatoes just don't DO 10K - especially not after 5K the day before!

Way to go!!

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Anne - yes, I'm following a plan.  However, that got interrupted when my tracking app crashed 2/3 of the way through my Thursday workout.  It's like when your car breaks down for something minor in the middle of a road trip.  I wanted to do SOMEthing to get myself back on track.  I'd never run 2 consecutive days and I hadn't run NEARLY to my potential on Thursday so I thought I'd try something easy that I could bail out of it it turned out to be too much.  Little did I know that I'd be able to go 10K without pushing TOO hard.

 

Today I'm feeling it - sore back - but it's not a sharp injury-like pain.  Just something I need to rest.

 

On January 7 & 8 my wife and I are in the Walt Disney World 5K and 10K races and I viewed this as *slight* preview.  My sessions have been going up into the 8KM range and when Thursday was aborted after a little more than 5K, well, that's what gave me the idea.

 

Today's a day of rest and Sunday I'll be on Week 12, Day 1 with three 18-minute intervals spaced by one-minute walk breaks.  That'll be challenging.  The goal is, apparently 60-minute all-jogging sessions by Week 14.  Right now, I have a personal benchmark for 10K at 7:08/km.  Week 13 is difficult with each day increasing the interval time (22, 25, then 30 minutes each) before the whole-hog 60-minutes of Week 14.

 

I view this as a slight detour on the plan - and I'm anxious to get BACK on the plan because it's worked so well for me up to this point (July's injury notwithstanding).

 

Another interesting thing I learned.  I just got new glasses and they actually help my running posture.  They're gradual bifocals (I'm nearsighted).  If I look down, the ground is blurry.  If I look up or ahead, the vista is in perfect focus.  Helps keep my head up :)

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W12D1 - another success.  But it wasn't easy.  I felt like this was the hardest one yet.  So many thoughts of quitting that I had to keep forcing myself to NOT listen to...  I mean, I know it wasn't the hardest session ever - there were plenty of times when I started that *couldn't* finish a session so, logically speaking, any session I actually finish makes it impossible for it to be the hardest one ever.

 

In two weeks, it's going to want me to do 60-minutes straight jogging.  I haven't really felt like this since I was looking at the 20 minutes of, if memory serves, W5D3...

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Wednesday was W12D2 and another success despite my increasing worries about my hip injury flaring up.  I honestly can't figure out what's going on in there so I made a doctor's appointment but he had no openings until the 30th!

 

When I walk, it sometimes hurts, sometimes doesn't.  When I start jogging, after a couple of minutes, there's NO pain and I can't feel much in the way of pain there even when I'm TRYING to feel for it!

 

Life and weather have been getting in the way lately but today will be W12D3, with any luck..  And my times seem to be getting better.  For the first time ever, when including the warmup/cooldown walks, I did a session averaging LESS than 7 minutes per kilometer - ok, it was 6:59 but, still, that's a milestone for me considering my averages started in the 9:25 range...

 

I'm going to try compression sleeves on my legs today for the first time in the hopes that some of the "day after soreness and stiffness" might be alleviated.

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W12D3...  ...and another success yesterday.  It's following the same pattern when a new 'week' increases the mileage.  D1 has me thinking of quitting far too many times.  D2 isn't quite as bad and I'm a little more optimistic and in a bit better frame of mind.  D3 happens and I still have something left in the tank - knowing form the get-go that I'm going to be able to do it (since I already did it twice when I was in a worse mood).

 

It's a little hard to wrap my brain around the idea that I'm ready for the events that I've signed up for and that they are now so close (20 days before we leave for FL). 

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W13D1 last Friday and I got through another one!  I was dodging raindrops towards the end (first time I've had to deal with weather - fortunately it was just sprinkles).  I didn't think it would too difficult to get through the first 22-minute interval - and it wasn't.  I was worried about the 2nd - but then I'd just run 54 minutes with 2 1-minute walks previously.

 

Today it's supposed to be a pair of 25 minute intervals, then 30 minutes on Wednesday before tackling the hour-at-a-time afterwards.

 

My thoughts are now starting to turn to "what next?".  When I'm done with the 5K and 10K races in 2 weeks, I'll need another goal.

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