Downtime

I'm currently resting and recovering for a few days, so I won't be blogging much about my fitness progress. For the time being I'm going to be a couch potato and enjoy it for a little bit.

I should be back up and running by the first week of October.

The final week!

It really doesn't feel like it's been 9 weeks since I started this whole running thing, but I'm already on the last week of C25k. Of course, there had to be a hurdle in the way - I'm going to have to take a break from exercise starting in a few days (medical reasons) but I'm hoping to be back up and running (literally) within about 10 days or so.

In the meantime my exercise will consist of sitting on the couch, watching movies, reading books, and playing video games. Given the choice, I actually would prefer heading outside and running!

I've hit 6k, week 8 complete!

As of my run today, I managed a distance of 6k. About 1k of this run was the warmup/cooldown, but I still think it's pretty impressive! I'll start week 9 on Tuesday, which consists of a 30-minute run of about 5k in distance.

Week 8 day 2

I'm on to week 8, day 2 of Couch-to-5k tonight, with a 5.91k run. The weather has been unseasonably warm around here. Normally we'd have daytime highs of around 17C in mid-September, and it was 24C for my run tonight!

Now that the run is out of the way, I'm going to have a delicious Friday Night Feast from a local market, along with some excellent red wine! Good times!

Week 7 complete, Week 8 underway

Monday night this week I completed Week 7, day 3 of Couch-to-5k (running for 25mins straight), and last night I did day 1 of week 8. For week 8 of the C25k program I'll be running for 28 minutes with a 5-minute warm-up and cool-down - my distance in total for last night's run was 5.86k, which is amazing to me.

Only a couple of months ago I was out of breath if I ran for more than a couple of minutes, and here I am running for nearly a half-hour straight without much trouble. Running has become a pleasant activity for me rather than an exhausting one!

A colleague of mine mentioned something called the Cooper Fitness Test, which involves running for 12 minutes straight and measuring the distance. I think I might give this "test" a shot after completing C25k and see how I do. I'm using Runkeeper to track my runs now, which provides a very accurate measurement of distance, so it'll be pretty easy to use the Cooper test as a gauge of my overall fitness level over time.

Week 7 day 2

I completed Week 7, Day 2 of C25K tonight. I made the switch from distance to time to add a bit of challenge to the workout. Instead of running for 4k, I ran for 25 minutes (or about 4.5k). The extra distance was a bit of a challenge, but surprisingly was quite doable. I adjusted my running route a bit to give me a bit more "room" for running and seemed to do quite well.

At the request of my wife, I went to Mucho Burrito after the run and picked up some burritos for dinner. My wife had a "smothered" burrito with pork and assorted veggies. I opted for a small vegan "fajita" burrito - lotsa veggies, black beans, and hot salsa. The hot salsa was truly hot - not sure if I'd try it again. We'll see if it causes indigestion in the morning.

Personal fitness really is about balance in your life. If I can get some takeout burritos and enjoy them with some delicious red wine (classy I know), while still being fit and in shape, then why not? Enjoying the ride is 99% of the fun - I'll worry about getting off the ride (the other 1%) some time many years down the road.

Week 7 begins

The time has flown by, and I'm now starting week 7 of the Couch-to-5k program. From this point forward, I'll be running for at least 25 minutes at a time, three times per week. My endurance has been slowly increasing to the point where I'm able to do the runs without a huge amount of difficulty. They're a challenge, but they don't feel impossible and I get home refreshed and "pumped" rather than exhausted and drained.

There's something calming, even meditative, about being outside and running.

I'm also still completing rung 36 of the Lifetime Fitness Ladder every day, which takes about 15 minutes each morning. All told I'm doing about 3.5 hours of exercise each week, or an average of about 30 minutes a day. On the one hand this seems like far more than most people do, but on the other hand it feels like the "right" amount to keep me healthy.

My weight has been bouncing around for the past week, but I'm still aiming to hit a rolling average of 150 on an ongoing basis, and hopefully I'll hit that point by the end of September. If not, that's fine too - part of learning to enjoy exercising is allowing myself a bit of wiggle room when it comes to weight-related issues. For my height, I'm well within the range of a "normal", "healthy" weight, so worrying about a pound here or there doesn't make much sense.

The dangers of breaking routine

This weekend was different from most for a few reasons: some family from out of town were visiting, it was a long weekend, and the kids were a little extra rambunctious. I suspect the latter reason was due to the first week of school being last week.

With the "normal" routines thrown off, I found myself eating a lot more - nothing obscene, but a few nacho chips here and there, a glass of wine there. My "daily" weight has jumped up to 155.6 from 150.6 on Friday - a 5lb gain in four days! Of course, I know that I didn't eat over SEVENTEEN THOUSAND extra calories over the weekend, so I'm pretty sure that the extra weight gain isn't body fat but just accumulated water. Salty snacks, while fattening, have a huge side-effect in that they cause your body to retain as much fluid as possible. I fully expect that going back to my usual diet and not having salty snacks will reverse things and drop off the so-called "water weight".

This is the advantage of using a rolling average to look at body weight, rather than the day-to-day fluctuations of the scale. The rolling average of my weight on Friday was 151.0, and today it's 152.1. An increase is still there, but it's a more reasonable 1.1 pounds.

Today I'll be back into the usual routine, and I'm going to make it my goals for the day to eat as little salt as possible. It's always good to spot a weight-gain trend early and stop it before it becomes a long-term trend.

Sunday afternoon, thoughts on routine, and Week 6 Day 2

It was pretty rainy overnight last night and there are still puddles everywhere, but it was a very nice Sunday afternoon to go out for a run. I completed Week 6, day 2 of Couch-to-5k this afternoon, which is the last run of the program that includes walking intervals. From Tuesday forward, I'll just be doing straight runs, starting with 25 minutes, and working my way up to 30 minutes of straight running with a goal distance of 5k!

Going through this program has started to become part of my routine and is feeling "normal" rather than something I'm doing that's outside of my comfort zone. I think this is the true way to accomplish anything - do it often enough and regularly enough that it becomes part of you.

Week 6

Today was week 6, day 1. Back to intervals, and a rainy day to run in (thankfully the rain stopped before I headed out). My endurance has really gone up - I'm not even out of breath after the runs now.

Week 5 complete and the "big" run!

It's been hot for the past week or so, with daily highs around 30C every day for the last 5 days in August. My previous two runs were early in the morning when it is fairly cool outside, but tonight I decided to go for a run in the evening after dinner. The sun was starting to go down, but it was still 27C outside (80F for any American readers that are out there)!

On top of the heat, today was the first "big" run of the C25K program. Up to today, the runs have consisted of intervals - running for a few minutes, walking for a few minutes. Today, I ran for 20 minutes straight over distance of 3.58K (measured precisely by Runkeeper)! At first it felt like I wasn't going to be able to do it, but once I got started I found that my endurance really had increased and I was able to keep moving without too much trouble. Due to the heat I was sweating pretty profusely by the end of the run, though.

On to week 6 and back to intervals for the next couple of days - hopefully the weather cools off a bit!