2 miler

Short post tonight because I am ready for bed, but I mentioned in my last post that I was hoping for a nice, easy two miler tonight to stretch out a little bit. Had a slight change of plans, though. I felt pretty good, so I decided to stretch the pace a little bit, and ended up running 2 miles in 20:26, or a 10:13 pace. I had a 9 minute pace going until the cramps set in after the first mile and had to slow down a little. The legs felt pretty good, but the lungs were on fire before it was all said and done. All said, though, a pretty good run.

Blah

I've been looking at buying a new car, so I spent my whole lunch today car shopping. I didn't realize until about 4 that I hadn't eaten anything all day. Not good. I felt really sluggish on my run tonight, but still had a decent showing. I ran 3 miles in 35:22, which is about an 11:45 pace. I plan on running 2 miles tomorrow night, which will be the first time I run two nights in a row. I'm hoping soreness won't be too much of a problem, but I guess we will see. I'm not going to worry too much about pace, I just want to have a nice easy run.

New Plan

OK, so Aaron talked me into doing Hal Higdon's plan instead of Galloway's plan. No problem. There are a lot of similarities, but the main difference seems to be that Galloway wants you to run over 13.1 during training, but Higdon never has you run more than 10 during training. It seems like this plan may hurt worse on race day, but there is a better chance of making it to race day without getting hurt.

Speaking of getting hurt, Pascal is still out of commission from his bicycle wreck. Hopefully, he can start running again soon, because if he is out much longer, he is definitely not going to be able to keep up with me. As far as the crash itself, it looks like we got lucky, and someone caught the crash on tape. Not sure what he was thinking.

Aaron showed me a couple of cools website today also, with the coolest probably being Runstoppable.com, which lets you map out running courses while it gives you the distance and elevation changes. It also keeps a log of your runs, and does a lot of other cool stuff. Check it out!

Unidentified Running Object

Let me start by saying I'm sorry. If you were in downtown Guthrie last night at around 10, if you were out for a nice leisurely drive down Oklahoma Street, or if you happened to be stalking a Mason at the temple: I'm sorry. Even though it was dark outside, it was still unbelievably hot and humid, so I did it. I'm not proud of it, but there is nothing I can do about it now. I am also sad to say that I will do it again. Soon. I ran without a shirt last night. Try not to visualize it in your head, and make sure you don't discuss it out loud in front of children. There is no reason they should be punished for my indiscreetness. But Aaron needs to prepare himself, because, unless it is 65 Sunday evening, I will be running sans top yet again. It was very liberating, and I think more people should do it. More women anyway. But I digress.

The diet was moving along beautifully right up until the time I started making dinner for the kids. The grilled cheese sandwich turned out to be too much to resist. I knew it was bound to happen eventually. It probably didn't help that wife (god rest her soul) made spice cake cupcakes on Day 3 of the diet (thanks babe!!). One of those after dinner sounded pretty good. So did the iced oatmeal cookies I bought for the kid's lunch boxes (one row of those after the run really hit the spot). To be honest, I really don't feel that bad about it. I know diets don't work. Anything that is based on avoiding things you love is bound to fail eventually. But I did learn quite a bit that is going to help me going forward. Even though I had a piece of pizza tonight (we've had it since Monday, and I've been fighting it ever since), I followed the diet for the rest of the day. While I know I won't be following the diet to the letter going forward, I am thinking of doing this for 4-5 days a week (no meat or pasta, lots of veggies, etc), and then eating sensibly for the rest of the week. I know this is going to be a great way to lose all of the weight I need to, and I feel like it will be more effective in 3-5 day stretches instead of trying to tough it out for 2 weeks.

So to answer Aaron's question, my diet for a lifetime will be the ABS Diet, which seems like a very sensible way of eating without having to suffer. The ABS Diet Bullseye gives an overview of what you should be eating, and if I have a chance, I will go over the philosophy behind the diet (as I understand it).

As for the running, I ran my usual 2.5 miles last night, but I picked up the pace a bit and ran it in 29:26, which comes out to a little over 11 minutes/mile. I feel great today, so I may run again tonight, but we will see how the Mrs. is feeling.

Diet, Day 4

It's funny, but everybody in my group at work who is doing the diet has been complaining about being hungry and having headaches. I guess it's not all that funny, but it is good for me because other than a few extra restroom trips, I'm not having any negative side effects. I actually feel pretty great. I weighed 242 when I got up this morning, and I am starting to really tell a difference in the mirror. I'm eating more than I did before the diet, but the food I'm eating is very nutritionally dense. Alot of beans, some corn, yogurt, bananas, apples, oatmeal, etc. It's weird, because EVERYTHING I am eating is healthy. It really makes me notice how little healthy food I was eating before. I am still fighting cravings but only a couple of times a day.

While following a diet this strict isn't something I think I could do forever, I have learned alot about how to eat going forward. It's nothing that I didn't already know, it was just stuff that I didn't pay much attention to. So far it hasn't had much effect on my running, but with the kids and Kary being sick, I haven't been able to do the cross training that I need to do, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. I'm hoping to get out for a good run tonight, either a fast 2 miles or a little bit slower 4 miles. I guess I will have to see how I feel once I get out there.

Diet, Day 2

Things went pretty well with the diet today. I went to the bookstore at lunch to make sure I was doing the diet correctly, and it turns out that I can eat more than I thought I could. Besides the unlimited fruits and veggies, I can also have 2 cups of brown rice, 1 cup of unsweetened, unflavored oatmeal, 6 ounces of low fat yogurt twice a day, and I think a cup of skim milk. That makes the diet seem a lot more doable. It seems to be working already, because I weighed 252 at the start of the diet, I weighed 248 when I got up this morning, and I weighed 246 BEFORE my run tonight. Plus I have been eating a lot, so it is not like I am starving myself.

I ran about 2.5 miles tonight at a pretty light pace, about a 13 minute mile. My legs still felt a little sluggish after Sunday's 6 mile run, but other than that, I felf pretty good. The new diet didn't weigh me down at all during the run. There was no sloshing or heaviness in my stomach, and I really felt pretty good. Hopefully, this will keep on getting better!

Diet. Day 1

I started the new diet today, and even though I am excited about losing weight, this diet is going to be a bitch. It is amazing how munch junk I eat on any given day without even thinking about it. You never really realize how much you snack during the day until you have to limit yourself on what you can consume. Everything I reach for is loaded with either sugar, fat, or some form of dead mammalian. What makes it even tougher is the fact that not everyone in the house is on the diet, of course. So while the kids are eating pizza tonight, I am trying to figure out what to do with a package of dried beans and a portabello mushroom.

This is going to be a mental exercise as much as physical. This is day one and I have almost quit 2 or 3 times already! I have no idea how to cook healthy, tasty meals using only vegetables. It is so easy to cook a quick burger or grab a slice of pizza. It takes a lot of damn work to figure out a way to make a meal out of veggies with no pasta, grains, dairy, etc. Hopefully, I can make the sacrifice for 9 days. It helps that Chad is also following the diet, because I'm not sure I could suffer through this alone.

As far as the running goes, had a nice little 6 mile run with Aaron last night. I felt really good for the first 5 1/2 or so, and then my knee started to bother me during the last half. It didn't slow me down at all, but it was annoying. We tried to keep a nice, slow, even pace for the first 5 miles and then picked it up for the last mile. Aaron kicked it up more than I did, though, by a couple of hundred yards!

On an interesting side note that ties together both the running and the diet aspects, I figured out that I outweigh Aaron by about 20 pounds. So I am really hoping that the diet can go a little ways towards evening that out a little bit. If we are going to keep running at the same pace, I am definitely going to have to lose some weight, because he isn't going to want to slow down to my pace much longer....

Fat Smash

So maybe I didn't understand myself when I said I wanted to lose weight and be down to 243 by tomorrow. Turns out, what my body heard is that we need to try and balloon up to 253 by tomorrow. If that is the case, I'm doing pretty well because I weighed 251 when I woke up this morning. Not so good. It is starting to look like Chad and I decided to start our diets just in time. One of the TV shows I really like is Celebrity Fit Club, and the diet that alot of the contestants use is called the Fat Smash Diet. I don't know that this is the diet I would want to follow forever, but one of the key aspects is a 9 day detox period to help cleanse yourself of alot of toxins and impurities that build up from eating too much junk. For 9 days, you drink no soda (even diet), no meat, no dairy, no pasta, etc. Just vegetables, either steamed or grilled and you only drink water. I'm not sure I have cooked enough vegetables in the past to know what I am going to be eating for the next nine days, but I guess I will get it figured out. You can use all of the spices that you want, so my guess is, I need to really kick up the spices to make the veggie dishes taste good since they can't be fried or sauteed.

It all sounds incredibly hard, but I think it needs to be done. I am hoping to lose 5-10 pounds during the 9 days, but I guess we will see. After the nine days, I think the ABS Diet sounds like a good, permanent plan. I may try to talk about it a little bit tomorrow.

Ride the Lightning, Part 2

Had to cut tonight's run a little short due to excessive lightning. It was really starting to get close and even though it was dark, you could really see the dark clouds rolling in. Talk about a great incentive to pick up the pace quite a bit! As a matter of fact, I think it is raining right now. Got stood up by Jerome again tonight, so not sure what is going on there. Not sure if I should try and get us together on Thursday, or if I should just run early and solo, and then wait for Aaron to get back this weekend. I haven't talked to him in awhile either, so I am hoping that he is getting some running done in Texas. He has been really consistent lately, though, so I have no doubt that he has been putting in the mileage and will be ready to go 6 on Sunday. I'm looking forward to getting in some good runs together next week. A long run on Sunday, and then a couple of up tempo runs through the week.

Cliff's Notes

OK. Here in a nutshell, is what I had been typing for about a half hour before the computers gods peed in my hard drive.

1. The Fat Smash Diet
a. 9 day detox
b. diet and follow up

2. The ABS Diet
a. advantages
b. ABS diet bullseye

3. Running
a. First run post-taquito
b. 5 mile run
c. the mental aspect of running long

4. Some very funny, clever anecdotes and wildly hysterical stories that would have had you rolling around and holding your sides why laughing like a crazy person! Wish you could have read it, but once my mind is done spitting out such brilliance, it is like your stomach after you throw up. You feel better and just want to lay down and go to sleep. More to come tomorrow.

DAMMIT!!

I had written a big long post explaining my diet and running since my last post, when my computer locked up and I lost everything. So I may take the time to type it all back up, but I may not. Shit.

How NOT to do it

It really wasn't a conscious choice, but my pre-run meal tonight probably won't become a habit. Fried taquitos and salsa didn't provide that little lift I was looking for. Instead, I spent the whole run feeling bloated and burping up salsa, which really didn't help all that much. It also didn't help that Jerome was a no-show so I got to run by myself. It's a shame really, because tonight could have been a great run if I had eaten correctly and had someone to push me a little bit.

My legs felt really good tonight, but I never could catch that breath I needed. I need to really work on improving my max VO2. Now that my legs seem to be pretty healthy, I feel like I can work hard enough to start improving my lung capacity. Losing weight will also help with that. I went grocery shopping tonight, and I am hoping that I can be down around 243 by the time I run with Aaron again. Since he will be out of town this weekend and next week, it will probably be the following Sunday, and I'm not sure about his running plan, but I think I will be running 6 miles that day. I've only put in that kind of distance once, and that was the week that I hurt my foot. I'm hoping to avoid doing that again by avoiding the hills I was running. So far, so good. I may try to ride the exercise bike tomorrow at lunch. I have to kick the cross training up if I plan on making weight next week.

By the way, I challenged Daylen to a race at the Route 66, but I don't think he wants to drive to Tulsa. Or else he doesn't want to get beaten by a fat ass. Hard to say.

The Plan

I'm not sure why I feel the need to be difficult, but I think Aaron and I are still doing different training programs. I think I discussed at some point, that Aaron was going to follow Hal Higdon's training program, and I would do Jeff Galloway's schedule. Sure it would be easier to do the same thing, but where is the fun in that?

If my math is correct, I should be in the third week of the program, which works out pretty well, because we ran 4 miles on Sunday, which is exactly what it called for. Fate? Hard to say. I haven't heard from Jerome today, so I am not sure if he is running tonight. Either way, I need to be out there for 30-45 minutes. That should be about 3 miles at my usual pace. It rained pretty damn hard for about 20 minutes earlier, so it is either going to be cooler outside, or just as hot with 100% humidity. While it is hard to turn down some kick ass humidity, I'm actually hoping for the cooler temp. My diet really hasn't been ideal today, so it may be a tough run. I have to get this diet thing worked out. The problem is that it is just too easy to eat junky food. It takes too much effort to actually cook healthy food and stick with the program. Plus I would have to buy groceries more than once a month, and really, who needs that kind of aggravation??

I'm Burning, My Lungs are Burning

Have I mentioned how damn hot it is outside? It hasn't stopped the running, though, but it really is hot. I swear that after running Sunday night, it would have been nice to go sit down, cool off, and relax for a little bit in hell. They might have had a little bit of a breeze, at least.

After taking a month or so off when my foot hurt, I am starting to feel like a runner again. Aaron and I did 4 miles on Sunday, and I really felt pretty good. The heat got to me, but my legs felt great. My lungs seem to be the problem lately. I swear, I felt like Sandy Lyle (RAINDANCE!) for the last hundred yards or so. I think that is good news, though, because as long as the legs are healthy, I can get the lungs in shape. It's been nice having Aaron and Jerome to run with. I don't think I could have made 4 miles on Sunday without someone to talk to. Hopefully, I can get up to Aaron's pace by race day, so we can both have someone to talk to.

I know that Daylen has been running, and Chad is supposed to start back up today (envision in your head me holding my breath), so hopefully it won't just be me and Aaron come race day. Kary and Shell are also supposed to start training soon, and I know that Pascal is out of the running (a play on words! Genius!!), so I'm not sure who we are going to have. Pascal is supposed to have surgery on Wednesday, so he is looking at 2-3 months before he can really get back in the swing of things. Between my training and his diet (Dr Pepper and Twix last time I checked), by the time November rolls around, I'm pretty sure he will be about 220 pounds and asking me to take more walk breaks when we run together. He doesn't think so, but he also likes techno music, so you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt....