Support Yourself and your Brother

I just read my first two posts to this blog from about a year and a half ago. First of all, wow, I almost forgot what person I was. How I felt about what I looked like and how much I weighed. Some days I forget not only the importance, but the breadth of what I've actually done. I mean, I transformed myself. I lost over 100 lbs and I've kept it off for over a year. I can't allow myself to forget that.

That said, the point of this post isn't to pat myself on the back or brag about my accomplishments. Those accomplishments I speak of? They owe so much to this blog and to the people who read it, commented on it, and helped me in so many ways. Even if it was just being there and letting me know other people were suffering through the same things I was, and DOING SOMETHING about it. I didn't really need experts, I just needed to know I wasn't alone. That played a huge part in my success.

I know things don't go on forever and life is constantly changing, but some things shouldn't. Excuse my french, but WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?

People need our support.

If you're not posting because you're not completely happy with yourself and you no longer need a blog, fine. I kinda doubt that's the case with most people, but if it is, great.

If not, you not only owe it to yourself, but to everyone else to keep talking. Keep posting about yourself, keep supporting the people that helped motivate you to meet your goals.

The most important thing is that everyone is still working to better themselves while helping friends and even strangers do the same. Maybe most people aren't blogging anymore, but I hope they're at least happy, since that really is what this is all about.

Later

Half Marathon Training Begins

So today I officially started my half marathon training. In case anyone is interested, here is how the schedule pans out, with the last Saturday being the actual race.

10 Week Half Maraton Training Schedule

My plan is to do the weekday runs on the treadmill as I've been doing, with the Saturday runs outside. For those outside runs, arriving today is my new toy, a Garmin Forerunner® 305.



For anyone interested in getting one, check out Amazon. I got mine for less than half of the price listed on the Garmin site.

It's basically a watch that has a heart rate monitor, a gps, and all of the normal watch type functions. It means I can track my pace, time, and distance while running outside. Not more plotting out routes or guessing to figure out what you're really doing. I means you get everything the treadmill gives you except you get to be outside. What could be better? I'll do a more depth report on it once I get some experience using it.

One additional comment for today...GO EAGLES!!!!

-Brian

Half-Marathon Training and starting again

So, I've been kinda floating for a while. Trying to maintain, but mainly half-assing a half thought out work-out routine in order to be able to eat what I want and stay relatively in shape. Things got harder and fell off even more when it got cold enough outside that I wasn't comfortable riding my bike to work every day. The past few weeks I've been running maybe 8-10 miles a week and lifting 1-2 days, but that's basically been it.

We all know that exercise and good eating habits are all part of staying in shape and being healthy. I need to better align myself with that again. Like many of you, the holidays could have gone better, and over the past two months my weight has slowly crept up to around 214. That is still not a bad weight for me at 6'3", and right in the range my doctor recommended for me a year ago. However, my lowest average weight was about 204, so as far as I see it, I've gained 10 pounds. Ironically, one year ago today I weighed exactly the same as I do today.

My body can still perform like it did at 204, in fact, just today I ran a 5k on the treadmill without really pushing TOO hard. After checking my numbers it was my 4th or 5th best time ever. That's not too bad really, especially for not really trying to hard. I can also bench the same amount today that I could 6 months ago.

Anyway, since I'm really trying not to ramble, let me just get to my points:

- I feel like I've lost a bit of my drive to stay in shape and eat right. Blame it on the time of year, circumstances with my commute to work, being basically comfortable with my weight, the direction the wind is blowing, whatever. I'm going to change things in order to give myself back that drive.

- I'm running a Half Marathon, the Sun Trust National Marathon in Washington DC on March 21. I'm starting a regimented 10 week training schedule for that event this Monday. I really want to be able to mark down on my list of accomplishments a half marathon, so no time like now to get started on that. Two of my co workers are doing it with me, so that really helps too :

- I'm going to pay better attention to what's going in my body. You see, losing 100 pounds was easy. I cut out almost all saturated fats, kept my calories around 2500 a day, ate breakfast every day, and exercised my ass off any way I could. 6 months later the weight was gone. Building muscle and maintaining weight for the rest of your life, well, that's the hard part.

- I hope to start posting more to hold myself accountable for what's going on. My posts fell off when I didnt have much to say. Normally when you don't hear from me its because things are going well. I'm not breaking any personal records, but I'm not doing bad either. I'm posting now because I don't want to be one of the many who fall off the life long wagon. My blog is how I keep myself in check.


That's all I'm going to say for now. I have more to say, but I'll save it for the next post.

Ran Run Ran

I ran 5.7 miles total on the treadmill tonight. Yes, on a Sunday night after lounging around all day watching football and eating. I just felt rather slobbish so I went and ran some of it off. Not my fastest time, but I feel like I ran 10 miles. I'm still getting back into the running groove.

Tomorrow I go back to work and have to work 5 days straight for the first time in 3 months. I'm not looking forward to it.

Life goes on.

Hope everyone is getting and staying in shape.

Talk to you soon.

New 5 Mile Time

I ran another 5 miler on the treadmill this morning. This may be the first time I've actually tried to better my 5 mile time, but nonetheless I beat my best time by close to 2 minutes. I'm really still not in that great of running shape yet, so I think I can still knock a few miles off of my 5 mile time.

It's something to shoot for anyway. Perhaps I'll start running 10k's though instead, since 5 miles seems like a rather arbitrary number in the running world. We'll see.

Ran -Biked - Lifted this week

Just a quick note to say that I ran 5 miles on the treadmill today. Time was 53:37. Ironically the last time I ran 5 miles on the treadmill was exactly 1 year ago today. Today's time wasnt my best or my worst, not that I was running for time.

I also commuted by bike to work yesterday for the first time in 6 weeks or so. I lifted as well. Gotta stay active you know..

New Mile Time

Sorry the posting has been off. It's not due to lack of workout effort, just the fact that I haven't had a lot of time to post, and not really a lot of new information to talk about.

I've been running on the treadmill 2-3 days a week, lifting weights 2 days a week, and still riding my bike when I can, maybe 50-60 miles a week if you include weekends.
My weight has gone up slightly the past few weeks and I think it's probably due to water retention from starting lifting again. WHen I say up I've been around 206-210 when my lowest recorded weight ever was around 200. My original goal was to stay under was 210 (remember that I'm 6'3" and a large frame guy) so I'm still maintaining under my original goals.

Today I started out quick on the treadmill and decided to see what mile time I could get. I ended up with a 7:24 which to my surprise after referencing my best time earlier this year is a new record by 20 seconds! I feel like I could probably get in the sub 6 minute range but I always seem to have some back pain when I try to run really fast miles. It must have something to do with my form or lack thereof. That said I prefer to focus on longer endurance runs anyway.

I think I've been in maintenence mode for 10 or 11 months now. I'm happy with myself but like to continue to push my limits to see what I'm capable of.
Anyway, it's time for another meeting so I've got to run...no pun intended.