JCC 2013 Fitness Goals

You know how everyone seems to have a story that starts with "When I was in my 20's and young and stupid..." I now have one of those stories:

When I was in my 20's and young and stupid, I thought it would be a great idea to get out of class Thursday, drive 15 hours through the night from Seattle to Tahoe, arrive at 5am Friday, get up at 4am Saturday, complete the Death Ride, then drive 15 hours back to Seattle to make it to class on Monday.

Totally worth it FYI.

9.25 hrs in the saddle, 125 mi. 15,000' elevation, temperature ranging from mid 40's to mid 90's.

2013 Death Ride = Complete.

Now I'm searching for my next Athletic Bucket List item to do. I'd go with "Run a Marathon" but I have come to the conclusion, that I really just don't like running.

 

Nice, dude! Crazy, but nice. You now have a story to tell your kids.

I have nothing but admiration for riders. I have no idea how you survive 9+hours on a bike! No matter how much padding I put on the seat, my butt always gives out before my legs. I just can't do more than about an hour.

 

Put the 2 year old in the stroller and went for a night run.

4.57 miles
52:26 of running
11:28 min/mile pace

The good news is my back did not act up despite the steep biotchy uphills that got us in and out of the park.

 

So I'm still kinda lame, but I've been having some dizzy issues (allergies responses in my ears). I've started riding again so hopefully that will help my fitness levels as well as taking the dog for walks. I need this to go away before I can do more P90X as I can't make it through a workout dizzy.

 

You may or may not know that I live in the UK, but at the beginning of November I'm going to be in NYC for a week's holiday.

So, sensing an opportunity, I signed up for this > http://www.nyrr.org/races-and-events/2013/nyrr-dash-to-the-finish-line-5k

Can. Not. Wait. I am so freakin' pumped for this!

I am signed up for a Super Spartan in September but running in NYC will be epic > http://www.spartanrace.com/midlands-obstacle-racing-super-spartan-2013.html

 

Nice, dude! I'm thinking I'm about ready to start signing up for 5Ks and/or mud runs. Probably do my first one this fall. Good luck! Let us know how it goes for you.

 

Srsly Brian, you'll finish the 5K in like 20 minutes and everyone will hate you for it. Shoulda gone for it months ago.

 

Haha. Nah. I think I could probably do it in 25 mins if I push myself. I'm targeting a nice easy 30 mins for my first 5K so no one should be looking at the back of my head.

 

30 minutes is perfectly fine for 5km, don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

I'm going to push for 20 minutes, I've hit the low 20's before...

I've found that I haven't enjoyed running lately (it's such a chore!), so I've been seriously looking into running technique so that I can blame my discontent on something other than laziness.

I'm going for a small run again tonight, I'll try putting some technique into action...

 

I would love to do some road races this summer, but work has gotten in the way sadly.

 

On my first (and only) 5k I finished in about 28 min and was feeling pretty proud of myself. There was this skinny young guy who finished the whole thing in like 14 minutes, what a show off. People like him should go do 10k or half marathons and leave the 5k to us normal mortals

 

Thanks, Matt. We'll see how it goes. On the subject of technique, I recently read "Born to Run" and I have to admit it made me completely revisit running as an activity. I've slowed down quite a bit as I've been revising my approach to running, but I have found that I enjoy running a heck of a lot more than ever. I cannot overstate what a monumental change this is. I used to loathe running. I put running up there with being stuck in a classroom full of old-style chalkboards and little devil children that have wolvering claws.

Now I actually like running. Crazy.

14 mins! Yeah. He needs to die. If I actually get done in 28 mins, I'd be very proud of myself! Nice work!

 

I remember you mentioning that book before. I need to check it out...

The technique video I saw was this one >

The hot female runner made me stay the distance...

I think that 14 minute 5k guy must have cheated, bwahaha!

 

Nah, he was obviously very young and weighed like, 80lbs.

 

That video matches pretty consistently with the feedback I got from that book. The book doesn't really spend a whole lot of time talking about specifics on technique and is more about the philosophy of running and ultra-runners. Definitely a great read. Thanks for the video!

 

Have you adopted that technique? The reason I ask is that I went running tonight and it's great yet scary in that it only felt normal if I was going fast. I did about 2.5km in just over 15 minutes with quite a bit of walking, it was pretty much interval training really. At this stage in my training (just started really, after a LONG lay-off) I would do 2.5km in 15 minutes at my 'normal' pace, so the fact that I did 2.5km in just over 15 minutes with quite a lot of walking in between should give you some indication of how fast I was going, my speed varied from 5 kmph to 13 kmph

By 'normal', I mean that it flowed, and I wasn't interrupting the flow by making myself go slower than I needed to. Unfortunately I just couldn't keep it up for more than 200-300 meters at a time.

 

Yeah, I've been using it. Rather, I've been adopting the principles anyway. I focus on the posture, managing my breathing, and landing on the ball of my feet first. I also try to force myself not to let my heels make full contact with the ground, but rather use my foot structure to spring into the next step. I tend to ignore speed altogether. That said, I've found that in order to keep it up, I needed to shorten my stride. When I run faster, what tends to change most is the length of my stride. The rest of my posture stays mostly the same. Before adopting this technique, I'd only achieve this posture when sprinting (your body tends to fall into a "natural" running posture when you sprint). Of course, I could only sprint for 200-300 meters at a time, max. And frankly, in my least fit condition, it was more like 50-100 meters at a time.

What I do different now is I focus on "light, easy, and smooth". I'm really stuck on light and easy, if I'm gonna be 100% honest, but that's not so bad. All that said, it looks like our times aren't all that different except that I'm running continuously and you're doing intervals.

Yesterday afternoon I went for (effectively) a 5k run around a trail, which I did contiuously. I ended up doing about 5.4K in just over 33 mins, which works out to just under 10kph. Your average speed is about the same, though like you said, when you're running, you're running way faster. I will tell you that in focusing on being light and easy, which are hard as heck for me right now, I always feel like if I really wanted to, I could run some more. I'm not wiped out at the end of a run like I used to be, even though I'm running greater distances.

 

Thanks for the info!

Before looking at my technique our speeds were pretty much the same when running continuously, it is quirky how things matched after changing my technique.

I agree with the shortened step, that seems to make a lot of difference. I used to get a bit of lower back pain after running but didn't this time around too. Though it could have been the walking

The thing I found hard was that it in order to go slower it felt like I wasn't 'following through', I guess...

I will continue running at speed for the next couple of weeks and see where it gets me I think...

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I hear you. You should definitely do what works for you. Perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned on this small fitness journey I've been on is that there's no "right" answer but rather a "right answer for you". I watched a video of a dude with no arms and no legs getting a heck of a workout at a gym (man, I wish I could find that video. Great stuff)!

Without a doubt, you know your body better than anybody and if it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. Keep us posted on how things go. I'm really interested!

On a separate note, it's time for my monthly report.

Totals: 61 miles, 8,300 calories burned!
My year to date totals: 323 miles, 49,712 calories burned!

The last half of this month, I've returned to focusing on eating better. My weight's still about the same as it was last month, but at least now my 3-day rolling (lol) average is moving downward again so that's good news.

 

I gained almost 3 pounds but my clothes fit better but without any additional muscle definition. The heck?

 

My goal is more muscle building. I'll maintain exercising every day or other day for a couple of weeks and then slack off. Right now I can't get motivated to exercise because it's so hot, and it often feels like a dull chore with all the repetition and counting. It's easy for me to feel like I should be doing something else, when I get up in the morning and especially when I get home.

 

Regardless you've traded muscle for fat so that's good.

Regarding running, I'm too lazy to research technique, etc. I know I should.

Oh yeah, today I did upper body for an hour (in the house) and then ran 2 miles in the 106 degree heat. That was enough of that.

 

I didn't lose any weight this month but I didn't gain either. Also, we found a somewhat hidden trail a mile or so from our usual running route, and there's geese nearby.

 

Bambi tried to kill me on my ride this morning. I like to loop around Lake Washington on the weekends and I detour through one of the state parks because its got some nice hills and little traffic. So it's about 8am and I'm coming down a hill in the park, going about 40mph, when I turn a corner and notice a deer standing in the road. And my brains just all, "Hey, there's a deer standing in the middle of the road." Then about 5 seconds later, my brain realized, "$%#^, there's a deer standing in the middle of the road!" Slammed on my breaks, Bambi freaked and bolted right in front of me, I swerved to avoid him and ended up in the shrubbery on the side of the road. Thankfully I missed the blackberries.