Finally, Real Hope

Barack Obama talks about hope but real hope may reside in the person of Sarah Palin, mother of Track, Trig, Willow, Pipeline, and Curling Iron. Why? As TW points out, my intake is a factor in my body weight. And, my body weight is detrimental to my fitness. Ms Palin, who has a great record as a reformer and may be our president soon (given our miserable voting track record and 72 year old John McCain's battles with cancer) has fought long and hard against science in her efforts to bring creationism to schools and to eliminate pesky polar bears from the face of the earth. Can a fight against gravity be far behind? Surely, if we could eliminate gravity bigger runners like me would have a level playing field. She's a runner who has suffered from gravity during her pregnancies. Let's get behind her and rid the world of gravity!

Progress, then Frustration

My weigh in was 238, so a mild improvement over the prior week.

The week was a mixed bag: I ran (walking the uphills) from work on Monday and to work on Tuesday. My back and hamstrings felt fine. By the end of a good track session on Wednesday, however, my periodic plantar fascitis flare up was in full flare. It has become a pain management challenge. I'll replace my shoes and orthodics, add more specific stretches, ice and more ice, and cut back on my already reduced running schedule.

This week I'll run on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday and try to heal my wounds.

Inspiration

Operation 220 (100kg) Update

The workout this morning was good:

6 X 800m in 3:34; 3:30; 3:31; 3:31; 3:32; and 3:31. The recovery pieces were 2:00, generally, although we stretched it to 4:00 after the third (middle) interval.

The total workout was 5 miles or so. I'm feeling pretty good but after having run for 5 days in a row, I think I'll take tomorrow off.

I'll do my official weigh-in on Saturday morning. It was 240 (109kg) last week. I'm confident of progress.

Challenging But Attainable....

....although not without work. I ran 10 miles yesterday. And it wasn't easy. I took two, two minute walking breaks during the run. But I did it, and I took an ice bath afterwards. By ice bath I mean I sat in the ocean water off east end beach (pictured) for 5 minutes or so. After the initial shock it felt great.

My goal (challenging but attaninable) is to re-gain fitness. To do so, I need to lose about 20 pounds before I can even talk about fitness. So, I ran-walk-ran home today. It went pretty well. I'll run-walk-run in tomorrow and take it from there.

Let's call this: Operation 220 (100kg).

Moving Forward

I had a decent track session on Wednesday, continue to experience no significant hamstring pain, and the low back issues continue to improve. I'm off for a 10 mile run this morning. We'll see how it goes.

I'm also going to experiment with some conservative run-walk-run commutes in the coming weeks. My weight seems to be my major barrier to fitness at this point, ramping up my calorie burn would help address the issue.

On the track, the workout was 4 X 1K. I averaged 4:33 per K, and recovered for 3:00 between work intervals. This coming Wednesday, we'll run 6 X 800m.

More on BtB

The Beach to Beacon is our showcase event and it is impeccably organized, extremely well hosted by the Cape Elizabethians--for whom it must be a bit of a pain--and it has become a great tradition. I'll plan to run it every year. It's the one race where I'll suffer through the process of registering way, way in advance.

My splits were pretty consistent with years past, just slower. By that I mean I went out a bit too fast, ran a slow second mile, then recovered a bit until the 5th mile:

7:57
8:26
7:59
8:09
8:06
8:44
1:34

This pattern is consistent with prior years, and is also consistent with the hill pattern of the course, although I ran the uphill bit at the end of mile 3 better than expected.

I ran again Sunday, 40 minutes, give-or-take, just missing a ferocious thunder storm. I have no lingering effects from the weekend running.

Happy with a PW

I ran the Beach to Beacon race today and despite my worst ever time (50:55) I was pleased with my effort. The result was an honest reflection of my fitness level. The race is inspirational for me this year, with a simple message: get in shape, asshole! I plan to heed that message and hope to have a good 5K race before the end of the year. I'm not sure what defines good at this point. Anything under 22 minutes, I guess. But my back didn't really bother me during the race, nor did my legs, particularly. It was hard work and I'm pleased to have gotten through it.

I'll get right back to my routine with a recovery run tomorrow, and a hrad workout Wednesday. I'll continue that pattern (running Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday) and mix in my gym workouts the rest of the week. The stretching and core work makes a difference, and the rowing machine boosts my aerobic fitness.