God is so Gangsta, that's what I love about him

If the title seem non sequitur, that's your cue to slap BB8 on the tivo. Anyway, I was craaaaaaaaaazy sore and tired yesterday, which doesn't bode well for these 90 minute workout seshes I had conjured up in me 'ed, but whatever my energy was back and pretty good today. I did have a little tweak in one of my right leg muscles which was irritated by the elliptical, so I did the 30 minute run, a short 6 and half minute elliptical or so, and then some more treadmill. I also tried the incline function on the treddy, which would be a good alternative if I wanted a low impact option. The 30 minute jog ended up at 461 cals and 2.6 miles or something, don't remember exactly. I was trying to hold back a bit for once, and I wasn't that dead after the run, which is a good sign I think. My wind and conditioning still seems to be improving on a really steady pace, which I know will inevitably slow down at some point, but I'm hoping it's sooner rather than later. I've been eating better as well, notwithstanding a pretty grrbtastic Chinese extravaganza last night. The weight has been all over the place as well. Yesterday morning I was down to 225 and change, and today I was back just over 230, but I guess that's the way it goes, I'm just gonna keep the calories moderate and the workouts as long and hard as my body will allow.

Hidee Ho

Guess my last post got erased somehow, gay. Wow, I might have gone too hard at the gym today. In an effort to take some weight off, I was thinking that between upping the length of my gym seshes, and cutting back on the food, I'd much rather do the former. Only problem is, 80-90 minutes of cardio leaves me in an altered state which I can't quite describe, but I think it's gonna take me at least a rest day tomorrow to get over. If I wanna do this, I think Im at the very least gonna have to pull back on the intensity quite a bit. To start, I did the 30+2 on the treddy again, this time tryin out the 7+1+7+1+7+1+5. It ended up bein only about 4:45 on the end b/c I don't start running until 30 seconds in and I needed a little longer to recover during 2 of the stretches. Still, I thought I faired remarkably well during the longer segments, my heart rate/conditioning continues to improve and after the first 3 bits, where I was ranging between 5.4 and 6.2 mph, my hr was in the low 150s to start and never got above 162 I think. In the last interval I hit the speed hard to finish up at new highs of 2.82 miles and 481 calories in 30 minutes. 5k is just around the corner bayyyyybeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Also, my weight has come down a couple pounds, but I'm just keeping it at 230 on the treadmill for the sake of objective comparison. I went hard, but I wasn't totally dead after the run, so I decided to keep to my idea and hit the elliptical for 30 mins + 5 CD which is the longest I've ever gone, AND I finished
it up with 18 more minutes of intervals on the treadmill. Ya, I'm pretty spent .

Eric Stein for President

Sorry, just got done watching Big Brother 8. Anyway, I guess I figured out today why I don't
usually workout 2 days in a row. I had the energy and felt like going but then 20 minutes into my treadmill jog my legs were pretty fatigued and I really toned it back. I still finished the 30 minute run and did a fairly light 21+5 on the elliptical, but now that I'm home my legs are pretty much jelly, definitely gonna have to take a break tomorrow. 6 mph is seeming more and more maintainable, and my heartrate was staying fairly low today despite the leg fatigue. Just gotta burn a few El Beez off and I should be able to coast into the 5k. If I want to give 3 miles in 30 minutes a shot soon, I think it would definitely be better to try holding a medium pace, with maybe a couple short walks, rather than running faster and faster intervals as I have been. Maybe 6.2 or so, and see if I can go 7/1/7/1/7/1/6 or something like that. No, guess that doesn't cover quite enough distance, but almost. Ok, it would take 6.3 mph and 3.3 mph walking to hit it on the dot. Somethin to shoot for, or at least give it a try. I don't think I could quite do it at the moment, but I bet I could get really close.

Keep on keepin on

Well, I've hit new highs on each of my last 2 workouts. I've upped the runs to 30 minutes + cooldown since I figure the end goal is a certain distance for 30 minutes anyway. This hasn't seemed to have any real effect one way or the other. I finally hit the 450 cal mark on Friday on a 30 minute run, and I beat that one again today. I was thinking I might make it a cruise/coast type day, but I had a ton of energy for some reason so I just went with it. Did 2.75 miles in 30 minutes with about 21/9/2 walk/run/CD for 471 cals, AND I wasn't even nearly as beat as I was after my Friday workout. Then I hit the elliptical for 20 mins+CD which is pretty long for me but I coasted through that mother at level 5, my heartrate just hovering from 149-153 (which is a pretty comfortable, maintainable spot for me), and THEN for some reason I decided I wanted to run intervals for another 15 minutes and I hit those reasonably hard as well. I'm not sure exactly what account for that, but there are a couple possibilities. I had a banana and a small sandwich today, and the small meals with fruit always seem to fuel me well. Also, it's not nearly as hot out today as it has been, and even though the gym is AC'd, it doesn't always do the trick when it's 95 outside. At any rate, good day and steady progress, Im creeeeeeeeeeeeeepin ever closer to the 3M/5k mark. I also just got my new scale in the mail today, the trusty Tanita B-6 somethin somethin yadda yadda, I read good things about it and my gym sucks so what can you do. I'm right about where I thought, still just about 230, so I'm gonna make a go improving the diet in the coming few months. If I could shave 20 lbs off, I think 5k would be a breeze in my current condition. Lates X.

Hidee Ho

Ok, so maybe I'll get back into this blogging thing. Went to the gym again today for a 30 minute run and 13+3 on the elliptical. I normally don't go 2 days in a row, but I was feeling some extra energy and not too much soreness so whatever. Fortunately, my joints, muscles, and shins have improved to the point where I haven't been getting any trace of the old shin splints that were hurting me at the beginning for quite some time. I hit a high on the run 2 days ago with 22/6/2 run/walk/cooldown for 421 calories and about 2.6 miles. The long term goal was always something along the lines of the couch to 5K programs which is 3.1 miles in 30 minutes, or even 30 minutes of consecutive running at all. This has just started to seem realistic, as I can now maintain pretty damn well at 5.3 to 6.0 mph without getting winded, but the low end is much easier than the high end. I've seen a pretty steady, gradual progression and improvement over the last 10 weeks or so and if it continues at the current steady pace that would be effin sweet and I'd probably be lookin at hitting my goal in the next 4-6 weeks. Of course, you never know, what with diminishing returns and whatnot. Plus, I still haven't been able to weigh myself for shit at the gym and naturally all this would be drastically easier if I could manage to take off 20-30 El Beez. I also need to improve my diet quite a bit, but I can't complain at all, as this is definitely the best shape I've been in since I graduated from high school.

I was always a slowish runner and never had much endurance, but I was reading something last night that definitely seemed a bit much:

http://www.mhhe.com/catalogs/sem/hhp/faculty/labs/index.mhtml?file=/catalogs/sem/hhp/labs/cardiovascular/10


That outlines cardiovascular fitness test that certain groups use (certain states' state troopers for example) to make sure their membership maintains certain minimum benchmarks. And there are the tables with percentiles by age and gender, blablabla. Now, I haven't tried to do this exact test, but if these numbers are supposed to be for the entire population, I'm kind of skeptical. At a guess based on my current walk/runs, Id say that I could do maybe 1.2 miles in 12 minutes. According to this chart, that would put me barely above the 5 percentile mark. I know that's definitely not a good distance, but doesnt like 20 percent of the population smoke??
And probably another 15-20% is very overweight to obese? There's no waaaaay alot of those people could run for 12 minutes without walking. On a different site that had the same tables and numbers, though, there was a caveat that said only people who had been on a consistent running program for several months should try the test. So wtf? Are they getting these numbers from a broad overall sampling of the country or just from people who are on running programs? Of course, it's not really that important as it is interesting from an academic standpoint, but Im always kind of curious to know what the norms are for other people. I'd say easily 60-70% of the people I know don't exercise at all, so its hard to think that 50% of guys in their 20s could up and run a mile and a half in 12 minutes when many of them haven't run at all in months. If anybody ever actually happens to read this, I'd be interested to hear others opinions.

Yes, this blog still exists

Well, I finally got back on the horse consistently starting about 9 weeks ago (first week of June), but for whatever reason I never thought to come back here and blog again. 'Tevs, running is actually going fairly well. I've completely abandoned any sort of monitoring of my weight, eating what I like and not weighing b/c my gym took it upon themselves to remove all scales from their franchises last month. Their justification, when asked, was that their top of the line $600 scales kept malfunctioning and needing replaced and it was just too costly. If you can work that out you're a better (wo) man than I, b/c wtf don't you just get a $40 scale that doesn't suck? Anyway, I've been making consistent improvement on my sorry ass running, and we are just now beginning to enter the realm of the respectable. I went out running tonight outside since the mind-numbing humidity actually died down a bit, but yesterday's numbers in the gym were 421 cals in 28 minutes/2 cooldown with roughly 22/6 minutes run/jog. Cals are for 230 LBs, which is what I weighed last time I checked a month ago.

Got sick again Gahhhh

Repeat everything I said in the last post, blablabla, sigh. I got sick again after I made that post, my sadly predictable slow convalescing and rehashing and lingering illness thing at work, what can you do. I was actually surprised that my enthusiasm (read: mild interest) for exercise had maintained for the first few weeks, but was whittled down to a small nugget after the 5 weeks it took me
to finally get better. But I did get better, fucking finally, face. And today was my 4th day back in the gym, and at least the attendant energy is coming back nicely. But of course, Im in nowhere near the shape I was before I got sick, and it's going to take another 4-5 weeks probably, to get back there. Im definitely not as bad as when I started all this, but you can't help but lose what you gain when you're ass is on the couch all the time. And I still haven't managed to get my eating back to anywhere near where it was, but one thing at a time. On the bright side, Im at about 6 months without a cigarette and that's not even really a thought on my mind anymore, and I've still been sticking to a ton of bottled water with very little soda, and taking regular vitamins as well. Consistency, rought rott??