Week 1 Review

All right, how did week 1 of my "reboot" go?  Let's break it down.

Exercise: Made it to the gym four times, for 45-minutes of cardio (either treadmill or elliptical) each time.  My goal is five, but for the first week, I'm satisfied.

Nutrition: I'll rate myself a solid C here.  Made some good decisions for meals, but also some bad decisions.  Also, drank more than I should have if I really want to lose weight.  But, I'm still satisfied since this will be my biggest challenge, by far.  Slow and steady.

Good/Bad/Ugly: Overall, I feel good about the first week.  I actually "gained" 3 pounds, but given there was a Packer game on Sunday and my weigh-in is Monday morning... yeah, that's never going to go well.  :)

This week

• Get to the gym five days - already on track, made it there this morning
• Plan dinners for five nights (to avoid going out to eat as much) - This is done, although I can't take credit since Erin did most of the work. :)
• Plan lunches for Monday - Friday - This is "done" in the sense that I intend to eat leftovers for all my lunches

Onward!

Back to Basics

It's been awhile since we've talked, you and I.  As you probably figured out, my marathon training is not going according to plan.  I've officially cancelled my plans to run the marathon at the end of this month.  There are a multitude of reasons why this happened, and also why it took me so long to write this post, but the most important ones are:

• The weight I gained prior to the start of my marathon training impacted me way more than I expected.  My long runs were painful - both during and for days after
• I really underestimated the level of commitment needed to do this training.  I knew it would be more difficult than the half-marathon, but it really was a much bigger leap than I anticipated
• We lost one of our dogs about a month ago.  This didn't directly impact my decision to stop the training (since I had already put it on pause) but it did directly impact how long it took me to get back on track

So - what's the plan now?  I still want to do a marathon, but I'm going to be more realistic about my goals.  I need to get to a base level of fitness before I try something like that again.

I'm not a big fan of new years resolutions, but I AM a fan of setting concrete, achievable goals - and also differentiating between goals and the plan to achieve those goals.  So, here we go:

Goals for 2015

• Lose 30 lbs
• PR a 5K
• PR a 10K
• PR a Half Marathon

Plan

• Go to the gym at least 5 days a week
• Take weekly measurements and record them (weight, inches, etc)
• Blog once per week
• Nutrition (more on this in a future blog post)

I'm undecided if I'll post the measurements I take here - I might - but at the very least I want to use this as a way to record how things are going.  Also, the plan to achieve these goals will get more detail as the year goes on.  For example, at some point I'll pick out the races I'll be doing and I'll have specific plans for those races.

Anyways - I'm glad to be back here, even if it did really suck to have to write this post.  But I'm committed to making this work and that's what is going to happen.

-John

Not Dead Yet...

Total Miles: 461
Miles Completed: 75
Miles Missed: 26
Miles Remaining: 360

No, I haven't given up.  I have, however, been quite sick for the last week.  I'm finally feeling human again and I intend to get right back at it.  I missed an entire week of running... but nothing I can do about that now except move forward.

My good friend Zach is currently running the New York marathon (his first marathon ever) and I'm going to use that as a little more motivation for me to kick some ass this week.

In the 300's

Total Miles: 461
Miles Completed:57
Miles Missed: 8
Miles Remaining: 396

Just got done with my 9-mile run (it went very well, by the way).  According to the interwebs I burned about 1,700 calories, so if you'll excuse me...

Progress, not perfection

Miles Completed: 38
Miles Remaining: 423

I saw the movie the Equalizer last weekend and the above quote was mentioned.  I've heard it before, of course, but for some reason it stuck with me this time.  I did a search to see if I could find the source and a lot of references to Alcoholics Anonymous came up, which I found funny for some reason.

Quick training recap
Week 1: All runs completed, including my first long run while on vacation.  That one was a tough one, because it was 85 degrees, sunny, and no shade.  But I did it.

Week 2: An astute observer would notice that my mileage above is not quite where it should be.   This week was not the greatest.  I missed my Tuesday run, did my Wednesday run, and then did my Thursday run on Friday.  I did complete my long run, though.  7 miles - the first half was HORRIBLE.  The second half was probably the best run I've had in a long time.  Strange.

Week 3: Going well so far.  My long run is all that is left, and it is only 5 miles this week.

The reason that quote stuck with me is that I've been beating myself up about week 2.  However, when I really look at it, I only missed 3 miles.  And I did the most important run - the long run.  AND I came back this week and did all my runs even while having to drive extra far to and from work (I'm working at a new client).

Plus, I'll likely make up those 3 miles in the next few weeks somewhere - just fit it in to my training schedule.  Some of you might be thinking that I might be cheating a little bit, but guess what? YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Your move, fat and out-of-shape body!

First long run completed!  Your move!

And now for something completely different

Miles Completed: 9
Miles Remaining: 452

Ahoy there.  So, the first three days of training are done.  How do I feel?  Let's take an inventory:

Physical: Not too bad.  Not really sore, no warning signs like a pain in my knee, or foot, or anything like that.  Fairly tired, but work has been a killer lately and I got up early on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to go running so I guess that is to be expected.  Overall, I'll say I feel pretty good.

Mental: It has been great to get up in the morning and go for runs.  I feel energized after I'm done (duh).  Of course, actually rolling out of bed is difficult but once I'm up it isn't a problem.  I've definitely noticed my mood has been better at work as well, which is a nice bonus.

So - why the hell am I doing this, anyways?  Well, I've realized over the last year or so that I really need to have a big goal out there to motivate me to get in shape and lead a healthier lifestyle.  Generally, for me, "losing weight" or "getting in shape" isn't going to cut it.  Even when I started gaining a bunch of weight and all my clothes stopped fitting it wasn't enough of a motivation.

So, that's part of it.  However, I'm also well aware that running a marathon simply to get in shape isn't going to provide me enough willpower to get through those long runs.  There needs to be more.

And now for something completely different.

In the past, I have said I would never run a marathon.  I mean, 5+ hours of running?  Are you on crack?  That sounds HORRIBLE.

I'm going to take this on BECAUSE I said that in the past.  What the hell do I know, anyways?  I'm sure at one point I said the same thing about a 5K.  You know what?  I ran three of those, three days in a row this week.  AND I DIDN'T DIE.  I think, one day soon, I'll look back on this marathon and say the same thing.  Well, maybe not about doing three of them in three days.  Because that's just crazy talk.