Andrew is getting fit

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I completed week 06 day 02 yesterday afternoon. This involved two ten minute runs with a five minute walk break in between.

The first ten minutes was easy. The break went by rather quickly. The second ten minutes was mentally rather tough. It’s surprising as I knew I could do it as I’d done a twenty minute run before without a break.

It just reinforces my belief that running and exercise is more mental than physical. I’m quite pleased with how far I’ve come with my running now. I had a look back at some of my earlier posts and being able to run 3 minutes was a major achievement. Now 3 minutes seems like a breeze and I’m well over half way to my 5km.

Thanks to all of you who have been cheering me on. It’s extremely motivating!

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A funny thing happened today. I was in the gym locker room after my workout and was heading for the shower wearing nothing but a towel (stop picturing me in my towel!) and I bumped into one of my colleagues - as you do.

Quoth he:

“I feel I must say this. You are looking so good lately. You must be feeling great too.”

It’s the first time I’ve been complimented by a semi naked man.

I must have hit a tipping point with my weightloss as people are starting to notice and tell me.

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I completed C25K Week 06 Day 01 earlier this week. I’m only reporting it now as some twit hacked my hosting companies webservers and my site has been down this whole week.

In week 06 you do a different routine on each day. I’ll report in on the other days in separate posts. For day 01 you start off with a 5 minute walk. This is followed by a 5 minute run and then a 3 minute walk. You then do a 8 minute run followed by a 3 minute walk. The final run is 5 minutes and after a few minutes cooling down you are done.

I did this one outside as it was a beautiful day and I wanted to try running in a park that is very close to my house. It was relatively easy after my last run which was 20 minutes in a row.

This is the last week of interval runs so it’s going to be interesting from here on in.

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Today I weighed in at 105.7 kg (233 pounds) which is a loss of half a kg (1.1 pounds). This is lower than it has been but I’m not particularly surprised as I have done pretty much no exercise besides one run in this last week due to my bronchitis.

I’m quite pleased that I managed to lose weight this week even though I was sick. Sickness is normally associated with weight gain for me as I tend to indulge in comfort food. This time round I stuck to eating healthy and it seems to have paid off.

That’s one more packet of butter gone.

Tags: Weigh in by AndrewE
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I’m back from illness. I won’t say I’m 100% yet. Probably only 85% but I decided to go to the gym today. I figured a light workout would be good.

I decided that I would do a bit of a walk on the treadmill. So I started to walk and I felt quite good. Then I thought, might as well do a light run, just 5 minutes so that I don’t get too out of shape on the running. And what do you know, I kept running for twenty minutes which means I completed week 05 of the couch to 5K program.

I’m rather pleased.

It also meant thatI have achieved another one of my personal running milestones. I ran for over 3km today. I think I ran for 3.4 km in my 20 mins. I also suspect that this is the longest I have run in my life. Which is a bit sad but it is also an achievement.

So I’m rather pleased now.

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Good news today, I must have coughed out some weight. I’m down to 106.2 kgs (234.1 pounds) which is a loss of 1.4 kg (3.1 pounds) for the week.

In other news, I’m still sick so am going back to bed.

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As promised here is a photo of me with the butter equivalent of the weight I’ve lost.

That’s 64 500 gram blocks of butter in that trolley. Here’s a closeup:

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It’s still early in the morning and it’s already been a good day. I’ve achieved some personal milestones today and I thought I would share.

Firstly, I completed day two of week 05 of the C25K program. That means I am officially over the half way point. Today I had to do two runs of eight minutes each with a five minute brisk walk in between. I found this surprisingly easy. The first eight minutes shot by and my heart rate never went higher than 158 the whole time. The second eight minutes the highest my heart rate went was 164 bpm. I’m mighty impressed with how my body has adapted itself. Five short weeks ago my heart rate was up at 172 bpm doing a 60 second run! The last three minutes of the second run was reasonably tough but there was never any doubt in my mind that I would finish it. I gave a loud ‘Hell yeah!’ once I finished. Fortunately nobody seemed to notice.

My first milestone leads into my second milestone as well. One of my goals on 43 things is to be able to run 1km in a row. Well, today I did it. My eight minute runs today both covered 1.3 km. That means I did it twice! Very happy. It’s not much to some but to me it’s fantastic. My next running goal is to be able to do 3km in a row and coincidentally my next session of C25K should see me achieve that goal as well.

My third milestone that I achieved today is also one of my goals on 43 things. It is to be able to do 25 pushups in a row. Well what do you know, I managed to do that before my run this morning. My next goal will to be to do 30 in a row.

It’s amazing how far I’ve come in just a short while. I never thought I’d be able to run but now, after a few short weeks my body has adapted and shown me that all things are possible.

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Well, I’m at the halfway week of the C25K program and it is going well. Week 05 is a bit different in that each day has a different workout. Up until now you did the same workout for each of the days during a given week.

Week 05 Day 01 of the C25K program consists of a brisk five-minute warmup walk, then the following: Run 5 minutes, Walk 3 minutes, Run 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 5 minutes and then a five minute cooldown walk.

I managed to do it reasonably comfortably. It was definitely easier than any of the week 04 runs for some reason. Maybe I’m getting fitter?

If you have a look at my 43 things list in the sidebar you’ll notice that one of them is to run 1 km. Technically I ran 2.4 km today but not all in a row. At the speed I was going I ran 3 stints of 800m. I’m really looking forward to Friday’s run as that involves running over a km at a time. I can mark another of my fitness goals as achieved!

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32 kilograms down so far. That is equal to 64 packets of butter.

I’m rather stunned actually. That’s a lot of butter.

Tags: Life, Milestones by AndrewE
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