Andrew is getting fit

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I went along to Round the Bays today.  Round the Bays has been an annual event in Auckland since 1972, when the Auckland Joggers Club initiated it. The first run attracted 1200 participants and has now grown to be one of the world’s largest fun-runs with an estimated 70,000 participants.

The run is 8.4km long over a flat course that follows the contours of Auckland’s harbour.

The course is really beautiful, and winds along the coast.

I walked this with my lovely wife. My original plan was to take the little monster my lovely daughter along and carry her in my baby backpack. But fortunately my wife’s cousin volunteered to babysit and all of a sudden that seemed like a much better idea.

We got dropped off near the start line about half an hour before the start. Unfortunately the marshals were on to sneaky buggers like us and we got sent to the back of the pack which was about 1km away.

Once we got going we started to meet up with people we knew and a group of us walked along for about 4 km. It was really nice as there was thousands and thousands of people walking and jogging. I never saw the serious runners as they were too far ahead of us.

About 4km into the race my wife really needed a pitstop and so joined the queue outside the bathrooms at Okahu Bay. Forty five minutes later she rejoined me. That is not a typo! It really took over 45 minutes for the ladies queue! While she was queuing the police and marshals had passed us closing the course so I thought we were going to come in dead last! I had sent all our friends on after waiting about ten minutes as I had figured that she wouldn’t be too long and we could catch up. Once she came out we decided that it would be good to try and catch up so we alternated bursts of running with some extremely fast walking and we caught up with them about 750 metres before the end. We did not finish last at all as we managed to pass a lot of people (with baby strollers and what not). In the end we took 2 hours and 10 minutes to complete the course and considering the long pit stop involved we were ok with that.

It was a really great day. The atmosphere was brilliant and it was a lot of fun. It’s the first time I’ve taken part in an event like this and I’d definitely like to do it again.

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Tags: Life, fitness by AndrewE
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Yesterday, I completed the Couch to 5K program. I started the program in mid January and now, in Mid March, I can run 5 km in a row.

Along the way I’ve done the following:

1. I ran at least 46.5 km. I didn’t start recording my distance until I got up to20 minute runs so I have actually run a little more.
2. I got bronchitis and didn’t let it derail me! In many respects this was the biggest change for the improvement for me. In the past whenever I’ve gotten sick I’ve used it as an excuse to return to my old habits i.e. overindulging in comfort food, giving up on the gym etc. I’m very pleased that I did not give up on everything when it happened this time. I really think that having this blog helped me stay on track and focused.
3. I’ve lost about 20 pounds.
4. I’ve been called a bastard. (Sorry Marshie, couldn’t resist!)
5. I’ve been called an inspiration.
6. I posed with a lot of butter!
7. I attracted a lot of strange people who are doing google searches for “naked fit men in the gym” with this post.
8. I’ve entered my first 5K race. Less than 2 weeks to go!
9. I’ve amazed myself and a few others I think. I never believed that I would be able to run and now I can.

I still find it really incredible how quickly our bodies can adapt to the various stresses we put upon them. I’ve learnt quite a bit about myself over the last few weeks and have a better appreciation of what I am capable of now.

I’d like to thank all of you who read my blog and have offered such great supportive comments and helpful bits of advice. I don’t think I could have done it without you. I’d especially like to thank my ever suffering wife who has had to put up with me being a bit obsessed and single minded about things lately. She has supported me in all my decisions and darling, if you read this, I love you.

Next week I start the One Hour Runner program!

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Tags: C25K, Life, Milestones, fitness by AndrewE
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I went for a run in the Auckland Domain earlier today.

The Auckland Domain is the oldest park in Auckland and is a great place to go for a lunchtime run. There are quite a few tree lined tracks that are ideal for running along. As an added bonus it is a two and a half minute walk from my workplace, which makes me wonder why I didn’t think about running there before.

You may recall that I had expressed some paranoia a few anxieties about going out and running outside with a partner. Turns out that it was a lot of fun. My running partner is from Hawaii and had a lot of interesting things to say about it. Running outside is nice and not nearly as boring as running on the treadmill.

We ran about 5.2 km in about 36 minutes which is slower than my treadmill pace but I noticed that it was a lot easier at that pace. I think I will try and go slightly faster for my next one but I was taking it easy today as it was my first outdoor run of this distance.

I used the Google Pedometer to work out how far we went:

It was good and I’m looking forward to my next run. Incidentally, that is week 8 day 3 of C25K completed.

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Tags: C25K, Uncategorized, running by AndrewE
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Running is tough. More so mentally than physically I think. I’ve noticed that if I spend the same amount of time on the elliptical crosstrainer then I burn almost as many calories but I feel fine afterwards. After my run I’m pretty buggered and take a good twenty minutes or so to start thinking like a normal human being again.

I have this problem in that I try to do too much. Take today’s run. My rational mind said you’ve already proven that you can do 5 km so take it easy and just build up a good base. Of course, super competitive inner Andrew takes over and says I WILL SET A NEW PR and sets the treadmill at a fast pace. Of course after about 18 minutes I felt absolutely buggered and had to slow down a lot for a while in the middle. I still managed to finish the 5 km and funnily enough I set exactly the same time as I did on Monday (29:36) which was really weird.

I bumped into one of my colleagues in the gym on Monday and yesterday he asked me if I would be keen to go running in the Domain one day.

I immediately thought OH MY GOD I’ll be too slow and am too fat and started to think how I could get out of it so I started to make an excuse, but then stopped and thought why not? So to cut a long story short we are going running on Friday and I reckon it should be fun. I want to transition to running more outside now that I am running longer distances so this should be a good start.

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Tags: C25K, running by AndrewE
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Seeing as I ran 5K on Monday I have decided to treat this as my final week on C25K. On Friday I should finish the program so I need to decide what I will do next. One of the goals I have set myself is to do the Quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon this year. The quarter is 10.2 km so I need to train myself up to run 10K. Fortunately this is in November so I have some time to get there but I think it would be good to start training for it early.

I find I tend to do well when I can follow a program so I’ve decided that I will follow another training program to get me to 10 km.

There seem to be two major programs recommended to take you to 10K (or one hour of running).

The first is Hal Higdon’s Spring Training. This takes 12 weeks to get you to 6 miles (approx 10K) but it involves running most days and that might be a bit awkward.

The second is Cool Running’s The One Hour Runner. This takes a minimum of ten weeks (depending on how you go you can add weeks in) and involves running 3 times a week.

I quite like the routine of running 3 times a week only so I’ve decided to go with that.

The One Hour Runner program is as follows:

Weeks 1 - 3: Right now you are running 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Your weekly commitment of time is 90 minutes. Continue doing this for three weeks.

Week 4: Run 30 minutes, 29 minutes, 35 minutes. Weekly total: 94 minutes

Week 5: Run 30 minutes, 32 minutes, 38 minutes Weekly total: 100 minutes

Week 6: Run 30 minutes, 33 minutes, 41 minutes Weekly total: 104 minutes

Week 7: Run 30 minutes, 34 minutes, 45 minutes Weekly total: 109 minutes

Week 8: Run 30 minutes, 36 minutes , 49 minute Weekly total: 115 minutes

Week 9: Run 30 minutes, 38 minutes, 54 minutes Weekly total: 122 minutes

Week 10: Run 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes Weekly total: 130 minutes

So what I will do is finish C25K this week and then launch straight into OHR as the first 3 weeks of OHR are the same as the last week of C25K.

I’m also going to run all of the Run Auckland series races (circumstances permitting). These are 5K or 10K races so I will aim to run them on my 30 minute days as I’m planning on doing them as 5K races. Having said that I may do the last one as a 10K if I have managed to run 10 km by then. Of course, this all assumes that I enjoy the 1st 5K event which is about 3 weeks away

Boy, times have changed for me. A few months ago I would have said you were nuts if you told me I’d be pondering which running program to take.

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Tags: C25K, OHR, fitness, running by AndrewE
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Well, I gave out a loud and proud “Hell yeah!” today when I RAN 5KM!

This was a tough, tough run. I started off thinking it would be nice to run the full 5K today so I thought I would start out a little faster than normal and started off at 10.5kph. I kept this up till halfway and truth be told up until then it wasn’t too bad. However, the second half was really tough. I kept on thinking one more minute and by the time the last 5 minutes rolled up I had abandoned all pretensions of completing the 5K. I was thinking …today’s run is only supposed to be 28 minutes I’ll stop then… However, 28 minutes arrived and I had done 4.6 km so I thought…one more lap…I can do this. So I ran a bit more. And I made it. 5KM in 29:36.

C25K rocks!

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Tags: C25K, Milestones, fitness, running by AndrewE
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Today I weighed in at 102.8 kg (227 pounds) which is a loss of 1.6 kg (3.5 pounds) this week. I’m not too sure why I am losing weight so fast but I’ll blame it on the running.

I’ve achieved a few milestones this week:

1. I got my bmi under 30 so am now overweight and not obese. Some people have found it funny that I am celebrating being overweight.

2. I hit 80 pounds lost this week. That’s quite a a bit of butter.

3. I did a measure up this week and my waist to hip ratio is now within the healthy range.

Overall, some great results. For some reason, I always find it easier to stick to a healthy lifestyle when I’m seeing results as I’m sure most people do.

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Tags: Milestones, Weigh in by AndrewE
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It is a gorgeous day here in sunny Auckland. Last night my baby daughter slept through the night. The first we heard of her was at 6:20am. This is unheard of and glorious.

This morning, my wife, daughter and I went off to the local farmers market and had a potter about. I bought a mini vegetarian pizza and a nutella crepe for breakfast and washed them down with a moccacino. And it was gooood.

Since then I’ve been out in the garden doing my lawns, watering my trees, weeding and general yard work while listening to an audio book on my ipod. It’s been very relaxing and peaceful even though I’ve been quite busy.

I’m about to head out to the library with the family as we are running low on books to read to the baby.

What does any of this have to do with getting fit? Nothing. It’s just a wonderful day and I thought I would share.

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Tags: Life by AndrewE
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I completed Week 07 of C25K this morning. I decided to change my approach today and go a bit slower in the beginning and see how it felt. So I set the the treadmill at 9.5 kph instead of my normal ten and then increased it by .1 kph every minute. This meant that I did the first half slower than I have in the past but the second half slightly faster. I think they call that doing negative splits. I have to admit that I found the going much easier. I didn’t really start to tire until just past the 20 minute mark. I was very glad when my 25 minutes was up. Next week it’s 28 minutes. I suspect that I may be tempted to try and do 5km sometime next week as well rather than waiting for the week after. I’ll try and resist but we’ll see.

I’m quite pleased that I’ve managed to stick with C25K and I’m really surprised at how well it has worked for me. I’m running further than I have ever done in my life and that is great.

My gym membership came up for renewal today and I have to say it’s money well spent. I’ve been going to the gym most weekdays for about four and half years now. Most of the time I have focused on cardio fitness but for the last 9 months or so I’ve also been doing strength training. I think my general fitness is reasonable as I definitely work out more than most people I know. Eating the wrong things (and lots of them) has always been my main problem not exercise. That may help to explain why C25K has worked reasonably well for me.
Anyways, I thought I should get a fitness assessment done so I’ve booked one in at the gym. It should be interesting as I’ve never had an official assessment done. I’ll post the results up here.

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Tags: C25K by AndrewE
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Now I know that the whole BMI thing is crap. But still…arbitrary validation feels so good.

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Tags: Milestones by AndrewE
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