Andrew is getting fit

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There is a great article over at Slate on Vegetarians: I may be a vegetarian, but I still love the smell of bacon. I’m definitely one of those vegetarians who still loves the smell of bacon.

First off here’s a great definition of what a vegetarian is:

To demonstrate what a vegetarian really is, let’s begin with a simple thought experiment. Imagine a completely normal person with completely normal food cravings, someone who has a broad range of friends, enjoys a good time, is carbon-based, and so on. Now remove from this person’s diet anything that once had eyes, and, wham!, you have yourself a vegetarian. Normal person, no previously ocular food, end of story. Some people call themselves vegetarians and still eat chicken or fish, but unless we’re talking about the kind of salmon that comes freshly plucked from the vine, this makes you an omnivore. A select few herbivores go one step further and avoid all animal products—milk, eggs, honey, leather—and they call themselves vegan, which rhymes with “tree men.” These people are intense.

My beloved wife when I read this said “What about shellfish?” I have no idea if shellfish have eyes or not but they’re on the banned list too.

This next bit also resonates:

Which leads me to a vital point for friendly omnivore-herbivore relations. As you’re enjoying that pork loin next to me, I am not silently judging you. I realize that anyone who has encountered the breed of smug vegetarian who says things like, “I can hear your lunch screaming,” will find this tough to believe, but I’m honestly not out to convert you.

I have no problem with people who eat meat. It’s a personal decision on my part and I don’t expect anyone to change their eating habits based on what I do.

Finally, grant me one more cordial request: Please don’t try to convince us that being vegetarian is somehow wrong. If you’re concerned for my health, that’s very nice, though you can rest assured that I’m in shipshape. If you want to have an amiable tête-à-tête about vegetarianism, that’s great. But if you insist on being the aggressive blowhard who takes meatlessness as a personal insult and rails about what fools we all are, you’re only going to persuade me that you’re a dickhead.

That just cracked me up. It’s so true. I’m not totally shipshape yet but I’m getting there. I think I may have been one of those dickheads back in the past. Oh well, sic vita.

One thing that he didn’t mention (or I missed it) and I don’t know if this is common elsewhere but I’ve noticed that it’s much more generally accepted for women to be vegetarians than it is for men? It seems to be quite a common theme.

Tags: Life by AndrewE
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I weighed in at 97.28 kgs (214.5 pounds) this morning according to Physics Diet. That means I had a weekly loss of .91 kgs (just over 2 pounds) which I’ll gladly take.

I had a good week eatingwise and exercisewise except I had a bit too much bread on the weekend. I blame Metroknow for making me lust after bread with his great articles.

For those who missed it I had a great race over the weekend.

Tags: Weigh in by AndrewE
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Today I participated in Race 3 of the Run Auckland series.

The race briefing email stated that there was no parking at the actual event as they’d blocked off all the parks so that we could run freely. The organisers recommended that we parked next to a local high school and take the track that leads down to the starting area. So I thought I would take their advice. I thought I knew which track they were talking about but I went to the wrong one and ended up being about 2 kilometres away from the start. This wasn’t a problem however as it was a nice morning for a walk.

I had planned on arriving at the venue about 45 minutes early as I had to pick up my timing chip before the race started. I made the cutoff time with plenty to spare so headed off to use the facilities. One advantage of the venue was that there was heaps of public restrooms. Race 1 only had 3 portaloos which wasn’t really enough.

The course today was flat and straight. A nice run alongside the beach. Up the beach and down again was 2.5 km. We 5Kers had to do two laps and the 10Kers had to do 4.

The 10Kers started at 9AM and once again most of the participants appeared to have chosen to compete in this event.

We 5Kers were due to start at 9:20 in order to give the field time to spread. This was actually quite nice as we got to see the 10Kers running. The really fast ones did 2 laps before we even started and they were mighty impressive. One of the highlights was seeing Nina Rillstone who is representing New Zealand at the Olympics this year competing in the 10K - she finished it in 33:29. I’ve never seen a lady that skinny yet muscly before.

My best time in a 5K race was 31:01 which I set in my very first race. In my misdirected second race I set a time of 33:48 but ran an extra kilometre as I took a wrong turn. For this race I was hoping to set a PR. I kept telling myself that anything under 28 minutes would be great but secretly I was hoping for around 27 minutes. My fastest times in training have been around 28ish and I’ve always felt I could go a little faster in an actual race where I would push myself harder than I do in training.

At 9:20AM my race started and I was off. I actually had a great starting slot this time as there weren’t as many people doing the 5K event. I was in the second row which was great.

At the 800m mark we ran past a cafe full of bemused looking people. I could just see them thinking look at all these crazy buggers. Part of me longed to be in the cafe having a moccachino and a croissant.

I did my normal trick of starting really fast! Big mistake I know. My first kilometre was my fastest kilometre ever at 4:45. I was thinking uh oh, I’m going to die on the last leg. I MUST slow down! In the finest tradition of ignoring that little voice inside of you, my second kilometre was my second fastest ever at 4:59.

I hit the second lap and my legs were starting to let me know that they weren’t too keen on this running business. Why the hell are we doing this? We could be at home in bed. I slowed down quite a bit but was still on record pace during my 3rd and 4th kilometre. The last kilometer was tough but I kept thinking RUN YOU BASTARD! and so I did. I kept trying to overtake the people ahead of me as a means of motivation.

The finish line loomed and as I started to sprint I got chicked! A young lady zoomed past me and there was nothing I could do to haul her in. I tried hard but she crossed the line a good two metres in front of me. I pressed stop on my Garmin and looked at my time. 25:18!!! I not only beat my expectations I smashed em!

Unfortunately I couldn’t celebrate as I was trying hard not to throw up. I’m not quite over that cold yet.

I then had the long walk back to my car. One thing I failed to mention was that my car was parked at the top of a cliff and there were stairs leading back up to it. I hadn’t really noticed them coming down. But I noticed them going back up. 116 of them. I really noticed them going up!

Overall a great race and a great day. According to the provisional results I’ve finshed 6th in my age group and 18th out of all the men. I’m not too fussed about that but I will treasure my PR which is actually 25:17 according to the official results! .

Tags: Milestones, PR, running by AndrewE
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It’s funny but over the last few weeks I’ve noticed a few annoying things about losing a lot of weight.

• The first and foremost of these is that I’m so cold! I used to sleep with a window open in the middle of winter as I was always feeling hot. Now, I’m wearing vests under my shirts during the day because I’m cooooold.  And it’s not even winter yet.
• My wedding ring is loose and falling off my finger. It is in desperate need of a resize.
• My clothes don’t fit! This is a real problem for me. Pretty much 95% of my clothes are too big now. I don’t really want to spend more money on clothing as I’m still losing so I’m a bit of a baggy mess. Thankfully I have some jeans that fit (bought the wrong size by mistake years ago and much to my joy I’m finally wearing them!) and of course my running gear fits.
• People telling me I’ve lost enough weight. This is very annoying as well. Fair enough I’ve lost a lot but I’m still quite overweight by any objective measure.  I’m on a roll folks, stop telling me to stop!
• Let’s not talk about the floppy belly skin.
• People not recognising me.  I was at an alumni reunion on Tuesday and it was a really good night.  The only problem was so many of my former students didn’t recognise me.  Come on folks I’ve only lost 90 odd pounds and grown a beard since you last saw me!

Then again, why am I whinging complaining? All these things are aboslutely brilliant! Visible signs of success. They’re still annoying thought. How about you guys? Anything that particularly bugs you?

In other news, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me so I thought I would get a morning run in.  I got up at 5:00 AM got dressed and had a smoothie then headed out the door.  I did the same loop that I did in my night run the other day and I’ve reached the conclusion that I need to find another loop, especially while I’ve still got this annoying cold.  The first mile of the loop is uphill and it gets me really tired before I’ve even started to really run.  I think it was exacerbated today by my cold and lack of fuel.  I don’t think the smoothie was enough.

And did I mention that it was pouring down with rain?  One of my worries has been running in the rain but it’s no problem at all.  With my cap on I can run just fine.  The glasses haven’t been fogging up yet so it’s all good.

Two more days till my next 5K race!

Tags: Life, running by AndrewE
52 Comments »

The plan today was to do a nice big loop around the waterfront then back through the city. I was hoping to do about 8 km. The run down to the waterfront was great. I don’t know why but I was running quite fast (by my standards) and had to make a concious effort to slow down. I think I was just really in the mood for a run and was glad to be out and about! Once I got to the waterfront I ran around the Hilton again and then headed off into the Viaduct area. The plan was then to head around the waterfront to the Harbour bridge and then cut through the city to the finish.

However, I took a wrong turn somewhere and while I was going in the right general direction I wasn’t 100% sure where I was. I saw a promising looking track and headed off down it. It progressed for about 50 metres and then there was a sharp turn and what did I see. A staircase! I don’t know why but I seem to have a talent for finding staircases. This was no ordinary staircase. There was a big sign at the bottom saying Jacob’s Ladder. Boy it was steep. It went up about 90 steps and I did not enjoy it! The only picture of it that I could find was here.

I then ran through suburbia looking for a street that would take me back to the shoreline. I finally found one (after running through many hilly little side streets) and it took me into Westhaven Reserve. There is a great track that runs along the shoreline and under the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The track then runs into Westhaven Marina and the thousands of boats moored there. I could definitely tell why they call Auckland the City of Sails as I ran past all the boats. I then ended up at the point where I had made the wrong turn earlier so I decided to just go back the way I had originally come.

At this point I had already done about 7 km and I was still 4 km from where I wanted to be. I decided I would change my run to a 10K run and use the last km to cool down.

Those last three kilometres were rather tough but it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and I just kept going. I’ll freely admit that I was sorely tempted to pull into one of the many cafes in downtown Auckland and get a Mocha but I didn’t.

I did 10.29 km in 1:01:29 which means my average pace was 5:59 per km which is my fastest yet on a 10 km run. I actually hit 10K at 59:45 which is my first sub 1 hour 10K run. Funnily enough I thought I was going a lot slower than the other day when I thought I was going fast. Maybe my Garmin was is playing tricks on me.

Not long to go till my next 5K on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to that.

Tags: running by AndrewE
17 Comments »

I have my next 5K race on Sunday so in order to get all my runs in this week I need to run Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  I like to have at least one day off between each run.

As such, seeing as today is Monday, I needed to get a run in.  Unfortunately my schedule was pretty full today so I had to run after dinner.  This was the first time I ran in the dark and in the rain. Truth be told it was rather nice.

There is a 5K loop very close to my house that my wife and I often walk and I thought it would be great to run it.

The first half of the run was uphill and the rain started just when I really needed it. I was all hot and already tired from running uphill and a gentle drizzle started to come down and it was great as it cooled me down very nicely. A few minutes in and it got quite a bit heavier but it never bothered me at all. I didn’t even have my running cap on as I’d left it next to the front door (so that I wouldn’t forget it on my way out…).  Turns out the fogging up of the glasses only happens when you stop running.

I don’t know why but I felt really fast today. The run went really well and I was really enjoying it. However, when I got back home and checked the Garmin it turns out that I was going a lot slower than I thought I was. I guess the uphill in the first half took most of my energy. I did 4.7 km in 27:53 so it wasn’t too bad. Why only 4.7 km instead of 5 km? Well I was going to do a loop of the cricket grounds at the end of my run but it had turned into a mudpit so I thought bugger that for a lark and just ran home instead.

I’ve got an alumni event at work tomorrow and it should be really interesting. I’ll be meeting a lot of people who haven’t seen me since I was 42 kgs (90 odd pounds) heavier than I am now. Should be fun.

Tags: running by AndrewE
28 Comments »

I weighed in at 97.8 kgs (216 pounds) this morning. That’s down 1.9 kgs from last week which is fairly meaningless as my weight fluctuated quite a lot on the day of my weigh in last week.

As such, I’ve decided I’m going to switch to displaying my Physics Diet weight. With the physics diet you weigh yourself everyday and it works out a moving average. I’ll still continue to report this once a week.

As such my weight is now officially 98.1 kgs which is down .5 kg from last week.
My average daily calorie deficit for the week was 674 calories and my BMI is 28.2.  You can see my public profile here if you are interested in taking a look.

Hopefully using the Physics Diet system will enable me to focus more on my weightloss trend rather than the specific number on the day of my weigh in.

As an aside I had something rather funny happen over the weekend. I put my ipod touch down on the roof of my car while I was putting some groceries in the boot and then drove off with it still on the roof. I was almost home before I remembered. Luckily for me I have stuck my ipod touch in a rubber sheath to protect it from being dropped and knocked about (I’m a little rough on electronic goods at times) and the rubber had gripped the car and it was still on the roof when I pulled over to check! Good on Apple for making low profile devices!

Tags: Tools, Weigh in by AndrewE
18 Comments »

Don’t decide to do a run with a lot of hills when you are recovering from a cold!

I woke up this morning at 4:45am as my daughter was demanding her bottle in the way babies do. It sounded like it was raining so I thought bugger running and I went back to bed after feeding her. I then got rudely awakened again at 7am by my darling daughter who had decided that it was time to get up and play. This is actually quite a good lie in so I wasn’t too unhappy.

I was feeling very phlegmy and it was drizzling so again I thought bugger running and went off to get my breakfast. After my coffee and a lovely omelette I was feeling a bit more lively and looked out the window again and the sun was shining and I thought bugger running but went and got my running gear on.

I wanted to do about 10 km this morning as I haven’t run as much as I should this week due to my cold. I decided that I would do a loop that incorporated parts of some of the other runs I have done as it should be approximately 10K. The advantage of this loop is that it starts and stops at my house so there was no need to drive anywhere. However, one thing I hadn’t factored in was that this loop was rather hilly.

I started off by running along Shore Rd which is the route I take when I’m walking home. I then ran up a very steep hill to St Stephens Ave and down to Resolution Pt. A quick gander at the beautiful view and then down to Tamaki drive and along to the Boat Sheds. I was then in the home stretch but when I looked at my Garmin I realised that I had only done about 7 km so I veered off into the Orakei Basin and ran through it.

I passed a walker as I went into the Basin. There is a little pier in the Basin and I ran to the end of it and had a quick pause to swig some of my water and admire the view. As I was doing this the walker passed me. I then continued running and quickly passed her again and she very nicely got out of my way saying “I’m a lot slower than you.” Hah! About 100 metres further along there were some a hell of a lot of stairs and they totally wiped me out. Guess who should come along and comfortably sprint up them. That damn walker. “I’m a lot slower than you” I said as she sprinted past grinning. Thankfully once I got to the top it was pretty much downhill all the way home.

Overall I did 10.5 km in 1:10:12 which I was rather pleased with. I felt really tired and wiped out by the hills but I recovered quickly once I finished which shows that my fitness is improving. I’m so glad that I decided to go for my run even though I wasn’t feeling 100%. Hopefully it helps me knock this head cold out as well.

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
18 Comments »

I’m participating in the Runner’s Lounge Take It and Run Thursday session. This week we have to post questions on our blogs. So here are mine:

Winter is looming for us Southern Hemisphere types and if I want to continue running outside I’ll have to run in the rain.

What wet weather gear do you recommend?

And for those runners who are optically challenged: How do you stop your glasses from steaming up?

Tags: running by AndrewE
27 Comments »

Remember how I posted I had a cold on Monday? Well today is Friday here in sunny rainy New Zealand and I’ve still got it and it’s damn annoying. Work has been incredibly busy this week and I haven’t gotten home before 9pm the last 3 days.

I managed to get a run in yesterday as I was feeling real antsy as I hadn’t done any exercise this week. I managed to squeeze in about 3.8 km in 21 minutes on the treadmill so it was just a quick little blast. The treadmill is a little boring but good for maintaing a steady pace.  Oh well, the weekend looms and I’ll have time to do a nice long run outside.

Tags: running by AndrewE
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