Andrew is getting fit

If you're new here, you may want to get my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! I couldn't do this without the help of my commenters!

The bad weather has continued here in sunny Auckland so I did my 10K run in the gym today.

Instead of listening to music I listened to a Phedippidations podcast.  You can find them here. It was about how we are designed to run without shoes and that wearing shoes actually damages our feet.  That may be so but I think I’ll stick to my shoes for now.  I think the podcast is actually better than music as you have to focus more so the tedium of the treadmill is not quite as oppressive.

I did a few fartlek sessions where I sped up quite considerably for 200m then slowed back down for 200m and so forth.  Hopefully that helps to build a bit of speed stamina.

My wife has become addicted to running as well. It’s been really nice running with her while she does her C25K sessions.  She did her run in the gym this morning after her exercise circuit which was rather amazing to me as she is normally absolutely buggered after that.  She must have been really keen to run today.  Visit her site and cheer her on!  And yes, she is working on a guest post to give her perspective on my fitness quest.

Sheamus has a competition going on at the moment at his site.  He has an aim of running for 365 days straight and he’s doing pretty well so far! He’s just set a new personal best for the 5K so go along and cheer him on!

UPDATE: The lovely Marshmallow has helped me solve the disappearing comments situation.  I think it’s fixed now.  My openid plugin was sending comments into the ether so it’s been deleted.

Tags: C25K, running by AndrewE
20 Comments »

I’ve received a few emails from people saying that they can’t comment on my blog. I’ve tested it and I can comment, my wife can comment and random folks around the world seem to be able to comment so I suspect it’s an Askimet (spam filter) problem. I’ve checked my spam queue and there are no comments in there so I’m really not too sure what is going on. If you’ve had comments lost could you use the contact form above to let me know please? Also a few people have mentioned that they are not getting my feed either…it’s all very strange as I haven’t changed anything (except I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.6). Hmm…

Anyway back to the fitness stuff. Day 01 of week 04 of the pushups challenge. 27, 20, 20, 17, 36 (min 27) and day 02 of the abs program. Just a quick update tonight! Heavy rain at the moment so it looks to be a gym run tomorrow.

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
11 Comments »

We’ve had really bad weather over the last few days so I haven’t been able to run outside for a while.  So this morning when I got up and couldn’t hear the sound of rain I decided to be optimistic and pack my garmin with my gym gear.

I had  a 8 am class to teach so I couldn’t go to the gym bright but I was optimistic of getting a run in outside after class as the weather looked promising.  And what do you know - I got out of class at 9 and it was raining again!  Not to be deterred I headed off to the gym and by the time I got there the rain had stopped so I thought why not? and headed outside.

It was a glorious run.  There were very black rain clouds looming the whole time but they never managed to make it to where I was running so I had a nice sunny run.  The first in a while!

I bumped into one of my students who was taking photos (for a digital media assignment) and he snapped one of me. I’m hoping to get a copy so that I can put it up here to share.

I did a nice 12km loop of the city and harbourside in 1:10:09 for an average pace of 5:47 per km.  I felt great afterwards.  The satellite link doesn’t want to work so no pretty map today.  Only a streetmap.

Then this evening I went for a run with my wife who is doing C25K week 06 day 01. We went down to Mission Bay and had a great run walk. We ran another 3.5 km in that so I’ve done about 15.5 km today which is quite nice.

I actually broke the 500 km mark today as well. Not bad for someone who only took up running in late January.

As for my weigh-in this week:
I had a slight gain in weight this week. I can blame this on just eating too much. My exercise has been good but I tend to get the munchies when I’m a bit sick and I definitely got the munchies. Having said that, I’m back on the straight and narrow now.

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
7 Comments »

You can join the Andrew is getting fit fanclub on Facebook by clicking here.

To add me as a friend click this:

:)

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
3 Comments »

My long run has been postponed due to bad weather.  We’ve had a rather major storm hit us and there is just no way I want to be out running in the heavy (and cold) rain that we’ve been having today.  Hopefully the weather clears a bit by tomorrow morning so I can head out otherwise it’s going to be a very boring run on the treadmill!

I completed week 03 of the 100 pushups program today. I managed to do 30, 22, 22, 20 and then a stunning 35 (min 27 required) for a total of 129 pushups!  35 pushups is the most I have EVER done in a row so I’m rather pleased.  It just goes to show that putting in the hard work does pay off.  I’ve been on week 03 for three weeks now and to be honest I’ve gotten rather tired of doing the pushups at times.  However, achieving new milestones definitely makes it all worthwhile.

This leads me to my next challenge:

Steve (of 100 pushups fame) over at Run Bulldog Run has just completed the Essential Abs program.  I figure building a bit of strength in my core will help my running.  Well, that’s the theory anyway!

I’ve been meaning to start doing it as well but the thought of doing ab workouts didn’t fill me with delight.  However, I’ve seen dramatic improvements in my strength by doing the hundred pushups program so today I bit the bullet and started.

Week 1:

Reverse Crunch
Crossover
Crunch: feet first
Opposite arm/leg raise

Workout #1 (Monday) - 12 reps of each exercise
Workout #2 (Wednesday) - 13 reps of each exercise
Workout #3 (Friday) - 14 reps of each exercise

I have to admit that after the workout I discovered I had muscles in places I didn’t know had muscles.  Not visually mind you.  The muscles are implied by the aches and pains.  Surely fat can’t feel sore?

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
12 Comments »

I’ve been a bit under the weather the last few days but I’ve had to go into work as I’m teaching and unfortunately my classes are at rather asocial times (8am -9am) and (5pm - 9pm) so it’s too hard to arrange for a colleague to fill in.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty rotten but went into work, did my class, met up for a meeting with a colleague and then headed back home. I pretty much went straight to bed and had about 3 hours of sleep and woke up feeling pretty good.

My wife is still doing C25K and she had to do week 05 day 03 today which is the first 20 minute run. She wanted me to come along and I thought the exercise might make me feel better. We did a very nice 3 km loop around our local area and she did really well. This is the longest run she has ever done and she did it even though about a kilometer of it was uphill and rather tough. I felt really good afterwards as well which was an added bonus.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is a rest day for me and I have a long run scheduled for Sunday morning. Unfortunately we have a severe weather warning out for the weekend. According to the news of tv this evening we are about to have a once in 15 years storm hit us so my run may be rather damp or (worse case scenarios) delayed or treadmilled. We’ll see how it goes I guess.

Oh and good news! My daughter seems to be much much better so we’re hoping to get some sleep tonight! :)

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
3 Comments »

My daughter has been sick this week (with the dreaded chuckitis) and this has left my wife and myself feeling rather drained. I think it’s more emotional than physical but either way we both feel down and out. I don’t know how my darling wife is still functioning as she’s been up and down like a yo-yo in the night seeing to little Emma.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. This morning I felt like crap. Still do actually. I went to the gym to do my pushups and get in a run.

The pushups went reasonably well but I did not manage to complete the final max set so I’ll be doing day 03 of week 03 again. I did 27,22,22,20 and 20 (needed min 27). It’s still a lot of pushups completed (111) so I’m satisfied.

I should have gone and run outside but I was in the gym already so I hopped on the treadmill. After 30 minutes I had done 5.5 km and just didn’t feel like doing anymore so I stopped the run. Technically I’d done enough for the day but I had previously hoped I would do a bit more.

After my shower and stuff I headed into the office. Along the way I went to the student cafeteria (I work at a university) and loaded up with throat lozenges, 2 giant cookies and a custard pie (all for medicinal purposes!).  I went to the cashier to pay, then took them all back and put them on the shelves again.  Bravo! I hear you cheer.  But you cheer too soon.  I was not strongwilled.  I’d forgotten my wallet in the car.

Now I sit in the office longing for custard pies.  But fortunately I’m too lazy to walk over to the cafe again. :)

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
13 Comments »

I had a great little run yesterday evening.  My wife has been doing C25K in the gym but has started doing her runs in the evening outside instead.  This is because she has signed up to a fitness class through work and it’s on first thing in the morning (in her previous running time).  This has been brilliant as I’ve been getting to run with my beloved wife and it has been really nice so far.  Conditions were cold but perfect last night and we did a nice gentle 4 km walkrunwalkrunwalkrunwalk.

One of the very rewarding side effects of my decision to get fit and active has been seeing the effect I’ve had on people around me.  Quite a few of my friends and family are now pursuing healthy activites and eating better and it’s really nice when they tell me that my progress has inspired them to take action.

So that was the good run.

I did another run today.  I was aiming for about 10km but I ended up doing just over 11.  Having said that there was a fair patch of walking in there as my daughter’s stomach bug (oh, did I fail to mention that my poor little monkey has been chucking like a banshee) hit me during my run.  Let’s just say it was not my finest run and leave it there.

11 km in 1:14:37.

I also managed to do day 02 of week 03 of the 100 pushups program.  I did 27,19,19,15 and 30 (25 required).    That’s definitely the most pushups I’ve ever done in my life.

Tags: C25K, running by AndrewE
17 Comments »

I weighed in at 92.01kg (202.8 lb) this morning according to Physics Diet.   My scale weight has actually been as low as 90.1kg (198.6 lb) this week so I’m reckoning it won’t be too long before I can officially say that I am under 200 lbs!

I’ve had a great loss of 1.15kg (2.5 lb) this week.  It just goes to show that journaling my food consumption does work.  The fact that I have been running quite a bit might have helped too!

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
16 Comments »

As I mentioned before my wife is doing C25K and she’s up to week 4 now. She’s been running on the treadmill at the gym but today she decided to run outside and invited me along.  She needed to do week 04 Day 03 which involves about 2.5 km of running and another 1.5 km of walking.  It was really nice to be out running with her.  It had been raining earlier in the morning and it was funny watching her get rather edgy as she needed to get her run in!  It reminded me of myself! :)  It’s funny how running becomes addictive.

I also managed to complete week 03 day 01 of the 100 pushups challenge. The max of 25 on the last set had been giving me a bit of grief but for some reason I was on fire yesterday and did an amazing 30 on my max set.

This is the same as the max I got on my exhaustion test so all I can say is that there must have been something amazing in my oats yesterday morning.  So on to week 03 day 02!

I did my long run this morning and it was a cracker.  When I went to bed it was pouring with rain so I wasn’t too confident that I’d be out running this morning.  However, I woke up to the dulcet tones of my alarm and no rain!

This is the first run I’ve had in a while where I didn’t grumble about it under my breath at some point.  It was just a great run.   I have a fairly regular loop that I do which is a hilly climb for the first half and then back around the shoreline for the second half.  I like this loop as I can add a few kilometers on to it just by varying which route I take to get to the shoreline.

It was still dark when I left home but it was really nice and peaceful.  The sun came up after about half an hour and I started to see a few more runners and cyclists out and about.  At around the 8km mark the heavens opened and it started pouring down with an icy rain!  I had forgotten my cap and boy did I regret it!  It also didn’t help that the wind started up and I was running into it.

Anyways I managed to do 11.7km in about an hour and quarter and it was rather enjoyable.  Rain be damned!

Tags: fitness by AndrewE
13 Comments »