Don’t drink soda?
Too gross?
I used to drink about 2 litres of Coke a day and I’m pretty sure that goes a long way to explaining my weight gain.
Who’s worried about cholesterol?
I realised that it’s been a while since I had my cholesterol checked. I normally do it every year but I forgot last year for some reason. Anyway I went and had the blood test last week and the results arrived yesterday.
| Recommended Range: | April 2007 |
April 2008 |
April 2010 |
|
| Total Cholesterol: | Less than 200 | 343 | 152 | 193 |
| HDL Cholesterol: | Between 35-60 | 58 | 36 | 55 |
| LDL Cholesterol: | Less than 130 | 266 | 101 | 225 |
| Triglycerides: | Less than 151 | 118 | 62 | 30 |
| Total/HDL Ratio: | Less than 4.5 | 5.9 | 4.3 | 3.5 |
My good cholesterol (HDL) is up heaps which more than offsets the rise in the total and the bad (LDL). My triglycerides are way down low as well so I think I’m in pretty good shape. My blood pressure was 108/57 and heart rate 52 (in the doctor’s office – it’s in the low 40s at home in bed). Overall, I think these are pretty great results.
Who would have figured that eating right and getting fit would make me healthier? I can only imagine how horrific my results must have been when I was at my heaviest.
Weigh-in #17 2010: Maintenance is cool
Down .25 kg this week. In reality I’m maintaining and it’s all good.
The year is coming along nicely:
My best long run yet
I’ve mentioned before that one of my running dreams goals is to break 4 hours in a marathon. My current marathon PR is 4:54:53 so that goal is fairly ambitious at this stage. This year I’ve made the resolution to give Low Heart Rate training a proper go so I’ve been running long and slow most of the time. However, my first marathon of the year is 6 weeks away today so I thought that this week I’d better try a few tempo runs.
- On Monday I did a 5K in 26 minutes.
- Tuesday I did 16.1 km in a very easy 1:42.
- Wednesday I did 16.1 km in 1:30 which was a full 12 minutes faster than my Tuesday run and also (more importantly) was at sub 4 hour marathon pace.
- Friday I did an easy 13.1 in 1:23.
- Saturday I did a brilliant (by my standards) 32 km in 3:12:00.
I want to talk a bit more about my Saturday run. I headed out bright and early and the conditions were just perfect. We’re in a bit of a drought situation which has meant that I’ve only been rained on about twice in the last 5 months or so which is great for me but not so great for our farmers.
I set my virtual partner to run at a 6:15 min/km pace (like I did last week) as I wanted to practice keeping my pace steady (or hopefully negative splitting). I have to admit I haven’t used the virtual partner much but I’m starting to like running with him.
The first km from my house is all uphill and I like to ease into my long runs so he pulled ahead quite quickly. But I slowly reeled him in and by the 6 km mark I was a few metres ahead. The aim of a long run is to run easy so I was keeping my average heart rate under 148 beats which is what I’ve been using for my low heart rate training.
I got to 16km in 1:37:43. I just felt very good and for the rest of the run I managed to keep pulling away from my virtual partner without unduly extending myself. I did the second 16km in 1:34:17. I was extremely pleased with that 2nd half as it was more uphill than the 1st half and it was faster! I also managed to keep my average HR for the run to 146 so it was a good day all round.
Here’s the map of the run:
1000 km
I reached a mini milestone in that I hit 1000 km run for the year so far. That’s not bad considering my goal for the year was to hit 2000! That’s it for today!
Weigh-in #16 2010: Looking green
It looks like I’m sort of back on track. I still had a weekend spike but I managed to keep it in the green zone so that’s good.
The chart for 2010 still looks quite pretty to me. Especially as the trend line is still pointing down. 
I did 73.7 km (45.8 miles) last week which was quite nice. I had a great long run on Saturday morning where I did 28 km @ 6:10min/km pace which is my fastest long run in a long time. I also practiced keeping the pace steady and am pleased to note that I did that very comfortably and could actually do the last 3 km at sub 4 hour marathon pace.
Best Running Song Ever?
Enough said.
Be a winner
Mary, from A Merry Life, wrote an interesting post today about wanting to win. She writes:
Because I won, I had fun.
Back when I was obese I had to win at every game I played or every endeavour I attempted. If I couldn’t be the best I wasn’t interested. And I wasn’t shy about tweaking the conditions to make sure I won. I am no longer like that. I think I’m not that afraid to admit I struggle with certain things. I can participate in things and enjoy them without having to win.
I actually think that I had to win at everything because I felt like a failure inside. Obesity is not fun and is not something you can hide. I had to win at everything else to be a worthwhile person.
This is quite linked to how my fitness journey started. I’m still working on that post!
Weigh-in #15 2010: Weekend problems
I’m having weekend problems!
As I mentioned in my vlog, I was under goal on Saturday morning but by Saturday evening I’d eaten one too many helpings of the delicious foods my good friends brought over to my place for a potluck. Just as well I’m running heaps! Still, I did make a small loss overall.
I guess I could say the maintenance is going well in that if I didn’t get a weekend spike I’d still be losing weight.
Heh, even I don’t believe that one.
In other news, a glorious morning run today. The chocolate mousse my friend made is sure great for powering morning runs, even two days later! I did an easy 17km before work in 1:40:28 which is about 5:55/km pace.
My blogging buddy Michelle did a 100km run on the weekend! She’s pretty inspiring I tell you.
A goodly run and a ramble
This has been the most mileage I’ve ever done in a week. We had two days of holidays on Monday and Tuesday so I managed to get in a slightly longer set of runs than normal.
My long run this morning was fantastic. The conditions were absolutely beautiful so I couldn’t resist taking a wee video to show you where I was running. I tended to ramble on a bit!
I took a wrong turn on that pathway at one point:
I did 27.1 km overall and it felt pretty good. My legs felt pretty good up until about 25km then I started getting tired. I did 15.5km yesterday so that might explain why. I think running a marathon distance over 2 days is good work.
Here are a few more shots from this morning’s run:
One of the things I really liked along that pathway was a life sized snakes and ladders game:
I’m definitely going to take my monkey there.
This was a shot at the Panmure Lagoon. There is a small pedestrian bridge that crosses the lagoon and it just looked quite pretty.
I’m really blessed with having such great running routes so close to home.
Daily Mile
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RoadID
