I’ve decided that my major challenge for next year will be to do an ultra marathon. I’m leaning towards this one:
I’m looking at the 60K option as it would be my first ultra. It’s in March so I should have plenty of time to train after the Taipei Marathon in December.
Thoughts?
I’ve lost my blogging mojo lately. It’ll be back I’m sure but in the meantime here are some photos from my run yesterday:
First off I had an audience:
It was a beautiful winters day here in Auckland:
I even discovered a new walkway which had a great view of the mangrove swamps:
I’m still running and my weight is still stable but I just don’t feel like I have a lot to say at the moment so blogging will be light until I recover my mojo. I’m probably still in my post marathon funk. 
I first heard about Thrive from Matt over at No Meat Athlete and it seemed like a very handy book to have so I went and got a copy. 
I always had the vision of Vegans as being a bit odd but then I became vegetarian myself so I’ve had to re-evaluate my stance somewhat. Although there are those who think I’m a bit odd so I guess it all depends on perception.
The main thrust of the book is that you need to eat high quality foods that your body can break down easily for energy. It’s not at all preachy and it just focuses on which foods give you the most bang for your buck if you are vegan. A must read for someone who doesn’t eat meat and wants to get optimum nutrition for training.
After reading it I realised that when I’m eating well I’m already eating most of what he recommends. The trick is to be consistent with it!
I think most of us could testify to the truth of this:
What would happen to your weight if you added a tasty chocolate chip cookie to your daily diet without making any other changes? So you don’t exercise any more than you do today and you keep eating everything else that you’re eating today. Except for that extra 210 calorie chocolate chip cookie.
Your weight would go up, right? In fact, there’s a pretty well-known relationship between net calories consumed and changes in body weight than should be able to tell us by how much. That relationship tells us you will gain one pound for each additional 3,500 net calories you consume above what it takes to maintain your weight at a constant level. Likewise, you should expect to lose one pound for each 3,500 fewer net calories you consume with respect to what it takes to keep your weight steady over time.
As you might expect, the entire weight loss industry is largely built around this basic relationship. The only problem is that it the math behind the relationship doesn’t work in real life.
What happens in real life is that your body’s metabolism will adjust over time to compensate for the additional calories you’re consuming, in such a way that the amount of weight you might gain will be much smaller than what that 3,500 calories = 1 pound relationship would predict.
I’ve been intrigued by the Vibram Five Fingers ever since I heard about them and this past weekend I finally managed to get my feet in a pair!
I bought the KSO’s (Keep stuff out!).
My initial impressions are pretty positive. They snugly. They are very light. It’s almost like you are not wearing shoes. I haven’t gone for a run in them yet but I’m hoping to sometime this week. I won’t be using them as my primary running shoe (at least not this year) but I do want to give them a go.
In other news I’ve had one run since the marathon (on Friday). I did a very easy 4.5km local loop with my wife and it was most enjoyable. I was supposed to do a 10K yesterday but I stubbed my toe while vacuuming and it went all purply. It hurt like hell and at first I thought I had broken it but this morning it is not really sore but it looks pretty disgusting. My whole little toe and part of my forefoot is a nice purple colour!
I’ve had a week off eating sensibly and running (as part of the post marathon relaxation) and now it’s time to get back on track. I’m cutting out all junk again and want to try and lose about 3 or 4 more kgs before I start my serious training for the Taipei marathon. More about that later.
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.
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!
Shauna (Dietgirl) and Carla (Mizfit) published episode 11 of their “Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone” podcast today. The episode title is “Let’s Hear It For The Boys.” It’s all about men and blogging and they were particularly interested in why there appears to be fewer men than women participating in fitness/healthy living blogs.
I was lucky enough to be invited to participate and I think my contribution is enough to reinforce my opinion that I’ll never be a podcaster! Have a listen as I think it’s pretty interesting overall.
I listened to it while out on a run this morning. I did 15.4km on a bright sunny autumn morning and it was great!
In other news I’m changing my half marathon entry in the Christchurch Marathon to the full marathon!
Greg, from Greg’s Transformation, asked me:
What is your target and why did you pick it as the target if I may ask?
When I first started my weightloss and fitness journey I found myself weighing in at 308 pounds. At 6’1″ that put my BMI at over 40. I decided that my initial goal would be to get my BMI into the normal range. For me that would be 189 pounds. However, that meant that I would have to lose 119 pounds and I just can’t live with a non rounded number like that so I decided to shoot for 120.
I’ve since come to realise that the BMI is a pretty flawed tool – you learn a lot on this journey – but it is still a marker that has meaning to us in many respects. The BMI is the tool society uses to judge and I guess I’ll always have a part of me that wants that wider acceptance.
As of this morning I’m at 193.3 which means I’m pretty close to my BMI goal. However, I know that I still have a bit of excess around the middle so I’ve decided that a longer term goal will be to get my weight down to about 176 pounds. To be honest I’m hoping to do so mainly because I’d like to pick up a bit more speed in my running. I’m already at the vanity goal – if you know what I mean.
In other news I went out for a nice easy 7 km run this morning to test my hip and it seems to be fine. My policy of resting at the first sign of injury seems to be paying off. So hopefully I can get in a bit of a longer run tomorrow.
I was offered the chance to try a habit changing program by the folks at Habit Changer. They asked if I’d take one of their 42-day programs and then blog about it–whether my “experience was positive or not.” I decided I could live with that so accepted. This is my review: [Read more →]
