Andrew is getting fit

I realised earlier this week that I started running just about one year ago.

My post on completing week 01 of Couch to 5K ends as follows:

I’m hoping to stick with it for the whole nine weeks and actually manage to do the 5km. Actually, I’m not hoping. I WILL stick with it.

Boy did I stick with it or what!  I must admit that I had my doubts at the time.  I’m so glad I did stick with it too.

In other news I’ve got a nasty cold and sore throat.  Not a happy camper.  But having said that I still got my run in this morning so it’s not that bad!

Tags: Life, Milestones by Andrew
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Running:

2009 is going to be my Marathon year.  I want to run a marathon.  I won’t make any plans for more until after my first one.  I’ve picked the Christchurch Marathon on Sunday 31 May 2009 which is not that far away.

I’m also going to do a wide variety of shorter races.  I’ll do a few half marathons, a number of 10Ks and at least 1 5K this year.  Hopefully I can break all my PRs in these.

Other fitness goals:

I still want to do the hundred.  I’m not even going to consider the Two Hundred Situps program until I’ve finished the One Hundred Pushups program.  I maxed out at 46 pushups in 2008 which is still more than I’ve ever managed to do but I would like to do the 100.   Damn you Steve Spiers.

I’m also thinking of taking up Aikido but I think that will have to wait until after the marathon.

Weightloss:

I’m in a pretty good place with my weight at the moment.  I’m still technically overweight (according to BMI) but I’m pretty happy with things.  I’d like to get to a normal BMI and so that will be my goal this year.  It’s not a big number this year and I think that is a good thing.  Truth be told I’ll be happy if I’m just lighter in 2010 than I am today.  Even one pound will do. Although…if I’m lighter I can probably run faster so maybe I’ll try for more than one pound!

To help with the weightloss I’ve entered Running Hoosier‘s 13 week challenge.  I’d encourage those of you who are interested in losing weight to do the same.

Tags: Milestones by Andrew
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It’s that time of year where everyone appears to be evaluating their efforts over the last year. I’m going to do the same!

1. Fitness.

I think I’ve exceeded all my fitness goals. At the beginning of 2008 I couldn’t run and my goal was to be able to run the quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon in November. Well I ran the Half Marathon instead and am now regularly running in excess of 40 miles a week. A half marathon distance is just a Sunday run now. Not bad if I say so myself.

I’ve hit 1375 km for the year to date (850ish miles) and still have a run scheduled for the last day of the year tomorrow. The couch can kiss my proverbial!

2. Weight.

I’ve exceeded my expectations but I’m also a little disappointed with my weightloss progress. I’m well over 20 kilograms lighter than I was this time last year but I know I could have done a lot better. I haven’t really lost any weight since July and over the last few weeks I’ve regained a few kilograms while on holiday. The regain is annoying but I know I will lose those kilos rapidly so I’m not too bothered.

About July I hit a milestone that I never thought I would when I hit the 100 pounds lost mark. I felt good and got comfortable and let my eating habits slowly slip back into a more relaxed routine. I was maintaining fine up until December when I slipped into some bad habits again and have been pretty much overeating for most of it.

As such, I’ll chalk the weightloss as a victory but write in a ‘could do better’ comment on my grade card!

Overall I am tremendously pleased that I have managed to discover a love of running. Running has become part of my life now and I can’t go without exercise. I’m also extremely pleased that so many of my family and friends have taken it up as well. It’s brilliant!

I couldn’t have achieved what I achieved without the support of my wife. Thank you Darling!

I’m thinking about my goals for 2009 and will blog on them later this week. I want to have some realistic yet challenging goals so am giving them some serious thought.

Tags: Life, Milestones, fitness, running by Andrew
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I’m back in sunny New Zealand. I’ve had a great holiday but I’m glad to be back home now.

I thought about giving my run today a miss as I was feeling rather tired and jetlagged but I know I normally feel really good after a run so I decided to head out anyway.

I did my St Heliers loop which is about 15.5 km long and it was really good. There were people kite surfing at St Heliers Bay and you can just about see them on the right of that photo.  I’m really enjoying having a decent camera on my phone.

I’m still doing my low heart rate training so my aim was to keep my heart rate under 146 bpm. I had to go rather slow to do this but I’m getting sort of used to running slower now. The theory is that once I complete this base training I’ll be faster and fitter. I hope so as I’m feeling a bit slow lately!

My GPS watch asked me if I had travelled hundreds of km since my last run.  I thought that was quite funny.  It normally does that when it can’t detect the satellites it used the previous time.

After I got back and entered my run into my running log I noticed that I’ve run 57 km this week.  I’m fairly certain that this is the most I’ve ever run in a single week.

Tags: Milestones, running by Andrew
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My alarm went off at 3:55 AM this morning.  Race day!  At last. 

The weather forecast was for heavy rain clearing in the early morning and for once it was accurate.  It bucketed down in the night but stopped at about 4AM.

My dad had flown down from Christchurch to do the race as well so we both got ready and then my darling wife dropped us off at the ferry terminal at 5AM.  The ferry terminal is just outside some of the more popular bars in Auckland and there was some poor drunk bloke staggering home after a hard night out on the town who made me laugh when he blurted out “You’re all F***G mental!” Yes we are mate.

We got the timing just right and managed to get straight onto a ferry.  25 minutes later we were in Devonport eyeing up the portaloos.  I have to give credit where credit is due and say that the race organisers had definitely put in plenty of portaloos!  There looked to be about 500 meters worth of them.

My dad has a regular training partner who was supposed to be meeting him but by the time the race started he still hadn’t shown up so we just ran.  About 100 meters into the race he showed up!  7500 people and he managed to find my dad.  I was impressed!  I left them behind at that point and set off on my personal quest.

I had decided to try and maintain a reasonably conservative pace for the first half so that I would still have plenty in the tank in the second half.  In all my races up until now I’ve always shot off and struggled quite a lot at the end.

The course was quite congested for the first two kilometers so it wasn’t too hard to be restrained.  I must admit that I was extremely happy to be out running this event.  It wasn’t that long ago that I weighed more than 300 pounds and the thought of exercise filled me with dread.  Fortunately I’ve kicked the couch habit and am now a runner.

I lost quite a bit of time at the drink stations.  I think next time I will do what I do in training and carry my water with me.  It’s much easier and I know what to expect that way.  It was hard to get at the water and I didn’t get much in either I think.

At the 10K mark my time was 52:36 and I was very pleased.  The race had been very enjoyable up until this point and I was going strong.  I was actually ahead of my projected finish time and I was thinking the hills that someone had warned me about hadn’t been that bad.  Oh boy, how wrong can you be?

Kilometer 11 – 15 was hilly!  It started off with some small hills, then some big ones, and then the bridge!  The bridge wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared it would be.  It was long and steep but I had done a lot of hill training in my training and I actually kept a really good pace up all the hills.  Not once did I even consider stopping.  The marathon photo people were on the bridge so I made sure to give them a big smile and a festive fist pump as I went past.  I look forward to seeing those photos in the next few days.

Kilometer 15 was where things started to go downhill a bit.  Both figuratively and literally!  Literally in that it headed downhill after the bridge and figuratively in that a few things started to go wrong with my run.  Firstoff,  I started to get some rather serious stomach rumbles and I really didn’t feel good.  I also made a rather serious mistake with my footwear – I wore shoes I’d only done about 20 km in, essentially new shoes.  This resulted in some rather nasty blisters and both my big toes are bruised under the nails.  This made running rather interesting.

Kilometers 16 – 17 I started getting slower and slower.  I abandoned my 1:53 hopes.  I abandoned my 1:55 hopes.  I abandoned my 2 hour hopes.

Kilometers 18 & 19 I started to hate running and worried that I wouldn’t finish.  I thought about walking but really didn’t want to.

Kilometer 20 I thought HTFU and run!  So I ran.  Could I make two hours?  Hmm.

Kilometer 21.  Where’s my cheer team?  Run!  Where are they?  Run! Where’s my lovely wife?  Sprint, there’s the finish!  What’s my time!  1:59:04!

I didn’t actually see my wife until about 30 minutes after the race.  She took the photo above and so I must have looked right at her but I didn’t see her at all.  Apparently my mum was cheering like mad too but I missed them both.  There were so many people lining the finish.  I went through the finish and couldn’t find them so I went to the Heart Foundation tent and got my free massage.  Then I went back and found them all at the bag pickup area.  It was a bit disappointing that there was no finishers medals for the half marathoners.  The medals looked so nice too.  For a $89 entry fee you think you’d get something at the end.  Oh well.

It was really special having my family there at my first half marathon.  I don’t know who was happier about me doing it.  Actually I do.  My mum is my number one fan.   Hi Mum!

Immediately after the event I was a bit despondent about my time as I’ve run faster in my training runs but that only lasted for about 10 minutes.  I’ve come such a long way.  A year ago I couldn’t run 100 meters.  Today I ran that 100 metres and another 21 km.  Wow!  I also set a Half Marathon PR.  I should be able to beat that one too in my next HM in February.  I’m rather happy that this overweight middle aged fellow has managed to become a runner.

I have to run a marathon now.  I just have to.

I’d like to use this opportunity to say something to my wife Sally.  Darling, getting to the point where I could run this race was a lot of work but I know it was a lot of work for you too.  You’ve supported me from the beginning and I could not have done it without you.  I know I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am to you.  Without you I would still be lost.  You are the most amazing person I know and I love you.  I’m always amazed that you love me too.  Just as well considering we’re married!   Thank you.

And thank you to all of you as well.  This blog has really helped me achieve this goal and without all of your cheers and bits of advice and whatnot I don’t think I would have been nearly as successful.  Thank you all.

Tags: Milestones, PR, running by Andrew
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My wife managed to twist her neck and hurt it rather badly while looking after our little girl in the middle of the night so I spent a good part of the day taking her to doctors, massage and acupuncture.

When we got home I decided that I had better get my run in before it got dark so I headed out in the late afternoon.  I wanted to do a nice and easy 10K run so I headed out towards Tamaki Drive.  I did a 10K run but it wasn’t particularly easy.  I think I was a bit dehydrated as I hadn’t drunk anything since about 10am and there was quite a strong wind blowing so the running was rather hard.  Having said that I still managed to run the whole way and didn’t stop at the ice cream shop that I passed twice!

One of my friends, Stephen, had his birthday yesterday and held a party in the evening.  My wife and I went along and had a great time.  I can’t remember any other evening events that we have actually gone to during the week since our daughter was born.  Considering she is 15 months old tomorrow – it’s been a while!

I had a single slice of pizza, some fries with aoli and an espressotini and a small piece of birthday cake.  They were all good and, to top it off, I had a record low (scale weight) on my weigh in this morning so it looks like you can have your cake (in moderation) and eat it!

Here’s a photo that he took of me last night:

A bit different from this one:

Tags: Interesting, Life, Milestones, running by Andrew
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I did day 2 of the 100 pushup challenge today and it was tough!

Day two calls for 5 sets of pushups (12, 12, 10, 10 and max (min 10)) with at least a 90 second break inbetween each set.

I have to admit that when I woke up today my pecs were sore.  Yesterday they were fine funnily enough.  Anyways, I did the first set no worries, the second set I started to get worried and by the third I was thinking uh oh.  I nutted out a fourth set somehow and then had a two minute break to recover.  I was determined to beat Bill who did 13 for his max but today I have to admit he was the victor.  I had jelly arms by about pushup number 6 and it was all I could do to do the minimum 10.  Nonetheless I did it.  I’m thinking I may be having to repeat a week or two here and there but I’ll keep plugging away at it.

In other news, my gym was holding a mini sprint triathlon today and I’ve always wanted to participate but have always been too unfit too self-conscious to do it.  However, my confidence levels are so much higher nowadays so I jumped in and had a go.

The way it works is you have to row for 1000m, then cycle for 2000m and then grind for 1500m.  Your cumulative time is what counts including changeover. I haven’t been on the rowing machine or the grinder in well over a year so I thought it would be quite tough as it’s a hell for leather kind of event.

Well, the rowing wasn’t too bad.  I decided that I would settle into a rhythm and try and stick to it rather than go hard out and fade rapidly.  For the last 250m I pushed it a bit and ended up with a time of 3:42.

I then jumped on the bike and cycled 2000m.  In hindsight I went too easy on the bike as I think I could have pushed quite a bit harder.  Cumulative time 7:20.

The grinder was tough.  About two thirds of the way through my heart rate was above 200 bpm but I stuck to it and finished with a total time of 9:41.15.

That put me in second place behind last years winner!  Before you get too excited I was at the gym bright and early and was only the 3rd person to compete.   I’ll go have a look at the final standings tomorrow.  I’m just really pleased that I got the gumption to give it a go this year.  And I know I’m not going to be last!

And a big shout out to my lovely wife who started C25K today!  The running bug seems to be spreading.

Tags: Milestones, fitness by Andrew
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Check out that Traineo counter on the right hand side! Triple digits at last! I’ll post more later with some thoughts but for now I’m just really happy!

Tags: Milestones by Andrew
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When I first started my weight loss and fitness journey I had this impossible dream of weighing 95 kilograms (210 pounds).

I set that goal as, in 2004, I used Atkins to get down to 100 kgs (220 pounds) for my wedding. I couldn’t get any lower than that so my goal of 95 kgs seemed like a dream. As you may have guessed I couldn’t sustain the Atkins way of eating and I gained most of the weight I lost back within 2 years of my wedding. Luckily I’ve since wised up and found a healthy lifestyle that I can live with.

Well, I’ve seen results under 95 kgs on the scale this week, which is simply incredible. It’s quite funny – since I’ve stopped focusing on the weight loss and more on the getting fit side of things I’ve lost more weight than ever before. If only I had woken up earlier!

Anyways, that is not my official weigh-in result for today.

The official result is: 96.16 kgs (according to physics diet) which means I’ve lost 1.16 kilograms since last week. I think the extra long runs must be responsible for it as that’s a rather large loss – but I’ll take it!

Tags: Milestones, Weigh in by Andrew
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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 Andrew
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