Andrew is getting fit

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My wife had to be in to work early for a conference call so I had to stay at home and sort out our baby daughter until her grandmother got up.  Grandma looks after little Emma on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. :)  What this means is that I had the chance to run into work.  I haven’t done this for a long time as the weather has been bad and I haven’t really had the opportunity.

I wanted to get about 10 - 12 km in so I initially headed away from work and headed out towards Mission Bay.  And then headed back in towards the city.  I took this photo with my cellphone just to show you the torrid conditions I had to labour in:

It’s really tough but someone has to do it!

11.5km in 1:03:34 for an average pace of 5:32 min/km.  I’ve noticed that my normal pace is getting faster which is great.

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Tags: fitness // 22 Comments »

There is a great guest post over at Get Fit Slowly.

One paragraph from it really resonated with me:

I am reminded that Fitness is a series of peaks and valleys. You can try to  be on your “A-game” all the time, but some days you just don’t have it. Even elite athletes have their ups and downs.  People strive for peak performances, but this may lead to a down slide which defines the peak.    The valleys aren’t exciting like the peaks, but they are part of the journey. We can only strive to make the next peak a little higher and work to keep the current valley from being as low as the last.

This so applies to weightloss as well so I found it a really good analogy.   Head over and read the whole thing.

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In other news I did an 8k tempo run yesterday and am going to do a 10k easy run later today.  I’m hoping to get outside today as the weather looks promising.  It’s Spring already!

I’ve also been contacted by the Heart Foundation as they want to do a profile on me for their newsletter.  I thought that was rather cool myself!  I’ll put up a link to the newsletter if I make the cut! As you may recall I’m raising funds for them.  Thanks to the many people who have donated so generously.

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Tags: fitness // 17 Comments »

I’ve been wondering how people read my blog. I know I personally read most blogs I frequent via RSS subscription in Google Reader.

Poll Answers
Note that if you are reading this in a Reader you’ll need to click through to the site to answer the poll.

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Tags: Interesting // 19 Comments »

As you can see from the graph the weight has been a bit all over the place this week.  I’ve gone up a pound which is a little frustrating not ideal but it’s also not too surprising as I haven’t run as much this last week and I’ve been eating a bit too freely.  I’m planning on working hard to try and trim down a bit more before my half marathon.  Every pound lost will make me that little bit faster I reckon!

One of my favourite tv shows is restarting this week.  Downsize me takes some folks and sets them on the path to healthy living through a good diet and exercise.  It’s stupid and patronising at times but overall the message is good.

I find it rather motivating to see what people can do in 8 short weeks - and all sumarised in a 30 minute show.  Coincidentally it happens to be 8 and a bit weeks to my half marathon! ;)  I think this is why I love reading people’s blogs as well.  I always tend to come away inspired when I read about how other normal folks have managed to get fit and healthy.

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Tags: fitness // 12 Comments »

The weather forecast for the weekend was for sun! Guess what, it rained most of Saturday and was raining when I went to bed last night. However, when I got up this morning the sky was clear and it promised to be a beautiful day.

I’m on a recovery week so I’ve been doing about half the mileage I would normally do but there was no way I was only going to do just 10K this morning! It was just too lovely. I decided to do the Tamaki Drive route along the coast and it was glorious.

The only negative of the run was that it took me quite a while to get into the groove of things. I think it was because my ipod wiped itself somehow and I had no music or podcast to listen to. After a while I forgot about that and just enjoyed the ambiance of nature and all the people out jogging, walking and cycling.

Actually, there was one other negative in this run. As I turned on to Tamaki Drive a guy running with a big poodle ran by and I set out to catch and pass him. 4 km later I was still about 10 metres behind him and I only managed to pass him because the poodle stopped to empty his bowels! C’est la vie!

Overall it was a great run and I really enjoyed it. 18.13 km in 1:42:22.

This brings my total for the month to over 200 km for the first time. I’m quite pleased by that I’ll tell you!

I also seem to have inspired corrupted another friend. One more victim of C25K!

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Tags: running // 9 Comments »

I’ve been asked my opinion of this book by a few folks.

I think it’s pretty good.  Hmm, you probably want a bit more than that I’m guessing!

Let’s see I liked it enough that after getting it out at the library I went and bought it so that I would have my own copy.  It’s a good read with some great tips and training strategies.

I think it is pitched at the beginner runner rather than at the serious runner who is trying to improve.  As such, it suits me just fine as most of the tips I’ve read have been new and helpful.

I think the way the training programs are laid out are a little confusing but after pondering them for a while I’ve figured them out.

I really like the way the book focuses on what you should be doing at different periods of your training.  Most programs start off just doing a bit of easy base building, then strength, speed and lastly you get to focus on race craft. The race craft bits were what I found the most helpful to be honest.

I think it’s a good buy if you are starting out but probably a bit too basic if you have been competing for a while.

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Tags: fitness // 3 Comments »

This week I’ve deliberately been having an easy week. I haven’t posted quite as much as usual as I’ve been pretty busy in real life for one reason or another!

Jon Ackland, in his book Compete or Complete, stresses the importance of these recovery weeks as your body needs a chance to adapt to the increased demands that training  imposes on it.

So this week I’ve done nothing on Monday, a 5K on Tuesday, nothing on Wednesday, a 6K on Thursday and another 5K this evening.

Tomorrow will be another rest day and on Sunday I’m going to do another longer run.  I haven’t quite decided how long it will be yet but the weather forecast for this weekend is GOOD (first time since May!) so I suspect I’ll be tempted to get out early and do a nice long long run. ;)

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Tags: fitness // 11 Comments »

Corey inspired me to restart the 100 pushups challenge. My physio said I could restart but I’ve been avoiding it! As you do!

I’ve just done an exhaustion test to see where I should start off and managed to nut out 45. I’ll work out where that means I should start off a bit later as my arms are still shaking.

I’m not going to do a daily update of the pushups but will do a weekly recap.

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Tags: fitness // 21 Comments »

I was typing a comment on someone else’s blog and I realised that I’m not eating my own dog food.  The byline of my blog is “one day at a time” and I’ve been totally ignoring it.  From right now I’m going to focus on eating properly one day at a time.

To answer a few of the queries raised in my previous post:

My eating is not emotional.  I’m fairly certain it’s not at least.

I’ve worked it out and I’m coming up a little short on the protein so I’ll be adding some more.  I may also not be drinking enough water so I’ll try adding more.

And my body fat % is dropping quite nicely.  My scale weight has slowed quite a bit but the body fat % has dropped too.  I’ve got a fancy Tanita scale that tells me all sorts of stats and one of the interesting things is the maintenance calories that it reckons I need.  Contrary to all my expectations that number has been going up!  Apparently my scale thinks I’m a lot more muscley than I used to be now.

My scale also says I’m well into the normal range for body fat % now.  It hasn’t pegged me as overweight for quite a few weeks now.  Did I tell you I love my scale?

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Tags: Life // 13 Comments »

Well, as I alluded to in a few earlier posts, I’ve had a bit of a struggle with my eating this week.  Mind you, I haven’t gone totally off the rails, but I have eaten a bit too much to expect much of a loss this week.  I’m just grateful that there is a loss to report (even if it is only a small one!) and not a gain. Although, if I keep this up I’m going to start gaining which is not really part of the plan.

I’m not sure why but I’ve just been really hungry all the time lately.  Maybe it’s the increased running?

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Tags: Weigh in // 12 Comments »