Andrew is getting fit

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I went down to Christchurch for the Easter long weekend as my brother was getting married.

I flew down on Thursday evening with my wife and baby daughter. My daughter was no trouble at all and slept most of the way down. Our flight was delayed by an hour as a bird got sucked into the plane engine and they wanted to check it out. Fair enough I thought.

On Friday my mother and wife had an epic baking session as my mother was providing nibbles and starters for my brother’s wedding. We also had the wedding rehearsal which went off well.

Saturday was the day of the wedding and it was pouring with rain in the early hours of the morning. This was problematic as it was supposed to be an outdoor wedding. Fortunately the weather cleared up and by the time the wedding arrived things were looking good.

The wedding went off without a hitch and as I was the best man I had to give a speech. My speech was well received by all so I was most pleased. I was also pleased that a lot of people noticed that I had lost a lot of weight. Unfortunately I didn’t stick to my resolution to just eat healthy and overindulged in desserts. But in my defence, they served chocolate cake! How is one supposed to resist?

On Sunday I needed to do a run so that I could stick to my OHR program. So I went and did a 30 minute run with my dad which was great. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve done a healthy exercise with my dad and it really was special. I also completed week 01 of the one hour running program by doing this run.

On Monday I was feeling the need for some more exercise so went for another 5K run and on Tuesday my dad wanted to go for a run so I went for yet another 5K run. Which means I did about 15 km of running over 3 days which was pretty good. I really enjoyed it and it was all done outside.

In other news my Garmin Forerunner has arrived so I will need to and do a run tomorrow to test it! I’ll write up a report once I have it figured out.

Overall I had a great weekend away. I did more exercise than I have ever done while on holiday and my eating wasn’t too bad. I did struggle to eat healthy as I was not really in charge of the food decisions like I am at home. Also, my family tends to celebrate togetherness by eating out and sharing food etc. It is nice, but it is also very easy to overdo it and I’m afraid I did somewhat. Still, I did much better than I have ever done before.

I’m going to give this weekend an A for exercise, a C+ for food decisions and an A for good times.

Tags: OHR, running by AndrewE
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I did 5.44 km in my 30 minutes today. I did this at the gym on the treadmill. On my last run I set the treadmill to a 11 kph pace so this time I set it to 11.1 kph (an improvement is an improvement). I managed to maintain this up until the 25 minute mark when I reduced the pace to 11 kph. The .1 made all the difference I tell you! Once I hit the 5K mark I slowed right down to 9 kph and it was bliss. My 5K time was 27:04 which was a new PR for me.

My next two runs are going to be outside as
a) I want to get used to running outside as I have my first 5K race next Sunday and
b) I’m going to Christchurch for a week as my brother is getting married and I won’t have access to a treadmill there.

I bought a Garmin 305 exercise watch which has a built in GPS receiver so that I could track my outdoor runs but unfortunately it’s been intercepted by customs here in NZ as the person who I bought it from didn’t write down the proper value on the package and they got suspicious. I guess the seller thought he was being helpful but I wouldn’t have to pay any duty anyway so it’s a bit annoying. Fortunately it was easily fixed as I just faxed them a copy of the invoice and they released it. It does mean I won’t have it in time for my Christchurch trip however. Oh well, something to look forward to when I return.

I don’t think I’ll be able to blog much over the next week but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up or anything. I still plan on getting in my runs and eating healthy while I’m on holiday. Of course I will have the odd snack (hmmmmm….wedding cake!) but on the whole I think this will be the healthiest holiday I’ve ever had.

Tags: Uncategorized by AndrewE
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I started the One Hour Runner program today.

The first three weeks of the program call for you to run for thirty minutes three times a week.

Before my run I went to Lumino dentist to get my teeth cleaned and polished. Boy, I’m not normally too worried about a dentist visit but the guy I had today was not particularly gentle. I actually had to get him to stop so I could recover a bit which is a first for me. I don’t think I’ll be going to that practice again if I have to see that guy which is a shame as the dentist I had last time was much, much better.

I went to the gym after as my wife had told me that it’s very quiet at about 9:30 -10:00ish. I normally go either early in the morning or late in the afternoon as it fits better with my schedule. The gym was very quiet and there were about eight treadmills empty which is quite unusual in my experience.

I haven’t run since my run in the Domain last Friday (I’m not counting my short runs at Round the Bays on Sunday) so I was feeling fairly keen. I decided I would set the pace a bit faster than normal and see how I go. I went great. I kept the slightly faster pace going for 25 minutes before I slowed down to my normal pace for the last few minutes.

Today’s goal was a time one. I had to run for 30 minutes. I managed to run 5.4 km in those thirty minutes. However, I’m tracking my 5K times as I have my first 5K race coming up next Sunday and I managed to set a personal record of 27:27 for 5K. After hitting the 5K mark I slowed right down hence I only did another 400 meters in the last 2 and a half minutes.

I bought some new shoes on the weekend and this was my first run with them. I got myself some Adidas Supernova Cushion 7s and I can highly recommend them. They were quite pricey ($209.99) but I think it was money well spent. Unfortunately shoes are rather expensive here in NZ. For my next pair I will probably buy them overseas and have them shipped in as these shoes only cost about $89 in the US. I had been using my Nike Free 7s to run in but I’ve been told that they do not have enough support for running outside. I have to say that I think these new Adidas shoes are brilliant. I don’t know if it was the shoes or the break or I’m getting fitter or a combination of the above but today’s run was great and I didn’t feel like giving up at any point in it.

I love running!

I found a video review of my shoes:

Tags: OHR, running by AndrewE
14 Comments »

Today I weighed in at 102.1 kg (225.1 pounds) which is down .7 kg (1.5 pounds) from last week. I’m happy that I had a loss so all is good. I was a little worried that I might show a gain as I overindulged a bit this weekend.

Most weekends I have a treat of some form, but this weekend I had a piece of chocolate cake (and it was good!) and a mocha on Saturday morning with my wife and then a Devonshire tea (scones and a coffee) at One Tree Hill with my wife and some of my friends. Normally that would be fine but after Round the Bays yesterday there was a free bbq and I was starving so I had 4 sandwiches instead of 2. I should have planned ahead and brought my own food but hey, I’m human.

I weigh in every day and it’s been interesting to see some large swings this week. You can see my daily graph here. I’ve also noticed that I’ve started to get really hungry on the days that I’m running. This never used to happen so I guess my body wants more energy.

I’ve got quite a bit on this week. I’m starting the One Hour Runner program on Tuesday. I’ve got a fitness assessment coming up. And I’m off to Christchurch for my brother’s wedding.

Tags: OHR, Weigh in by AndrewE
18 Comments »

Seeing as I ran 5K on Monday I have decided to treat this as my final week on C25K. On Friday I should finish the program so I need to decide what I will do next. One of the goals I have set myself is to do the Quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon this year. The quarter is 10.2 km so I need to train myself up to run 10K. Fortunately this is in November so I have some time to get there but I think it would be good to start training for it early.

I find I tend to do well when I can follow a program so I’ve decided that I will follow another training program to get me to 10 km.

There seem to be two major programs recommended to take you to 10K (or one hour of running).

The first is Hal Higdon’s Spring Training. This takes 12 weeks to get you to 6 miles (approx 10K) but it involves running most days and that might be a bit awkward.

The second is Cool Running’s The One Hour Runner. This takes a minimum of ten weeks (depending on how you go you can add weeks in) and involves running 3 times a week.

I quite like the routine of running 3 times a week only so I’ve decided to go with that.

The One Hour Runner program is as follows:

Weeks 1 - 3: Right now you are running 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Your weekly commitment of time is 90 minutes. Continue doing this for three weeks.

Week 4: Run 30 minutes, 29 minutes, 35 minutes. Weekly total: 94 minutes

Week 5: Run 30 minutes, 32 minutes, 38 minutes Weekly total: 100 minutes

Week 6: Run 30 minutes, 33 minutes, 41 minutes Weekly total: 104 minutes

Week 7: Run 30 minutes, 34 minutes, 45 minutes Weekly total: 109 minutes

Week 8: Run 30 minutes, 36 minutes , 49 minute Weekly total: 115 minutes

Week 9: Run 30 minutes, 38 minutes, 54 minutes Weekly total: 122 minutes

Week 10: Run 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes Weekly total: 130 minutes

So what I will do is finish C25K this week and then launch straight into OHR as the first 3 weeks of OHR are the same as the last week of C25K.

I’m also going to run all of the Run Auckland series races (circumstances permitting). These are 5K or 10K races so I will aim to run them on my 30 minute days as I’m planning on doing them as 5K races. Having said that I may do the last one as a 10K if I have managed to run 10 km by then. Of course, this all assumes that I enjoy the 1st 5K event which is about 3 weeks away

Boy, times have changed for me. A few months ago I would have said you were nuts if you told me I’d be pondering which running program to take.

Tags: C25K, OHR, fitness, running by AndrewE
9 Comments »