Fit Update

This afternoon (Author's Edit: yesterday afternoon. It took me more than a day to finish this, if you can believe that.) I ran my first 5K since hurting my hip/back last year (God, I think it was during the summer. It doesn't feel like it was that long.) It doesn't quite count, since I did it on the treadmill rather than out on the streets, but I'm not particularly concerned over that fine point. I know I could handle the pavement at this point, it's just too damn cold and I'm too much of an old weenie to take it on anymore. Outside of the occasional morning where I get a wild hair to throw on the thermals and go out for a 5 Fahrenheit morning run, I just don't have the drive to test myself against the elements like that anymore. Plus, I can distinctly recall a time last year when I did that exact thing and ended up making myself sick because of it. So, yeah, screw winter running.

I seem to have wandered off topic.

I was working the Couch to 5k program after my graduation from physical therapy in the fall, which I really can't recommend enough to anyone who has even an inkling that they may enjoy running. Anyone can do it. I repeat, ANYONE can do it. You don't have to shoot for a half marathon like I am. I weigh 284 pounds. I have a hip that feels sore basically every time I finish a run. Most of my youth/adolescence/young adulthood I spent on a couch getting fat. I've got flat feet with pigeon toes, and I've only barely ever run a sub 10 minute mile. I have run 2 half marathons. If I can do it, you can do it too.

Sigh, I wonder when the time comes to realize you're not actually that interested in the topic you started out with and just abort.

ANYWAYS. Now that I've finished this up, we're on to training for the Lincoln Half in May. This, of course, is when the running outside is going to have to come back, since running on a treadmill for much more than 3 miles makes me want to eat a gun just to introduce some variety to the workout. The plan I built is set-up through the runner's world Smart Coach application, which lets you build something around what you've done and the amount of mileage you've been used to per week. The first long run will be a 4 miler starting next Sunday, which I'm looking forward to. I know that my best weight loss to date has come when I was doing this kind of training, as it takes quite a few calories to push this bulk for that many miles.

I've also started to notice some increases in strength, especially upper body where I've had issues building in the past. I can bench with a pair of 45 pound plates on the bar, so I feel slightly less weenie-ish than I used to where I had my puny little 25s strapped to the sides. I can get through sets of five with those without feeling like I'm moments from dropping the bar on my chest. This is a good thing. I can do my inverted body weight rows with one click lower on the trainer (difficult to visualize. It's the machine where you can do squats, but the bar stays on a rail and you can just rotate it forward to lock it. I leave the bar locked and pull my chest up to it from an incline.) This has me doing my sets now at somewhere about 45-50 degrees from horizontal. Soooo, getting closer to that pull-up goal.

Of course, the biggest thing for me is weight. I'm now 34 pounds from the first fitness goal. I did IF for a week and discovered that the scheduling of it is somewhat difficult for my purposes. I work out in the morning, and as such my metabolism is in high gear from about 8 AM to noon, aka right in the middle of fasting time. As such, I spend the time in between with my stomach attempting to claw its way out through my torso in protest, which is extremely unpleasant. Thus, I decided to give it a week off after having done one week on and compare results. I'll admit, this isn't exactly the most scientific of methods, but this is meant to be scatter-shot. The IF week saw me losing 3 pounds. I haven't done my weigh-in for this week yet, (that'll be tomorrow) but I was down one and a half over the weekend. So, I may end up deciding to go back to it and just cart a bigger meal with me to work for lunch, at least.