Resolutions made easy

Listen up! You can be the only kid on your block to make and keep a New Year's resolution this year. Here's my secret:

"I, [your name here], hereby resolve not to make any resolutions for 2008 besides this one."

See? Simple.

I will blog tomorrow about my holidays. As my stats show, things actually went pretty well.

Happy holidays!

If you see me sometime over the next two days reaching for the shortbread, you have my permission to slap my hand.

Victory is mine!

I finished the Couch-to-5K program this morning, polishing off my last 30 minute run at 5.5 mph. My 5K time (including 5-minute warmup walk and cooldown) was 35:28. And I discovered that I definitely need to start carrying Gatorade instead of water on morning runs, because I had absolutely zero left in the tank after finishing.

And now, my reward:

You have successfully registered for an event in the Ottawa Race Weekend being held May 24 and 25, 2008.

Payment has been received/Confirmation d'inscription:
Chris Oster is registered for
Ottawa Race Weekend MDS Nordion 5K

Transaction ID: JME0899582

Important: You may use this confirmation in order to pick up your race kit at the Pfizer Health and Fitness Expo at Ottawa Lansdowne Park in the Aberdeen Pavilion. Bib numbers will be assigned about 2 weeks prior to the event in 2008. You can check back at: www.runottawa.ca at that time.

Now what?

Tomorrow I will do my last run in the Couch-to-5K program. Now comes the hard part -- I have to design my own workouts.

It's a pretty good time to finish the program, since I have an entire week to try and make up a plan without having to worry about work or anything like that. Monday is a scheduled day off, Tuesday I'm planning to use the elliptical machine at my parents' place after Christmas breakfast, Wednesday is another day off, and Thursday I'll probably do a run or get in the pool (or both). That should give me a few days to try and put something together.

I'm going to have to increase my frequency of working out from three days a week if I want to incorporate weight training, swimming, biking and running into every week. That's something I've been planning to do anyway, because I think it's time to mix things up so that my body doesn't get used to what I'm doing. My biggest challenge will be coming up with a schedule where I don't overdo things, which I'm unfortunately prone to doing.

Thirty

Two pretty cool things happened in the last 24 hours:

1) I completed a 30-minute run;
2) I passed the 30-pound mark in weight loss.

With any luck -- and with Christmas approaching, I'll probably need some -- I'll be under 270 by the end of this year. That would be an incredible Christmas present to myself.

I mentioned I wanted to start swimming over the Christmas holidays. One thing I definitely will start again is weight training. I bought a pair of PowerBlock dumbbell sets a few months ago so that I wouldn't need to rely on the gym for any strength training I wanted to do, but haven't used them nearly enough. When I started my latest weight-loss regimen, I promised myself that when I got down to 270, I'd start lifting weights again to firm things up. Looks like that time is here.

The only problem I'm having is trying to figure out exactly when to do it. I'm thinking after supper would probably be the best time, because I really don't know if I have enough time in the morning to incorporate weightlifting into my routine, and because I'm really unsure about the timing of eating breakfast and lifting weights. I don't think lifting on an empty stomach is a very good idea, and I don't know how long after breakfast I should wait before lifting. These are the things I'll have to figure out in the next few weeks.

One week to go

Tomorrow night I will start the 9th and final week of the Couch-to-5K program. The last two runs went much better than the one from last Thursday -- I was extremely comfortable for about the first fifteen minutes, then laboured some for the last thirteen, but never felt really distressed at any point. I knocked 0.1 mph off my speed on Saturday and felt great, and then I upped my speed above where I was on Thursday for last night's run and still felt great.

So, this week I'll be doing 3 30-minute runs. By Christmas, I should be able to run for five uninterrupted kilometres. At that point, I'll probably sign up for the 5K race on marathon weekend in May, to make sure I don't slack off. My 13-year-old nephew has already agreed to run with me if I sign up.

I'm planning to start swimming over the Christmas holidays, since I'll need to relearn how if I want to do a triathlon. I have a feeling it could take a while to get up to speed -- when I was a kid, I took swimming lessons, but failed orange (the second level) and never went back. (I just couldn't do the back swim.) If the swimming really doesn't really take hold, maybe I'll consider running a couple of duathlons (run/bike/run again) next year as an alternative.

40:17

If I was in a race, that would now be my PR for 5K. I started week 8 of the Couch-to-5K program last night, which calls for a 28-minute run. Including warm-up and cool-down walking intervals, I covered 5K in 40:17, with just about 4 km covered by running. It was not an easy run by any stretch. During the last five minutes, I kept glancing down at the clock every few seconds, silently pleading, "Am I done yet? Am I done yet? Am I done yet?" as my heart rate climbed into the 170s. Hopefully, the next one will be a little easier. Still, covering 5K in 40 minutes feels pretty awesome.

Last week was not really a good week -- too much eating out, not enough exercise. Some of that couldn't be helped, as the vertigo and other factors combined to keep me from running for nearly a week. This week, I decided to really buckle down and stick rigidly to the program, and I'm starting to get good results again. If I can keep this up, I have a pretty good shot at being under 270 before Christmas.

Someone stop the room, please

I woke up this morning feeling very peculiar. For some reason, the bedroom wouldn't stop spinning. When I tried to get out of bed, I took one step and immediately fell back down and felt quite nauseous. My wife, recognizing the symptoms, told me that I had vertigo.

And so I did -- when I got up to go to the bathroom at 9:15, I decided to step on the scale, and was immediately hit by a wave of nausea that probably would've caused me to throw up if there was anything in my stomach. I ended up not having any breakfast and barely able to stand long enough to make a little bit of lunch. I ended up spending nearly the entire day lying in bed, watching old game shows on GSN and listening to the radio.

Hopefully, this is a short-term thing, because I'd hate for this to ruin the holidays for me, not to mention throw my exercise schedule completely out of whack.

Free at last!

We've been having trouble with our upstairs neighbours and their stereos over the last month. The owner of the unit decided to rent it out to a group of twentysomethings, and they've been nothing but trouble ever since.

We made three trips upstairs to ask them to turn down the music which was blasting its way through our ceiling at a level where we could clearly make out what song was being played. Then we wrote a letter to the condo board. Then we started calling the by-law office (four times in the last two weeks!) when the music started blaring after 1 am. Finally, last night, I wrote another letter to our building manager, as our superintendant recommended.

So you can imagine my absolute joy when the building manager wrote back to let us know that the owner had started eviction proceedings against the tenants! From what I know of the Condominium Act in Ontario, it's a lot easier to do in a condo than it is in an apartment building. So, with any luck, we should be noise-free by New Year's.

I updated my stats yesterday instead of Thursday, since yesterday was exactly two months since I started. 25 pounds...I'm speechless.

Bad day turned good

What a brutal day this was -- we got a major winter storm that dumped over a foot of snow on Ottawa. Most of my co-workers stayed home and worked from there, either because their kids were at home or they just didn't want to go outside. I had to go in, though, because my wife had to go to work herself, and because I can't work from home (can't access the servers I need from home).

Because we wanted to get going before a bunch of idiots got on the road, we decided to leave early. But, since I was a big slowpoke this morning, I ended up not having time to make my lunch, and committed to buying lunch at work. I did this knowing that I was going to end up buying unhealthy food, because, well, that's what I always end up buying at work.

So I bought my bad lunch -- grilled cheese with bacon on whole wheat, fries and a Dr. Pepper. An interesting thing happened, though. By the time I got to the end of it, I'd really wasn't enjoying it at all. I ended up throwing about a quarter of the fries away. For the rest of the afternoon, I wasn't feeling all that terrific.

But then I got an email at ten to three saying that everyone was free to go home, due to the storm. I phoned my wife, and because she still had to work, I told her I was taking the bus home. After waiting about ten minutes past when the bus would normally arrive, though, and having no idea when it would finally get there, I elected to just walk to the intersection where my connecting bus would be, about ten minutes away. The walk made me feel a lot better, and then when I got home, I realized I had enough time before my wife got home to go down to the treadmill and get a workout in.

The plan was to bump my speed up another 0.1 mph from the last workout, to 5.3. I started out doing that, but about five minutes in, I realized that with the combination of the bad lunch and the long walk, there was a chance I might not be able to finish at that speed. So I knocked it down to 5.1 and ran other twenty minutes at that speed without much difficulty. Then my wife came home, we had a nice dinner, and now I'm feeling great.

Well, except for the part where there's two feet of snow on the ground.

Week 6 complete

Wow. I'm now only three weeks away from running five uninterrupted kilometres. Crazy.

I think I've figured out the secret to working out in the morning -- work out late, so the energy from breakfast has a chance to be absorbed. When I was unable to finish a morning workout a couple of weeks ago, it was probably because I was doing it less than an hour after breakfast, so my energy stores were still depleted.

Of course, this means I can't work out before work during the week, which I'd hoped to do over the winter, unless I can come up with a bright idea to get some usable energy in me without relying on breakfast.

NBC aired their coverage of the 2007 Ironman World Championship this afternoon. Now I have even more motivational material to keep me going over the winter.

Another small milestone

I'm under 280 this week! Woohoo! Actually, I've been under 280 since last Friday, but I promised I'd only update once a week.

I seem to be on schedule to be at 250 by the time we go on our cruise, but there's no telling whether I'll be able to keep this pace up for the next nine weeks. I don't think we'll end up going on any of the weight-restricted excursions, but it'd be really nice to know I could.

Tomorrow I'll be running over two solid miles. If I stay on schedule, I'll be running 5K in two weeks. The moment I complete 5K on the treadmill, I'm signing up for the 5K race on Ottawa marathon weekend at the end of May.

Exhilaration

It's been a long time since I've had a feeling of accomplishment like I did Saturday night. At least, I think it must be a long time, because I don't remember the last feeling like this I've had. Maybe my university graduation, maybe landing my first permanent job.

So what did I do? I ran a mile and two-thirds without stopping. About half a 5K. That's all.

I really wasn't prepared for how I was going to feel when I finished the 20-minute run. It was an incredible feeling. The fact that "The Final Bell" from the Rocky soundtrack, the piece that closed the movie, was playing on my iPod at that exact point certainly enhanced the moment. I'm glad I was running in the exercise room in my condo building all alone, because I was able to just let loose with a series of fist pumps, excited whoops, arms in the air, etc. I probably looked like I'd just finished a marathon.

So, on to week 6 then. 5 run/3 walk/8 run/3 walk/5 run, then 10 run/3 walk/10 run, and then a 25-minute run. I'm ready. Bring it on.

Banished indoors

Here in Ottawa, we got our first major snowfall of the season yesterday. Altogether I'd say it probably amounted to 8-10 inches. We're also getting flurries right now, which will probably put another 2 inches or so on the ground. All of which means that I'm retiring to the treadmill until spring (unless all of this melts, which is possible given the long-range forecast, but unlikely).

Now, if the trails in Ottawa were plowed regularly, I would probably keep running until it got so cold that I'd be in danger of body parts falling off. I'd imagine it would be pretty nice to run along the frozen Ottawa River. However, since there are so many trails that the city can't justify spending any of its snowplow budget on them, and/or because the cross-country skiers would scream bloody murder if they had to ski on pavement, the trails are left alone during winter, making them completely useless to runners, bikers, or any other people who like to pretend we don't get winter. I could run on sidewalks, I suppose, but then I'm dealing with icy patches, cars that speed through puddles, plows, and OK yes I'm a wuss what do you want from me?

The 8/5/8 run last night went perfectly fine, so I'm attempting the 20-minute run tomorrow. The thought of me finally running a continuous mile is a bit intimidating, to be honest.

Oops.

Turns out I've been doing week 5 wrong. Only the first day of three was supposed to be three repeats of 5 min run/3 min walk. The second day is supposed to be 8 min run/5 min walk/8 min run, and then the third day is supposed to be (gulp!) 20 minutes of running with no walking. I had done three days of 5/3 repeats, thinking I was onto week 6, but no. So, I'll probably give day 2 a try tonight, with day 3 coming sometime on the weekend.

I'm glad I got onto the treadmill last night, because I really didn't need three days off. I just felt lazy as all get out last night, and I was thisclose to bagging my workout and trying tonight. That's been the week in a nutshell -- the newness of the whole regimen has worn off, and it's become a lot more difficult to stay in line. As a result, I'm only down 0.2 pounds this week, and didn't fulfil my goal of being under 280. The nice thing, though, is that I still haven't really lost any ground, and I can increase my effort this week to try and reach it.

All I want for Christmas is...

...a Suunto T3 heart rate monitor with Foot Pod. Only $300. Surely someone's got that lying around.

One thing I noticed on the weekend is that I don't run as fast outside as I do on the treadmill. I used Google Earth to track two parts of my run on Sunday that I had timed, and both were right around 4.8 mph. Inside, I try to run at least 5.0 mph. Part of it is probably because the outside world is not flat and windless as it is indoors (no, I don't use the hill setting yet). Still, this might explain why I tend to have more trouble running indoors -- I'm running faster than my body expects! This is why I think I should get the watch, so I have an idea of how fast I'm going outside. Of course, with the weather getting progressively worse, I probably won't even need it until, oh, say March.

I'm going to test this theory tomorrow, when I try to complete week 5 of the Couch-to-5K program.

Another milestone

Today was my first official day over 20 pounds lost. I'd bee flirting with it all week, but today I finally went under 281.6 for the first time. Yay! By this time next week, I'm hopeful that I'll be under 280 for the first time in years.

At my next running workout, I'll be starting week 5 of the Couck-to-5K program. That's three repeats of 5 min run/3 min walk. I actually think this has the potential to be easier than week 4, because what was killing me in week 4 was the 90-second rest periods after the three minute run. I was finding it difficult to recover adequately in such a short period. The 2.5 minute recovery after the 5 minute running segments was generally not a problem.

Weirdly fun things to do while losing weight: The other night, without meaning to, I pulled my jeans down around my ankles without undoing them.

WHAM

I hit a wall today in my running plan. I ran on the treadmill this morning, intending this to be the last leg of week four, but couldn't finish the last five-minute segment.

I'm wondering if it's a result of working out in the morning, not long after breakfast. I think if I'm going to work out in the morning, I'm going to need to eat more and/or wait longer for my body to absorb the fuel and/or take some Gatorade instead of water. All I know is, right now I feel like I couldn't even walk to the kitchen.

Now THAT was hard.

I started week 4 of the Couch-to-5K running program yesterday. I had taken the day off work due to sinus problems (my head felt like it was caving in on itself when I woke up), but I was feeling well enough by the afternoon to go out running. Of course, by the time I got changed, stretched and got downstairs, it had started to rain. It was one of those cold November showers that are horrible for running. So I changed course and headed for the ancient treadmill in my building.

The plan for week 4 is: 3 min run/90 sec walk/5 min run/2.5 min walk x 2. So, 16 minutes of running overall, a big jump from the 9 minutes of running in week 3. Everything went reasonably well until the last 5 minute running segment. I didn't feel like I recovered well enough during the 90 second walk, and so when I looked down at my watch halfway through the segment and saw my pulse was already 165, I was legitimately concerned that I wasn't going to finish. Incredibly, my pulse didn't get above 167 after that. But my legs were feeling quite wobbly when I was done.

Incidentally, I was watching The Biggest Loser last night, and watched Neil post a -18 for the week. To put that in perspective, I wasn't even able to post a -18 for the entire month of October. I'm glad I can watch this show without saying, "Why can't I do that?" and then going out and killing myself trying to do it.

Running is fun

If running wasn't fun, then how could I derive so much pleasure from two runs this weekend?

Yesterday, since the weather was so nice (albeit a bit cold), I decided to go outdoors for my workouts this weekend. I set out to run this route, 2 miles starting from Running Room and going through the Glebe to the highway. I altered it a bit, though so that I went all the way to the end of 5th Avenue and onto the path along the Rideau Canal. I was quite cold for the first bit, but warmed up nicely after about 10 minutes. (It probably didn't help that I was wearing shorts.) It was clearly harder than running on the treadmill, because I can't tell how fast I'm going and probably tend to run faster than indoors, but it was really nice being out among so many other runners.

I enjoyed it so much that I decided to go out and do it this morning. This time, I mapped out my own route, doing an out-and-back through downtown that went around the National War Memorial and past the Canadian Parliament buildings. This turned out to be a more difficult route than yesterday, because of the rather steep hill at the start, and the longish uphill past the Parliament buildings on the way back. Even worse was that I hit the uphill right at the start of my second 3-minute run section. But, when you look across the street and see this statue:



it's easy to find some extra motivation.

I don't know how long I'll be able to keep running outside, since I don't plan on doing much when the snow and -30 days arrive, but it's such a nice change from the monotony of the treadmill that I'm going to try and keep doing these weekend runs whenever I can.