Results you can wear

Is there any nicer feeling than comfortably fitting into a pair of pants you haven't worn in four years? I think not.

When I started this little expedition, I wore a size 46. I probably could have worn a 48 without them feeling baggy, too. Right now, I have on a pair of size 40 khakis that I haven't even thought of being able to fit into since before I was married. In a couple of weeks, I can probably also start wearing the size 40 jeans I bought last month (the size-42 incentive jeans are now starting to get a little loose). And at this rate, in a couple of months, I'll be able to leave the 40s altogether. Which means I can actually buy off the rack at the Haggar outlet store.

I punished myself quite a bit this weekend. Friday, I did 5k on the ergometer and a 40-minute hill program on the stationary bike. Saturday, I went outside and ran this 5k route in just under 40 minutes. (Check out how far uphill that is for the last mile -- it was a killer!) Sunday, I rowed another 5k and did 25 minutes of hill intervals on the stationary bike before deciding that was enough. I think I'll take today off.

45 pounds to go?

I was poking around online on the weekend, looking for a way to measure body fat percentage. I found one site where, if you input your height, waist size, neck size and weight, will give you a reasonable estimate of body fat percentage. My body fat % is between 27 and 28, which seemed to me to be making some progress. However, I was more intrigued by another line of the output:

Your ideal weight: 225 lbs.

Isn't that interesting -- something that actually comes close to what I think I should really weigh!

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely detest BMI as a measurement of how "fat" or "thin" a person is. I believe it's a too-simplistic measurement tool designed to artifically inflate the "overweight" population, and doesn't even begin to take into account the number of factors that actually go into whether a person has a healthy weight or not.

According to BMI, since I'm 6' 2 1/2", my ideal weight range should be between 158 and 197 pounds. Now look to the right and see what my goal weight is. Now, let me tell you that even that target is about 10-15 pounds lower than the weight I would be happy with! The reason for that is that I was blessed with my dad's genetics, and he's built like a fullback. (He actually played fullback in semipro ball in the 60s.) My bone structure does not allow me to weigh 175 pounds...and yet BMI would tell you that that's what I should be shooting for.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still shooting for 200 pounds. But, if I happen to plateau around 215 -- or now even 225 -- I'm certainly not going to panic about it.

New toy / tough sledding

My Forerunner is here! I was home again yesterday, so I was here when the UPS guy knocked on my door and presented it to me. It was like it was still Christmas.

Its first test was to take it out running this morning. Last I checked, the paths along the canal were well-plowed. But, last I checked was Monday. This morning...not so much. It was a lot harder than I was expecting, because of the packed-down snow/slush combination. It was almost like running on the beach. But I ran two miles anyway, and I was able to keep an eye on my mile pace, which was pretty much all I wanted for the first run. I was managing 13-minute miles while keeping my HR around 150 for the most part, which I thought was decent for the conditions.

If they don't plow a little better, though, I'll have a lot of time to read up on how to use the more advanced features, because I'm not running on that again. But then, there's three days of rain in the forecast, and that might clear off the sidewalks a bit.

Stupid sinuses.

So I'm at home sick with what may or may not be a cold. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's actually a sinus flare-up. In any event, my head feels like it weighs about 50 pounds. I missed my run last night, but if this clears up any, I'm going to try to get one in this evening.

On the up side, the weather's going to be improving enough this weekend that I'm going to be able to get outside to run. I found out that the pedestrian paths along the Rideau Canal, where I did a couple of weekend runs in November, are the only trails in the whole city that get plowed, so I can run there if I feel like it. I had originally planned to do it Monday or Tuesday, but it was snowing both days, and I didn't feel like running through two inches or more of snow on the sidewalks.

Two more pounds down this week. It's looking like I'm going to need a new scale, since I've somehow reached a weight where the display will no longer lock in on one number, but instead flickers within a 10-15 pound interval, and shuts itself off while it's still thinking about how much I weigh.

Looking back, and looking forward

So, 2007 has come to a close. Honestly, if anyone had told me last January that I would lose over 33 pounds in 2007, I would've been ecstatic. The fact that I did it in only three months is absolutely mind-blowing to me.

That said, it's a time to look forward, not back. I still have about 68 pounds to go, and a full year to do it. I have the 5K to run at the end of May, so I still have something to train for in the short term. I'll probably schedule two or three events -- either runs, duathlons or triathlons -- for the summer and early fall, for more incentive. I've proven to myself that I can train for training's sake, but it's still nice to have a goal in mind besides a weight target.

I was very happy with how the Christmas holidays went for me. I had two Christmas dinners, but the only time I went back for seconds of anything was for another roll. I didn't have a lot in the way of sweets -- a couple of sticky buns and a small oatmeal chocolate chip muffin for breakfast Christmas morning, three or four small cherry shortbread cookies, and a divine piece of grasshopper cheesecake on Christmas Eve. Over the past week, I've only eaten out three times, with the worst meal being last night, when I had a filet mignon and baked potato, a couple of pieces of sourdough bread, a ginger ale, and an incredible brownie sundae. It was very satisfying, and a meal like that every once in a while keeps me sane.

As for exercise, I'll wager that I was the only person I know working out on Christmas morning! The plan all along was to get in a workout on my parents' elliptical machine, and despite not getting a lot of sleep, I woke up enough to do a good hill routine for 45 minutes. I did get to a spinning class on Sunday morning, and reaffirmed how much I hate morning workouts, as I got my ass kicked from beginning to end (figuratively AND literally -- those seats are just brutal, even with bike shorts). And I've started a new running plan, the beginner's 5K program from Cool Running. It says that you should be able to run comfortably on this schedule for 4-6 weeks before starting the main program:

Sunday - 3 miles
Monday - off
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - 3 miles
Thursday - 3 miles
Friday - off
Saturday - 2 miles

So I'm planning to run on that schedule from now until either the middle or the end of February, then starting on the main program. If I start the program at the beginning of March, it should end right at the time I run my 5K at the end of May.

And, as a reward for being so good, I bought myself the Garmin Forerunner 305 from Costco.ca. I was trying to find it at a relatively cheap price, but the only places I could find it were in the States. Then I found a discussion on BeginnerTriathlete.com saying people were getting it at a big discount at Costco, so I looked there. It wasn't the $180 in saw it for at Costco.com in the US, or even the $212 at Walmart.com, but $259 was pretty good considering I could only find it here in Canada for $349 minimum. I should have it in a week or two, and get to use it in earnest for a couple of weeks for before the cruise if the weather cooperates.

Happy New Year! May you achieve all the goals you set for yourself in 2008.

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.