5K Done! Now Onto The 10K!

Hey! I won a medal! For participation! Yay!

So this weekend was interesting.

My wife and I decided to use my 5K race as an excuse to do a dry run with our new camper, as the race was out in Dearborn and started at 8 a.m (about an hour's drive from me). Not knowing anything about how to set up a camper, I broke the hitch and almost couldn't attend the race because it was still halfway attached to my car. Fortunately another camper helped to get it unstuck and I was able to replace the hitch after the race. I also learned more about my camper than I ever thought I'd need to know. Turns out they're a lot more complicated than having a tiny house on wheels.

Anyway, moving on...

I did better than I had expected in the race, clocking in at 31:56. Still well short of my goal, but about three minutes better than I had done the previous Monday.

The best part of finishing the 5K is that now I get to train for my 10K, which will be in early June out in Owosso (also quite a way away from home, and probably needing another camping trip). The training is going to be getting a lot harder now, with me doing cardio at least five days a week. I've also decided to start doing weight training with my legs again, as I'm pretty sure that a lot of problems with my knees are due to the muscle that I had lost around my knees after my surgery. Gaining back some leg strength will hopefully do it some good.

On the cardio end, I'm doing Hal Higdon's novice program, except instead of doing 30 minutes of cross training on day three, I'm doing 60. I've been getting antsy if I don't do A LOT of exercise lately, so I wanted to push myself a little harder. Cross training is good on my knees, so I can spend more time on that than on running. On the anaerobic side, I've started level 4 out of my old workout book, The Truth, with the exception of the leg portion, which I'll keep at level 2 for now. Level 4 in the book is right about where most people scream "Dear God, why did I decide to do this?!", so I'm looking forward to it. :)

It still blows my mind how many things seem possible for me now. I'm going to be doing a half marathon later this year. I love running now. I look forward to going skydiving after I drop below 250 pounds. I have these big fitness goals that for years had seemed too far out of my reach to achieve and now I'm going for them. It feels so damn good.

Lions and Gazelles

When I was younger and I did martial arts, I remembered a saying all throughout my training: “The lion wakes up every morning knowing he has to be faster that the slowest gazelle. The gazelle wakes up knowing he has to be faster than the slowest lion.” I repeated it to myself throughout my training because I knew that I had to be better trained, better ready for battle than anyone that would ever try to hurt me or the people I care about. So I trained endlessly, for hours at a time, every single day.

A lot of people take that expression to mean that they need to be a lion. Of course they would. Lions are bad ass. They’re the kings of the jungle. They’re the predators.

But fuck that. I’m a gazelle. I don’t want to just be faster than the slowest gazelle, I want to be faster than the fastest lion. I want to be well trained enough to not just outrun the lion, but to taunt him. To tease him. Make him think he’s going to get me just before I burst off with another sprint. And then when he’s winded and out of breath, that’s when I’ll stab him with my antlers. And when the lion is laying on the ground wounded, he’ll look up and see me mocking him.

“Who’s the predator now, bitch?”

Plateau Busted!

I now weigh 283 pounds. The last time I weighed this little, I had just gotten home from my first overseas tour in the Army, "Hey Ya" was one of the top songs in America, the whole country was still worshiping George W. Bush like he was the second coming of Christ, the Iraq war was just starting to turn into a shit pile and I was wondering when I'd be taking a trip over there.

It was 2003, if you hadn't figured it out yet.

After last Monday, I got mad that my weight hadn't budged in about a month, so I took to the internets to get some advice. One guy said that I should lower my caloric intake by about 400 calories to see if that would help. It was an idea so simple you'd think I would have figured it out myself. So I did that. I also started a food log on myfitnesspal.com and have been maintaining it regularly.

The weight started coming off immediately after I cut back on the calories. Instead of getting my 200 grams of protein everyday through whatever means necessary (which was putting on a lot of fat calories), I started drinking a lot more protein shakes and limiting my meat to mostly lean meats like chicken or turkey. After a few days of this I started feeling dizzy after my workouts, so I have a couple of "carbo-load" days every week where I stock up my glycogen stores so I can workout hard without injuring myself. Those days I just drink Gatorade and eat some bread or potatoes with my meals.

Speaking of which, I had to stop running for a week because the treadmill was beating the shit out of my knees. Sadly, this has killed my run time and I won't have my 5K time down to under 30 minutes like I had planned when I do my race next week. It's alright, though. Eventually I'll get there if I keep working at it. In the meantime, the weather is just starting to warm up out here in Southeast Michigan, and I'm running outside now.

Getting Fit and Gaining Shitloads of Confidence

Jesus Christ, it's been two weeks! I have so much stuff to write!

Let me get the bad news out of the way...

The scale hasn't budged in weeks. I'm still at 290 pounds, and it's gotten on my last nerve. People try to reassure me that "muscle weighs more than fat", but since that was something I always told myself when I was fat, it's not making me feel any better. My body is showing that I'm losing weight, and I'm getting more physically fit. I just want the numbers to back it up!

Okay, now onto the good.

For starters, I've decided to stop drinking for a while. I've always been a heavy drinker, and the doc telling me to quit drinking after the surgery might as well have been him telling me not to breathe. But I looked at the calorie content in my booze and it turns out I was drinking about 800 calories a night. So I've been sober for five days now, which is the longest I've been sober since Iraq. My lack of calories still isn't showing up on the scale, though.

The scale aside, though, I'm looking and feeling great. My wife says I'm starting to get six-pack abs. I looked in the mirror. She's right! It's hard to see because I still have lots of fat I still need to burn off, but I can see them just starting to protrude. I've also got my average mile run time to under 10 minutes, and my body is packing on lots of muscle.

A few weeks ago I noticed that every time I did a weight-lifting session I was actually lifting less than the week before, so I looked up how much protein I should be eating. Turns out I was insanely protein deficient. I tried upping my intake to 90 grams, but it turns out I needed to be eating a minimum of 200 grams a day. Most body building websites say I should be eating about 300, and there's even one doctor that says I should be eating over 500. That last guy must be a fucking quack because who eats that much and isn't a fat bastard? So I upped my intake to 200 grams, which requires me to eat a large amount of protein shakes, lots of meat, and pretty much nothing else. Carbs are pretty much non-existent in my diet, but not completely. I haven't gone full-Atkins, just pretty close. I've also started taking my Mega Men vitamins again, along with a whole slew of nutritional supplements.

One side effect I hadn't anticipated was that women have been coming up to me and flirting with me. Where were all these women when I wasn't married? Oh well, they're just going to have to look and not touch. :)

I've also developed super confidence. I'll blame this more on the workout motivation mp3's I've been listening to than anything else, but it doesn't hurt when women are throwing themselves at you and you're in the best shape you've been in in nearly a decade. I find it weird that when you have confidence there's always going to be people that find it strange. It's like they think so little of themselves that they expect everyone else to as well, or they feel threatened by someone who thinks highly of themselves. But instead of feeling threatened they should realize that they, too, have permission to feel good about themselves, to know that they also have the ability to reach their full potential if only they want it badly enough. A year ago, I couldn't even imagine running a half-marathon. Now it's something I plan on doing in October (still dependent on whether or not my knees can handle a 10K). Even in my Army days I never thought I'd be able to do something like this.

In about two weeks I'll be doing my first 5K. I look forward to beginning training on my 10K after that. It means I go from doing cardio three days a week to five. Every cardio session burns at least 600 calories. The more the better!

That's it for now. See ya later!

For the ads...

Ever since I mentioned that I'm running, I keep getting ads for things like Fitness Singles and other stuff like that.

So I'm doing this so I can get rid of them. Make of it what you will:

Wife wife wife, I'm married, I love my wife. Married married married, get me some relevant ads, I love my wife, fuck off.

So This Happened...

It's official. I've lost so much fat off of my face that my glasses will not stay on.

I'm glad I'm losing the fat, but that is very annoying. Especially when I'm running and have to keep pushing my glasses back on my face every couple of seconds. I'm going to have to get that fixed.

But I do have some great news: My weight is down to 290. That's 77 pounds lost. And my mile time is down to 11 minutes. My short-term goal is to get my average mile time under 10 minutes. Long term would be under 8.

Speaking of running, a friend on Facebook told me about the Crim Festival of Races. It's a 10 mile race that's done in Flint every year. If I do well on my 10K I'll sign up for it.

I'm worried about my knees in my distance running. I want so badly to be able to run a half-marathon, but I don't know if my legs can handle the stress.

I'm now the lightest I've been since 2004. I'm happy the weight is off, and yet when I think that I allowed myself to weigh so much for so long I get angry about it. But it happened because after my first overseas tour in the Army I went into a deep depression and allowed my junk food addiction to get the better of me. Addiction is a motherfucker. I have to remember that when I get angry.

But I have a new lease on life now and I'm so happy about it. Nearly 80 pounds lost. My goal is to get to 240 by December 9th (one year after my surgery), so I'm well past my halfway point. While the weight is coming off far more slowly than I'd like, it is coming off. And I'm sure it will come off faster as my workout intensity increases. I'm running 2.25 miles now. When I train for my 10K next month I'll be running even more. And my strength training is going to increase as well.

See you next week!

Stupid Runner's Knee!

I developed a nasty case of runner's knee in both legs. Turns out that running three times a week and doing weight training on your legs is something you shouldn't do unless you've been running for quite some time. So I won't be able to exercise until at least Saturday, which really sucks.

I've been faithful to my workout plan up until now, and I plan on keeping it that way as soon as my legs heal up.

On the plus side, my legs look totally ripped. You could bounce a quarter off of my quadriceps. :)

I'll probably give up weight training on my legs altogether until my body gets used to running three times a week. When I start training for my 10K, I'll be doing cardio five days a week and not just three, so my legs will be worked out plenty.

My upper body isn't looking too shabby, either. I've gained back most of the muscle mass that I've lost.

As far as my weight goes, I went down to 294 as of this morning. I'm quite happy about that, although I wish the weight loss would come faster. I'm getting tired of losing five pounds at a time and then not moving for another week. I am seeing it in my belt, though. When I got my work belt just before I got off of medical leave, I could only fit the first notch. Now I'm on notch three, and on some days four. Pretty soon I will need a whole new belt altogether.

I'm also seriously considering running a half-marathon at the Detroit Free Press/Talmer Bank Marathon in October. Whether or not I sign up depends on how well I'll do at my 10K in June. If I can do 6.2 miles without messing up my knees, 13.1 miles should be easy enough. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd think a half-marathon was within my grasp. Feels good just thinking about doing one. :)