Greg's Running Blog

During my transformation I’ve been getting a lot of comments and a lot of questions. One of the most annoying one has been “So when are you going to be done with your diet?”. But nothing really tops the ultimate question that I get more times than I could care to count: “What’s your secret?”. This question is probably the most annoying of them all. Don’t misunderstand me, I love to get compliments and I certainly don’t mind questions and I’m eager to help anyone who’s in need of help with their transformation to a better and healthier life. But when I get this question, the most amazing thing usually happens. The person asking the question already knows the answer to it:

Eat Less Move More

There is no secret! It really comes down to one very simple thing: to lose weight you have to generate a caloric deficit. There are two ways of generating that caloric deficit.

1. Eat Less
   By reducing your caloric intake yet maintaining caloric demand your body will be in a caloric deficit and it will have to come up with the energy from some other source besides food. And most of us have plenty of storage to rely on. Our fat cells are excellent energy stores, they store about 3,500 calories of energy per lbs of body fat. So by eating less your body will start to burn off all the excess fat and slowly but surely your waistline will start to dwindle.
2. Move More
   The other way of generating a caloric deficit is by increasing the caloric demand of your body. Caloric demand of your body depends on age, sex, weight and activity level. The older you get the lower the caloric demand so the sooner you start the better off you are. It is pretty tough to change your sex, I’m not really sure it’s worth it, and the lower your weight the less energy you use so that really leaves us with one option to increase caloric demand which is increasing your activity level. Unless you quit your desk job and start loading trains or stocking warehouse shelves you really have no other option but start an exercise regime. It can be as little as 30 minutes of walking in the evenings after dinner or as much as a full fledged marathon training running 35+ miles a week. As long as you increase your activity level slowly but surely your waistline will start to dwindle.

And that’s all there is to it! As long as you do either one, or for optimal results both, you will lose weight. And the person who just asked the question while gets a bit disappointed that there was no secret involved, no pixie dust, no gastric bypass surgery, no magic drugs, no quick fix deep down inside they already knew that the only way to shed the fat and keep it off is by eating less and moving more.

I haven’t been on the elliptical trainer for almost two weeks. I have started my running and I never looked back. I also reduced the amount of cardio from the 90 minutes per day to just the running. Running seemed to have kept my heart rate much higher than I could ever get it up on the elliptical trainer and I burned a lot more calories. But lately I have started losing muscle mass I think so I need to take the pace of loss back down a notch otherwise I’ll be way too skinny or just so called skinny fat with no muscle only fat.

However, my running regime now calls for a day of cross training on Fridays for 60 minutes right after my Thursday rest day. So I had to get back on the elliptical and do my cross training. I have always been wearing a heart rate monitor for all my training sessions but I never really bothered to pay attention where my heart rate was during the exercise. I basically noted that the higher my heart rate was the more calories I burned the better it was for me. I have also noted that I’ve had problems with getting my heart rate up on the elliptical sometimes.

Today I purposefully watched my heart rate and made sure it stayed within the so called endurance zone which is about 65-75% of your maximum heart rate. I actually ended up right at 68% for the average which is just right. Being on the elliptical felt so easy at first but by the time I was done with 60 minutes of it was ready to get off. It got pretty tiring after about 30 minutes but I rode out the entire 30 minutes.

Since I have started my transformation project I have been pretty diligent with my daily cardio workout. There have actually only been 10 days out of the last 85 when I didn’t do any cardio workout, either walking, cycling or mostly elliptical. 4 happened over the Christmas holiday and two happened during Thanksgiving. It’s hard to blame me for not feeling too motivated with all the “festive eating” that went around while I stuck with my diet. For the other 4 days I have no excuses, I just didn’t feel like it. But today was different.

Today was a scheduled rest day. I have started running a bit over a week ago and after I almost killed myself over the weekend by doing it too strenuously I have decided I needed a plan. I’m always a man with a plan. So I started researching different running plans and looked at a whole lot of them. There were two things that they all had in common. 1) They all said you should get clearance from a doctor to run and 2) you should always have a rest day or two to recover during the week.

Today was supposed to be my rest day. It feels really weird not to do anything for a change and to do it on purpose. I still feel bad about it even though I know my legs need the rest so they will be in top shape for my scheduled 6 mile run on Saturday. Without exercise during lunch I just didn’t know what to do with myself. So I went golfing. I have checked my golf GPS and the last score card was recorded on 10/18/09. I haven’t played golf for over 3 months now. I started golf last year around May when a co-worker took me to the range once. At first I thought it was the stupidest idea ever but once I got started I could hardly stop. I have played pretty religiously over the summer, walked 9 holes on Wednesdays after work and walked 18 on every other weekend. You could say that was the beginning of the end of my sedentary lifestyle I just didn’t switch it into full gear until last October.

Ironically the same time I switched my transformation into full gear was the same time I played golf last. I just couldn’t find the time to get away and be out there for 4 hours any more. Daylight savings dropped off which made after work golf disappear from my schedule and family obligations and the weather killed my weekend play. My partner had a baby so he’s been out of commission since October and he’s just starting back up again as well.

Since I had nothing better to do at lunch I went to the range, got a bucket of balls and started whacking at them. I can’t really say that my weight loss made me any better. I actually sucked pretty bad. Most of my balls kept going to the right either straight or full slices. I definitely lost it over the last 3 months. I will need to re-learn everything again if I want to have any chance at playing 18 again with two sleeves of balls and hitting under 120. Regardless of my sucking I had a lot of fun today and I’m really glad I went. Since tomorrow is cross-train day I’ll do elliptical in the evening which leaves my lunch open again. I think I’ll go and visit the range tomorrow too. I certainly need the practice. So while today was supposedly a rest day I still ended up going outside and doing something mildly physical.

Today I was going to take it easier than yesterday. I wasn’t ready to run another 5 miles so instead I ran 3. But I ran that 3 like crazy. Well it was crazy for me. I ran the first 1 mile split in 8:18. Then the second two splits were 9:05 each. I finished the whole 3 miles in 26:33 total. It felt like a great workout. My only concern is that I seem to exercise at a pretty high heart rate and maybe I shouldn’t. But I have a hard time slowing myself down. I’ll have to figure something out.

But it wouldn’t be a triathlon if I didn’t ride some bikes along with it. In the morning I promised my son that after nap I’ll take him out on his Adams Trail a Bike and have a ride. He did not forget. So I ran 3 miles while the kids were napping then put the trailer on my bike and dragged him around for another 3 miles. We took the same route as I did for the run. Let’s just say my son does not do a whole lot of pedaling when we’re out and about. I can hear the ratchet clicking in the real wheel as he’s coasting. But we have a great time together and we talk about junkers and clunkers that we see on the side of the road or about angry dogs that bark at us. His favorite moment on today’s ride was when a small dog started chasing us and its owner had to whistle then run after the dog to stop it from following us all the way home. Then my son was giggling as the dog got disciplined for running away. We had to tell all about it to mom too . Times like these I really enjoy spending with my son, he’s growing up so fast so I have to enjoy these moments while I can.

As for the first leg of the triathlon we’ll have to wait until the weather gets better so we can swim in the pool again. In the winter I truly hate my pool but come April it’ll start to look better by the minute!

Running

• 26 minutes 33 seconds
• 3 miles
• 165 bmp avg heart rate
• 424 calories

Cycling

• 20 minutes 19 seconds
• 3.1 miles
• 127 bmp avg heart rate
• 204 calories

Today was Saturday. And I was planning on doing a rest day but I just couldn’t. My legs were craving the running. I just wanted to go out and run. I mapped out a 5 mile route around my town and went for it. I had settled into a pretty steady pace around 9:22 for the entire run. I had a couple of places where I was keeping close to a 9 minute mile and on a small section of major road where I did not want to spend any time at all I was under the 8 minute/mile pace. It was a great run and I am still amazed just how much I can run if I wanted to. I have burned 753 calories in under 48 minutes. This is by far the fastest rate of calorie burning I have done which is just great.

• 47 minutes 51 seconds
• 5.1 miles
• 164 bmp avg heart rate
• 753 calories

I think I’m getting a hang of this running thing. Today at lunch I went for running again. This time my goal was to run 10:30 miles and run 4 of them in a row without stopping. Mission accomplished. I ran 4 miles straight. If you had asked me three months ago if I could run 4 miles straight I probably would ahve said yeah but I probably would have died trying. This time I ran it just fine. I actually ran it at 10:04 pace and my average heart rate was 154 bpm. It was a great run and I felt really ood after it while also tired. My left knee felt a bit of a pain afterward but it wasn’t unbearable. The same knee started hurting before 2 miles on my first running day and now it didn’t even hurt during the run. It’s definitely getting better.

• 47 minutes 02 seconds
• 4.5 miles (last half mile was slow jog and walk)
• 148 bmp avg heart rate
• 601 calories

Today was the first time I actually ran in the dark. I didn’t have time to work out at lunch so I just had to run after the kids went down to bed. I have bought a headlamp made by Princeton Tec It has worked awesome even in the light drizzly rain. This thing is supposedly water resistant so the light drizzle I had to run in did not bother it. It gave great visibility on the road and it gave enough right up front where I could see my watch too. All in all a must have for night time running.

I have also ordered a belt and flashing Firefly Supernova from www.RoadID.com. These are going to make me more visible which is a must on the dark rural roads of Texan suburbia. I have also ordered a Wrist ID and I should have it by the end of next week.

The run was rather uneventful. Instead of the 3×1 intervals I did yesterday I walked half a mile, ran three then jogged another half. While running I have tried to keep a pace between 10 and 11 minute miles, I certainly did not want to overdo it. The run was painless and felt good. My heart rate stayed steady during the run, for the 3 miles it averaged 155 bmp. My pace averaged out to be 10:31 which is right smack in the middle of what I targeted it to be. Overall it was a pretty good workout and I had a really good time with it. My back is hurting a bit and I’m not sure if it’s from the running or the strength training but my guess is from the running so I’ll definitely have to keep an eye on it. It’s not my lower back which I usually have problems with it’s my middle section.

Walking/Running/Jogging

• 46 minutes 43 seconds
• 4 miles
• 145 bmp avg heart rate
• 579 calories

Today I was a bit smarter about my running than yesterday. I tried to keep my heart rate in the 144-161 bmp region for the runs and under 125 for the walks. I walked 0.3 miles then ran 1 mile and I repeated this 3 times. My running pace was at 10:10 which is a good bit slower than the sub 9 minute I have managed yesterday. But I have felt a lot better about it and I think this is the right zone for me to be in. The only way my speed is going to improve is through vigorous training. I’ll just have to keep on running to get my times better without killing my ticker. My total distance was 4.4 miles 3 of it was running the 1.4 was walking. All in all I think it was a good exercise. In light of these heavy duty lunch time runs I’m skipping evening cardio sessions. And due to having to run errands right after work I also skipped my strength training which was going to be legs and abs. Oh well, I’ll do them next week, my legs are plenty sore from all the running.

Interval Running

• 4.4 miles
• 51 minutes 46 seconds
• 602 calories
• 139 bpm average heart rate

Today I got my latest gadget and I had to take it for a spin. There is a track near work that is 1/3 mile long so I went for a run on it. I ran two miles, then walked one mile and ran another mile afterward. I think next time I’ll do one mile run 1/3 mile walk and repeat it 3 times. Same result but hopefully less painful. The first two miles I did in 17:52 with an average heart rate of 169 bpm. It is a bit too high for exercising. I’ll have to take it back a bit but it’s so hard for me to slow down as 9 minute miles aren’t that fast to begin with. The last mile took me 10:22 which was a lot more bearable pace at least that is what the heart rate monitor thought about my pulse as it went from 168 bpm average to 159 bpm average.

Running

• 3 miles
• 28 minutes 16 seconds
• 441 calories
• 165 bpm average heart rate

Walking

• 1 mile
• 16 minutes 4 seconds
• 159 calories
• 128 bpm average heart rate

The interesting part is that I have actually burned more calories per mile while walking than while running. The reason is that the elevated heart rate that caused the high calories while walking was due to the prior running not because of the walking. Since I have burned so many calories with the running I have skipped my evening elliptical cardio.

Today’s cardio was pretty much back to the grind, usual boring elliptical training twice a day. I did my 30 minutes at work and my 60 minutes at home at night. The home one was pretty tough and I kept thinking throughout the session that I’ll only do 30 minutes, 40, 45 minutes, ah the hell with it, I’ll do the whole 60. But as my heart rate shows I wasn’t all that into it. It was still a cardio session so it counts for something.

Elliptical

• 30 minutes
• 127 avg heart rate
• 292 calories

Elliptical

• 60 minutes
• 112 avg heart rate
• 456calories