Greg's Running Blog

I have signed up for a 10K for the end of February as my first race. And since I’m not big on doing things in a half ass fashion and I’m an all or nothing kind of guy I started a training program for the race 3 weeks ago. This training plan calls for all kinds of running speeds and distances throughout the training period and this past weekend it called for a 5K race. I could have just ran around the block at race speeds but where is the fun in that? So my co-worker told me about a race that was coming up this past Saturday. We both contemplated going and in the end he chickened out but I went.

Why did he chicken out? I think it had a lot to do with the weather. Here in Texas weather can be very fickle. We had temperatures in the 70s (22+ Celsius) two weeks ago but the weekend forecast was 24 degrees (-4C) with a windchill factor of 16F (-9C). And sure enough they were right. The weather was brutally cold on Saturday morning. I’m not a morning person so getting out of the warm bed and drive to the race at the crack of dawn in freezing temperatures was a double whammy. But I did it with excitement and great anticipation.

I have not ran in a race environment for almost 20 years. You see, I used to be a long distance runner in junior high and I was pretty good at it to boot. I liked it a lot and I loved the races. But I got burned out and the only thing remained was my appetite which made me gain weight at an incredible pace. Fast forward 20 years and you get to my October 2009 state which is overweight and unfit but someone who deep down thinks he can run. Unlike other obese people who probably never ran a mile in their life I was actually a pretty damn good long distance runner with national titles, I’m not from the US originally, in my age group at the time.

So when I showed up at the race at the wee hours of 7:30AM I wasn’t sure if I could really do it. I mean I knew that I could run 5K, it’s 3.1 miles which has been the shortest running distance in my training schedule for the past three weeks but I didn’t know just how well I could run. Based on my previous training runs I figured I should be able to run it around 25 minutes. I didn’t know what 25 minutes would get me in terms of placement as I wasn’t really familiar with big running events like these and the quality and pace of the average runner.

As I looked around I saw all kinds of folks there. Men and women, young ones and old ones, fit ones and fat ones. People in shorts in the freezing cold and others wearing several layers and ski masks just to keep warm. It was quite an interesting sight to witness all these different people with different abilities getting ready to undertake the same race.

There were two race distances, the 5K which I ran and a half marathon as a preparation race for the upcoming Cowtown Marathon where I’ll be running my 10K. Due to the weather a lot of folks who originally were going to run the half marathon have switched over to the 5K race. I have seen bib numbers as high as 700 but all in all there were only 461 finishers, 244 in the 5K the rest in the half marathon. The whole race was pretty laid back and small scale which was probably a good thing for me as the first race.

Since I started moving up to the start line pretty early I got a good solid starting position but I realized that while I was going to run with all the other people I really was only racing myself and the time so the starting position didn’t really matter. Unlike 20 years ago when everything was timed from gun time now everyone runs their own race with a transponder chip on their shoes that measures chip time. At the beginning the crowd was pretty heavy and it took a good quarter mile before people started separating out enough and settling in their paces. To meet my target of 25 minutes I needed an 8 minute per mile pace (5:00/km). After the first quarter mile I was up to a 6:50 pace and felt great. As soon as my heart rate picked up to match the pace I knew that I had to scale it back as I would have been unable to sustain that pace for the entire race. So I slowed down a bit and settled into a 7:35-7:40 pace and kept at it. Things were going great and just as I was passing the 1 mile marker I was seeing the leader already running back. I did the math in my head and I figured there is no way he’s already at the 2.1 mile mark running twice as fast as I. And I was right. I didn’t know ahead of time but the course, while it was an out and back, it was really more like a fork. You ran up one leg of the fork then the other and back to the start. So the leader wasn’t really that far ahead he just came back from the left leg of the fork at this point and soon after I was at the tip of the fork too.

As soon as I turned around I got hit smack in the face by some super cold wind which was blowing like there was no tomorrow. It definitely slowed me down and my pace started to fade while my heart rate kept on climbing. My pace dropped down to the 7:50-8:10 range and I figured as long as I keep it close to the 8 minute mark I should be able to finish under 25 minutes thanks to the extra time I picked up earlier. As I was getting closer and closer to the end there were a couple of people passing me. But as they were passing me I felt that their pace, cadence and composure is in a lot worse shape than mine and I thought they were struggling more than me. I felt like I still got the efficiency I once had and I still had the mechanics of running down pat. I felt great. As I was getting closer to the end my heart rate kept on climbing ever higher to places I didn’t think it could climb. So I took back a notch from my pace and slowed to 8:30 pace by the last 200 yards. I knew I ran faster than 25 minutes but I didn’t know how much faster until I ran through the finish line and saw that I finished the race in 24:04. That is almost a minute better than I thought I was going to run. I was very happy with my result. I finished 35th overall out of the 244 finishers which made me feel great. First place? 17:41 by an 18 year old guy. What impressed me more though was the second place finish of 18:28 by a 34 year old man. I hope to be that guy one day. As for the winner’s time I could have ran circles around him when I was 13, I ran 5K under 16 minutes back then. But that was a different time….

All in all I had a great time and it has given me even more encouragement to look forward my 10K race at the end of February.

Another week has gone by and I have to give a status update. Well I don’t have to but I choose to. This week was all about running and eating right.

The running went great. I have managed to put in 23.6 miles this week which is pretty much according to plan. I’m doing a 10K race in 4 weeks so I need to be in tip top shape by then. For some folks 24 miles a week would seem a lot for others it might seem like nothing. For me it’s just the right amount. I’ll have to build up to higher miles if I ever plan on running longer races but for 10K it is perfect mileage. Friday was a rest day so I didn’t run. I didn’t do anything on Friday actually. It felt kind of weird but I’m sure my body thanked me for it.

Strength training is still an integral part of my transformation but I’m cutting it down to twice a week and I hit two areas every time. I do both back/biceps and chest/triceps on both days. This helps me with having more time for running during the week yet I still work out both major areas twice a week. I have been slacking on the core and legs but the running is definitely helping the legs. I’m really worried about losing the muscle mass I have and I really need to keep doing strength training. Strength training just can’t really take a back seat yet. I’ll report back on how the twice a week thing working out for me.

Nutrition is still the toughest part of my transformation triangle. Cardio is down, strength training is coming along but with food it’s a struggle and constant challenge. It is a constant challenge to find the right amount of calories and the right combination so I still eat enough protein. The hardest thing has been moving up from 1,4000 calories to 1,800 calories. I have a hard time with adjusting my foods to spread the calories out and not end up eating junk. At breakfast I’ll think that I can eat more since I need to bump the calories so I do. Then I figure now that I need 400 extra calories I can have a morning snack and I eat another 200 calories worth of stuff. Then I bump up the rice on my lunch and by the time I go home and add it all up I realize that my dinner has to be pretty slim to squeeze in under the calorie limit. And then I realize that we’re out of chicken and the only thing left is some fatty ground beef that will put me over the calories with the fat but it will keep me from hitting the protein level I want to hit. Maybe 400 calorie difference is not that much and I really should only spread it amongst my breakfast and morning snack and still have the same lunch and dinner like I did on 1,400 calories.

Having said all that my diet has still been pretty spot on, I came in at 1,739 calories on average for the week with 159 grams of daily protein. I guess the above paragraph is more of a train of thought I have to go through every day to be able to hit my targets. I still lost some lean mass this week according to my scale but I hope that the drop will stop by next week.

Another thing you will notice is the change in the look of the charts. Since I no longer do daily entries on nutrition and cardio it has become very difficult for me to enter all the required data to generate the charts dynamically via WordPress and the Google charting API. So I started using Excel to do my charts instead. I’ve been logging my information in Excel all along so all I had to do was generate the charts from it. You must agree that the new charts look a lot better and they give me a lot more options to tweak and set up the way I want them. I can include macronutrient distribution on the calorie chart and rolling averages for my weight, body fat percent and waist line charts. This will help me pinpoint trends better and filter out daily fluctuations. I’m also adding two more charts, one for lean body mass and one for distance ran. I’ll keep the lean body mass chart on until I get that thing under control and the mileage meter will get pretty impressive by October if I say so myself .

• I had 1795 Calories, Fat – 23%, Carbs – 47%, Protein – 30% #
• I had 1778 Calories, Fat – 23%, Carbs – 41%, Protein – 36% #
• I almost lost my school ring today. It was in the bottom of my gym bag. Must have fallen off as I put my stuff in it. It was scary. #
• I had 1741 Calories, Fat – 23%, Carbs – 37%, Protein – 40% #
• I had 1856 Calories, Fat – 30%, Carbs – 39%, Protein – 31% #
• I had 1870 Calories, Fat – 23%, Carbs – 37%, Protein – 40% #
• I just bought some size 34 jeans tonight! And they fit! #
• I just ran my first 5K race in 19 years. Made it in 24:04 that's 7:45/mile. Feeling good about it. #
• I had 1530 Calories, Fat – 26%, Carbs – 40%, Protein – 34% #
• I had 1652 Calories, Fat – 22%, Carbs – 43%, Protein – 35% #

Here is another 4 day photo update. I can’t really see much difference from the last one. According to the scale I have lost some weight and according to the tape measure I have lost a bit from my chest and my thighs. I have increased my caloric intake and decreased my cardio so I’m not surprised that the pounds aren’t melting away at the same rate as they used to. I’m certainly not disappointed with it, I have different goals now. Slow and steady with maintenance of muscle and increase of endurance. So I’m still pretty happy about my update even if the pictures don’t show a vast difference. I also like to compare my photos with prior ones and it’s amazing just how much difference one month can make. I thought I looked pretty good a month ago but when I look and compare I feel that was just another fat slob. I’m sure I’ll feel the same way about today’s picture in a month or two.

01/30/2010 Transformation Picture

Ever since I have started my transformation I think my cardiovascular fitness has improved drastically. I can’t really say where my resting heart rate was exactly when I started but I think it was around 72 bpm. Since my running training is mostly heart rate based it is important to get a good reading on your resting and maximum heart rates. Today I have decided to measure my resting heart rate.

I have actually been measuring my resting heart rate for a couple of weeks now but I have been getting very mixed results. They say the best way to measure your resting heart rate is to measure it first thing in the morning before getting out of bed or doing anything that would make it elevated. And there lies the problem with this method. I am usually awakened against my will by either an alarm clock that my wife sets oh-so-wonderfully 1 hour earlier than needed then resets it two more times before we finally get out of bed. Don’t ask me why she does this, this is part of her morning ritual. I guess she prefers to get an hour warning about when you need to get up and get an hour less of good solid sleep. Sadly this also affects my sleep.

If it’s not the ridiculous alarm clock pattern of my wife that gets me up it’s my daughter crying through the baby monitor. She’s 20 months old and likes to wake with a loud disappointment and she wants to be sure everyone knows that she’s disappointed with having woken up. What I’m trying to say my mornings aren’t exactly relaxed and my morning resting heart rate certainly shows it. Add to it the time and effort I put into putting my heart rate monitor on and starting it up and you can see that my heart rate in the morning is nowhere near my resting heart rate. I’m actually pretty restless by the time I’m taking measurements.

My readings have been all the way up to 69 bpm in the morning and as low as 60 bpm. Your resting heart rate will fluctuate between days depending on how well you have recovered from the previous day’s exercise or it can also be higher if you’re fighting off some kind of illness or there is an onset of one. So your morning resting heart rate should tell you a lot and is a good indication of what to look forward to in the day in terms of actual energy level and fitness.

While my morning readings have been all over the map my readings with the heart rate monitor at night sitting in front of the computer have been pretty steady. I’d be clocking in around 53-55 bpm which is a lot lower than my morning heart rate. So which one is my true resting heart rate? I thought the only way to find out was to actually measure my heart rate while totally resting; measure it while asleep.

So I spent last night with my heart rate monitor strapped on and I logged the entire night’s data, every single beat of my heart for close to 5 hours. I didn’t get enough sleep last night but I got enough data to draw my conclusion. It was actually quite interesting to see my heart rate change over the course of the night. My heart rate had random spikes all the way up to 90 bpm at times and I also had a time period where my average heart rate was higher than everywhere else. Also, the close it has gotten to the morning the higher it went and the more noisy it was.

I have counted and ordered every single beat’s rate and put them on a distribution chart.

You can see that while my heart rate was all over the map and went as low as 38 and as high as 90+ it was pretty linear distribution in the 50-57 bpm range. From this I conclude t hat my resting heart rate is right around 52 bpm. Obviously this number changes from day to day but it is a good general ballpark and is certainly better than my morning rate of 69 at times. It is also much closer to my heart rate while I’m working on the computer indicating that my mornings are probably too stressful to get a good reading on my resting heart rate.

Since I have started running I visited numerous websites to learn about running schedules and training techniques. And every website that I have visited about starting up running had two recommendations that were always the same. 1) Go easy and 2) Get cleared by your physician. Now I don’t know if the second advice was there for my safety or for their safety, meaning if you start running based on some random website’s advice and you suddently drop dead your survivors would try to sue and say you died because of the stupid advice and the stupid website or if it was a genuine concern for your own safety but the warning was there nevertheless on every page. Go talk to your doctor. Get a basic physical. Make sure your doctor is OK with you running. So I went to my primary care physician and had a check up.

The last time I was there was in December for a cold that has turned into an ear infection and got some meds for it. That time I only saw the nurse practitioner not the doctor. We have a new doctor, our old one retired last August and I had yet to meet the new guy. So this time I finally met him. Really nice fellow, young but seemed like a straight shooter. Until he misdiagnoses me I’ll keep going back. So they do what they have to do; look in your ear, check your throat, listen to your lungs and heart, get your blood pressure and pulse, the basic stuff. Then they send you to a lab to get some blood drawn and you hope for the best. Since no one in my family had a heart attack ever, my people seem to die of cancer, there is really no indication of a looming heart attack so he did not send me to a cardiologist to get a stress test or an EKG. I kind of wish he did as those stress test are pretty expensive if insurance doesn’t pay for them and it would have been cool to check my VO2 Max and maximum heart rate with one of those machines and the treadmill test.

He also noted that I have been losing weight, I was at 216 lbs according to him just a month ago when I visited and I had been as high as 242 lbs at some point or another in my chart. I guess someone kept tabs on my weight all along, it’s only me who ignored the whole weight thing for all these years. He was concerned about my weight loss until I explained to him that I’m not sick and it’s deliberate. Then I told him about my target weight and he got a bit concerned and wanted to make sure that I will not end up on the other extreme of the spectrum. I assured him that would not happen. He also said that “he wishes all his patients could do what I’m doing”. It felt pretty good to get a good pat on the back like that.

So I got my labs back  the other day and I’m happy to say I passed. With flying colors. Notice how he added an exclamation mark and “very good labs” next to the “good” qualifier. I have looked at the lab result sand there is really not a whole lot I can make out of it, they have listed the measured values for every test and the range that is considered normal. Everything I had tested was normal. My cholesterol total was 138 with triglycerides at 53 and HDL Cholesterol at 44 which is not as high as I’d like it (that’s the good stuff) but I’m sure once I start eating decent again and get off my diet it will improve. My LDL (the bad stuff) was at 83 which is under the desirable 100 mark.

With all this I guess I am cleared for take-off and good to go as far as running goes. Now if I could just avoid a sport injury that would be awesome!

My Lab Result

I took another set of pictures today. This photo is the 3 month mark in my transformation. I just find my progress pretty incredible especially when considering the short time frame that it has occurred in. They say there is no such thing as localized fat loss and everything comes off in the same order as it has packed on. But since I have started running I can see that my thighs and hips are the areas where I’m losing the most from. Maybe it was time for those areas to shrink regardless of the type of exercise. Either way I’m glad to see the legs melting away.

As you can see I have changed underwear. Well I change underwear every day, sometimes more than once a day, what I meant is that I changed underwear for the daily pictures. I used to wear briefs from sweatitiout.com that were made out of CoolMax, a Dupont material that wicks away sweat. But as my weight has gotten smaller the briefs have gotten bigger and they are becoming too big and too baggy. So I had to try some new ones. I never really thought too much of the brand Under Armour and I thought they were only for the hip, young generation and they were a bunch of BS. Well last night I bought a couple of pairs of their HeatGear 3″ Short Boxerjocks. They are awesome! They’re ridiculously expensive, $20 for a pair of underwear, but they’re fantastic. I don’t think I’ll be wearing anything else from now on that is how comfortable I think they are. Sadly I will need to invest in a couple more pairs to make a full set that will last me between laundry days.

I also think I’m getting better at the 45 degree poses. This one is almost good enough. I still suck at it but I think I suck a bit less than before.

One more thing I have noticed now is that I can actually see a small bump on my bicep what appears to be an underlying vein. I’m getting ripped enough in my arm now that I can actually see a vein. I have never seen one before in my entire life! It is certainly way too exciting to see changes like these. Mind you they’re not clearly defined but when I look closely I can see it and I can certainly feel it. A result of dropping my bicep size from 16″+ to 13.5″ which seems pretty pathetic but at least it’s (mostly) muscle now. Losing size from my bicep has certainly been a mixed feeling. It’s great to lose all the fat but it just shows how pathetic my arms truly are.

01/26/2010 Transformation Picture

Well all good things have to end someday. For me the diet is over. What I really mean is that my 1,400 calorie diet is over. I just can’t sustain it. I mean I could do it forever if it was up to me mentally but my body is not liking the severe calorie deficit any more. So good-bye 3lbs/week weight loss, goody-bye drastic weight change. You might wonder why I say these things. The reason is simple. If you have been following me along for the past 3 months you’d know that I track a lot of things. The four most important things I have been tracking were:

• Weight
• Fat Percentage
• Calories Consumed
• Calories Burned Via Cardio

I have started my diet at around 2,0000 calories a day and then I dropped it to around 1,800 calories and from there I went down to 1,600 calories and about three weeks ago I reduced it to 1,400 calories. My exercise has been a steady 600 or so calories a day on average although I think that is going to change now with me running more and doing less elliptical work. Running is a lot more calorie intensive as my heart rate is much higher than it ever was on the elliptical. So while I’m doing less cardio in time I’m burning just as much if not more in calories than before.

My weight has been on a steady decline I don’t think the line could be any straighter than it is. The fat percentage line has also been on a strongly correlated course with my weight loss. But sadly it is not a one to one correlation. To see my real problem I had to plot my lean body mass weight which is basically my weight minus the weight of fat based on BF%. So at 195 lbs with 27% BF my LBM is 195-(195*27%)=142.45 lbs. I have 142.5 lbs of lean body mass and the rest of it is fat. So I plotted an exponential moving average of my lean body mass and this is what I found:

The chart is in kg from 11/3/09 through 1/24/10. You can see that my lean body mass was steady until about mid December where it started dropping like a rock and I have managed to lose 1kg of lean body mass in the past 5 weeks. This scares me. It actually scares me a lot! I don’t want to lose any muscle mass and I’m just not comfortable letting it all go in exchange for a quick weight loss. So I’m throttling back my weight loss and I’m increasing my calories. I’ll be eating 1,800 calories a day from now on and probably more on days with long runs. This is why I have been eating at that rate for the past coupe of days now. This means my weight loss will slow down but hopefully it also means that my muscle loss will stop completely.

I feel really good with my current weight, 42 lbs is 42 lbs lost and there is really no real need for me to drop the remaining 40 lbs at the same pace. If I can lose it in 6 months I’m still meeting my 9 month transformation goal. So I think I will keep monitoring my body fat, weight and calories even closer in the next coming weeks to make sure I eat enough and retain my muscle.

On a side note I’d like to add that while it seems like I have lost lean body mass my energy at the gym hasn’t declined and I’m able to lift/push/pull the same amount of weight that I have been when I started. So my strength is indicating that I still retained most of my muscle and haven’t lost enough to cause reduction in strength, which is a good thing. I just want to stop the loss before it gets too late.

Today concludes lucky week 13. It was my second week running and I feel great. Running is very addictive. Once you get going you can hardly stop. I’m still getting over the beginning phases and I hope my knee will not hurt at all later. It’s not unbearable but it gets a bit uncomfortable after longer runs. I’ll definitely keep an eye on it.

Since I have started running my cardio sessions went from two a day to one a day, running being it except for Friday when I got back on the elliptical once again. Thursday was a rest day for me based on my new schedule and I went to the driving range to hit some balls instead of taking a full rest.

I have kept all my weight sessions and I’m still lifting as much as I have started with if not a bit more.

My weight went down only 1.5 lbs this week which is far from my earlier pace of 3+ lbs. But I don’t mind that it has slowed down, I’m getting leaner and I really need to start paying more attention to my weight loss and dial it in better for optimal results, meaning keeping muscle on while only losing fat. If I can maintain the 1.5 lbs/week pace I’ll be fine.

My waist hasn’t budged one bit during the last week, it’s sitting right at 39″ which is exactly where it was when I started the week.

Diet has been steady this week with a small climb towards the end of the week. my protein was pretty good, I averaged 140g per day. And without further ado here are the charts:



• Added my diet plan as a new page to my blog: http://www.gregstransformation.com/my-1400-calorie-diet/ This should help people with theirs #
• I had 1463 Calories, Fat – 30%, Carbs – 33%, Protein – 40%. I'll tweet my cals and macros from now on… #
• I had 1506 Calories, Fat – 24%, Carbs – 40%, Protein – 40%. #
• I had 1530 Calories, Fat – 16%, Carbs – 53%, Protein – 31% #
• I had 1848 Calories, Fat – 23%, Carbs – 44%, Protein – 33% #