I Better Not Get Sick...

Warning: I am not proofreading this post.

Well I am not feeling so hot, but here is the rare and elusive midweek blog. Monday I weighed in for my weight loss competition and was down 4.5 lbs from the previous Monday. That puts me at 80 lbs lost since February 2008 and almost 24% loss in body weight. Only 20 more lbs until I reach the century mark. That evening I played racquetball, went to spin class, and then lifted weights. I felt pretty good.
Tuesday was the health expo at work. They started it off with a 5k so I ran in it. I came in at 28:53, but after checking gps watches and google maps, we decided the course was about 3.26 miles. So after a little correction, I ran a 5k in about 27:30. That evening I did racquetball and spin class.
Wednesday I had 3 tournament racquetball games. I did not do so well. I was feeling sluggish and my oponent was damn good. After that, I attempted to run. I got in 2.5 miles to get my weeks total to 5.5 (where it should be). I then did a very short weight lifting session. I was feeling very drained.
Today (Thursday) I woke up coughing. I felt fairly awake, so I was hoping my body was fighting off whatever funk was trying to take me down. Tonight I played racquetball, and then during spin class afterward I really hit a wall. My back and neck were in pain. And not from working out. Just aches really. My legs felt week and I was coughing. I managed to get through class (though I was a little light headed) and came home. I really hope I do not get any sicker. Making weight this Monday will be difficult to say the least.
Tomorrow I hope to run 5.5 miles and then Saturday morning I want to do Joyce's boot camp at 8am. We shall see...

Weekly Blog...Apparently

Well another week has gone by. I feel like I made pretty good progress this week.

Monday - I weighed in and lost more weight. 2 lbs maybe. I can't really remember, but that put me at 17 lbs for the competition, and 75 lbs overall since I started losing weight about a year ago.
Spin class was a breeze.

Tuesday - Racquetball and then spin class with Don. My favorite class of the week as usual.

Wednesday - Ran 5.5 miles. My time was 53:10. I was ok with that since I am just trying to do better than 10 min/mile. Weight training afterward.

Thursday - Racquetball then spin class.

Friday - I had a 5k on Saturday so I didn't want to run the planned 5.5 miles. I ran 1 mile in 7:50 then did weight training.

Saturday - Paws for a Cause 5k. I was expecting alot more people, but since they had a seperate 1 mile fun walk, only 17 people signed up for the 5k. After sizing up the other 16 people, I was actually worried I might come in last! So we lined up and the horn blew at 10am. We took off. After a short distance, I counted 10 people in front of me. So that meant there were only 6 people behind me, and I could hear thier footsteps. The 32 degree air was burning my lungs already. After about a mile most of the pack had disappeared ahead of me. I could see two people. I was gaining on the first guy. I passed him at around 1.5 miles. Then I sized up the next guy. At 2.5 miles we were going up a very long and steep hill. I passed him about 3/4 of the way up. So at this point I was in 9th place. And thats how I finished. 9th out of 17 with a time of 27:53. A little slower than the Preds 5k, but it was colder and I just didn't feel as motivated. The winner had a fairly slow time of 21 minutes and change. Later that day I got to hang out with my friend Jennifer. We went to Shelbyville that night to watch my friend Chase perform at the Courthouse Cafe. It was fun and I got to see alot of people I have not seen in forever. One person in particular I had not seen since 8th grade. Others not since high school. After his performance alot of us went to his house to hang out and play a little ping pong. Good times.

Sunday (today) - Today I ran 9 freakin' miles. It's the longest distance I have ran without stopping. I was a little worried about my shorts since they don't have a very good drawstring, but after jumping up and down I was confident they would stay up. Turns out I was wrong. After about 6.5 miles I feel them start to slide down. They are heavy with sweat and my under armor underwear is slick with sweat. A bad combination. So just when they are about to fall to my ankles, I grab them and pull them up. I repeat this process every 2-3 laps. Lesson learned on those shorts. I was shooting for 10 minute miles and finished with a time of 1:29:47. Just a hair faster than 10 min/mile. And now I hope I have lost weight for tomorrow's weigh in.

Has It Been A Week Already?

Wow, its been a week since my last post. Hmm well it was a pretty normal week I suppose. I did run less than normal so that I could do my best at the Predators FANGtastic 5k on Saturday. So yesterday I ran my 2nd 5k ever. It was alot of fun and had alot of runners there. My last 5k time was 29:02. So I set a reasonable goal of getting under 29 minutes. The race was pretty uneventful although I did hear some fall down behind me. I turned around and saw someone on the ground and people helping her. I pushed it hard and got across the finish line. I was heaving and close to puking. I checked my watch. It said 27:17. I was very pleased! My chip time agreed exactly. 27:17. So that is my new PR for the 5k. Here is the link to the overall results. I am #74 in the Male Age Group 25-29. I will also include a picture.

Weekend With Old Friends

The weather this weekend was awesome! I started Saturday off with Joyce's bootcamp. I did not like it nealry as much as last time. Since basketball took over the gym halfway through, we were forced to do the rest of class in the aerobics room. It felt to much like a normal aerobics/step class. I am not a fan of those. I probably won't be doing any more boot camp as long as its in that room. Then I went upstairs for an uperbody workout.

My friends Sharon and Mark came up from Chattanooga to hang out with me. They had never been to the Jack Daniel's distillery so we went down there and took the tour. It was fun. We hung out the rest of the day and caught up on old times. After the left around 10pm I drove to Shelbyville to hang out with some old friends. I discovered some awesome ping pong skills and became almost unbeatable haha. I left there about 2am and came home.

Sunday I went to Murfreesboro and met up with a good friend from college, Ashley. It had been a long time since we saw each other. Instead of grabbing dinner like we would have done in our past, we went to the greenway and walked while we caught up. We ended up walking 6 miles, and when she left, I ran the same 6 miles in under an hour.

Staying Home on a Friday Night

Well yesterday Brian, Paul, and I had a 1 mile race. I did not do so well haha. I started off in the lead trying to push the pace as fast as I could. My first lap came in at 1:40 which means I was on a 6:40/mile pace. Then I hit the wall. The next laps came considerably slower while Paul and Brian extended thier lead. My final time was 7:55. I have done better on the indoor track but under 8 minutes isnt bad for a guy who weighs 270+ lbs.

Today I had a 5 mile run. I started at my house and made a loop out of Hills Chapel and Hwy 55. My time came in at 48:20. I ran with Cytomax today and it seemed to help a little. I am glad the gym is reopening tomorrow. Its been closed the past 2 days. I am doing Joyce's 8am boot camp.

Tonight I have decided to stay home and get stuff done around the house. Pretty boring, but oh well. Tomorrow night should prove to be more exciting.

Oh and I ran across the race in the UK. It really makes a 1/2 marathon look like a walk in the park! I'll post a pic from it as well.

http://www.toughguy.co.uk/

Competitors brave water, fire and smoke during the Tough Guy Challenge 2009 at South Perton Farm on February 1, 2009. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Feeling Good

Well lets see. Monday I weighed in for my weight loss competition and only lost 1 pound last week. I was ok with that since I lost 7 lbs the week before and spent 1/2 of last week in Boston. Monday night I played 6 games in my racquetball tournament. 3 against one guy and then another guy I needed to play showed up so I played him 3 games also. I was pretty tired but managed to win 4 of the 6 games. Then I hit the weights.

Tuesday I did Don's spin class. It's getting pretty easy. Either I am getting in better shape or my body is just getting used to the spin class routine. Probably a little bit of both. Oh I did an hour of racquetball before spin class.

Today I ran 5 miles. I ran the first 3 miles with Brian and the last two by myself. I was concentrating on keeping a consistent pace shooting for 9:30 a mile. I ended up with a time of 48:01 or about 9:36 a mile and was pretty consistent throughout. I hit the weights afterward. I lifted pretty heavy and I am really starting to see real muscle definition.

Tomorrow Paul, Brian, and I are going to have a one mile race. This will allow us to set a good one mile benchmark to compare to in the future. Should be interesting to say the least.

End of the week

Thursday - Got my ass handed to me in racquetball. Had spin class.

Friday - Ran outside for 50 minutes. I assume I ran 5 miles or more.

Saturday - I showed up for Joyce's boot camp, but it was cancelled! I wasn't happy. I just shot some basketball and hit the weight room. I also went shopping a to buy new clothes since all my old cloths do not fit anymore.

Sunday (today) - Ran 8 miles in the wind. My total time was 80:50. Not too shabby, but I was having a hard time today. My entire body really did not want to cooperate. Also some creepy old guy stopped on the shoulder and blocked our path. As we got closer he motioned for us to come to the driver side. It looked like he had something in a bag. We ignored him and ran on the other side of his car. I looked back and saw that he was backing up toward us! I was like what the f**k is this guy doing? As I was getting ready to change from running to defending myself, he turned down a side road and disappeared. Tomorrow is my week 3 weigh in. After losing 7 lbs last week, I hope I can muster up a loss for this week.