Im Teaching Spin Class

Yesterday I taught my first spin class. I think I gave everyone a good work out. Also I get paid and I get free gym membership, so why not. It was a great workout for me. I pushed harder than ever and had to talk to the class the whole time!

And here are some pics from the Country Music Half Marathon.

Well...It's Over

The Country Music Half Marathon was yesterday. This entire blog's purpose was to document my journey to completing it. But fret not one or two followers of my blog, I will continue blogging under a different title. Yesterday was probably about 20 degrees warmer than everyone expected. The direct sun made it feel hotter. I found my corral at about 6:30 am. It was pretty empty and I did not see Paul anywhere. Brian and Jessie were in corrals farther back. I decided to go pee before the race and found a mile long line to use the bathroom. It was 7am when I finally got out. I quickly found my corral as they were starting the first group. Now it was packed! I squeezed my way around until I found Paul. It was already warming up quite a bit. Our corral moved closer to the line and we were off! We decided to keep with the 2 hour pace guy. After about 4 miles he was started to pull away. It was around then I realized I did not know where Paul was. I had slowed a bit, so I thought he was ahead of me. Around mile 6 or 7 I see Paul catch up to me. We run side by side until mile 10. At this point we were under 10 minute miles with just 3 miles left! I knew we would not get 2:00 at this point, but the time would still be good. And then I hit a WALL. My calves and hamstrings cramped. I had stretch them out every so often. I blame the heat. My last 3.1 miles were at a pace of 12:30. So my time ended up being 2 hours 16 minutes 53 seconds (2:16:53). And I placed 7,655 out of 22,279 finishers. Not bad for a guy who weighed over 340 lbs a little over a year ago. I am having quite a bit of pain in my right knee and my left foot, but its already feeling a little better today. Now on to my next challenge!

Split Times:
5k - 28:50
10k - 58:51
10 mile - 1:38:16
13.1 - 2:16:53

2 Weeks Later and 1 Week To Go

Well its been two weeks since my last blog, but more importantly, I am one week away from the Country Music 1/2 Marathon! I have been tapering my runs quite a bit and not dieting much. I have lost little two no weight in the past two weeks, but I'm ok with that. I want to be strong for the race. I have felt great on all of my recent runs. I will be shooting for a half marathon time of 2 hours. I don't think I will be able to get under that, but I want to get down as close to 2 hours as possible. I had a yard sale Friday and Saturday. It was successful, but I wore flip flops on Friday and my heels dried out. My left heel had a very painful crack in it right now. I hope I can get it healed by Saturday. I also need decide my next running goal beacause in a week my blog title will be obsolete.

Back to Normal

Well the past week would be best described as normal. A little spin class, a little weight lifting, alot of running, a little weight loss. Mix it all together and you got a normal week for me. Well normal as of the past few months. I ran 6 miles on Wednesday and Friday. Each one took about 55 minutes. Saturday skipped boot camp to rest my sore hip. I had gotten some new shoes from Fleet Feet, but developed hip pain after my first run, so I returned them and got a new pair of New Balance 1063. I have pretty much worn out my 1062 pair. Today I ran 12 miles in 2 hours and 10 seconds. I am feeling really good about the 1/2 marathon at this point.

Monday was the last weigh-in for the 11 week weight loss competition at work. I lost some more weight and won the competition. I lost 11.3% of my body weight during the competition on top of all I had already lost. I am still hoping to be down 100 lbs from my starting weight by marathon time.

Oh and I tried frisbee golf for the first time today. Loved it. I will probably be playing more in the near future.