Having healed legs I trained for and completed the Turkey Trot 10K, a new personal distance record. Very slow, but I did it.

From the morning of Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day morning I lost 0.8 lbs.

On the 30th of December I got a clot in my right leg to match the one in my left leg. The similarities don’t stop there. It’s even in about the same place and five days after when the left leg one make itself known to me last year. This one was caught earlier so my leg isn’t as swollen and doesn’t swell as much. Hopefully this time a cause can be determined.

Now it’s time to eat!

My goal was to run just like I had on the Sunday runs, slow and steady, with the addition of running the whole way. The race workers at every mile marker let me know I was keeping up a steady 11.5 minute mile. The mile markers themselves let me know that my uncalibrated pedometer had been telling me I was running further than I actually was. My push from Sunday run distance was going to be harder than I thought.

I did stop for about 5 seconds to have a small cup of water at the halfway point, but aside from that slow and steady was working. I slowed a bit in the second half and I think miles 4 & 5 were the hardest. Mile 6 got easier just because I knew I was almost done. My legs were done at the end; definitely a lot more effort than they were used to. Now after I recover I need to decide what my running goals are going to be. Probably getting 10k to be a comfortable distance and a bit faster.

During the course Tom, the owner of the Fleet Feet in Aptos and instructor, made every effort to make sure we didn’t over-do the training. Sunday was the long conversational run and Wednesday was the speed building run with a few walk/run miles on other days to keep things moving.

Sunday also had various health and fitness guest speakers. One of those speakers was a physical therapist at Dominican. He explained that the cardio-vascular system will get to where it needs to be a lot faster than the muscles that do the work will. Also that it’s important not to push beyond what you can do. He didn’t explain where that limit was or how to find it, but he at least did say that you shouldn’t increase more than 10% from week to week.

So on the final long run this last Sunday I realized that at the slow pace I don’t seem to get any exercise-induced asthma, while when the Wednesday runs got intense enough out it came. I missed one of the Wednesday nights but I tried to make it up on a Thursday morning and as soon as I tried to push it the asthma came.

So maybe the onset of asthma is my dividing line; where I push myself beyond what I’m capable of. I know I used to be able to do more before it kicked in when I’ve been in better shape. It’s frustrating, but at the same time it’s also really satisfying to learn the signals of my body and learn where the limits are so I can begin the push to extend them.

* I also can have allergy induced asthma, but I can generally tell if that’s going to be an issue before I begin exercise.

We’ve talked about other solutions, one of them being grass for the paths. Julie & Fish just had sod installed and had a lot left over and they offered it to us so Friday we went to work to install it. Breaking up and clearing out the decomposed granite was the slow part, taking probably about 8 hours to remove about 2 cubic yards. After that all the steps were fairly simple (thanks to Julie for providing a list). We didn’t have a sod knife but Dean suggested a serrated knife would do the trick and indeed the bread knife was great and cutting up the sod.

So now we have a patch of grass (assuming it takes) in front of the back door so the dogs will have to run across it (hopefully cleaning their paws from granite) until more can be done.

Thanks to Julie & Fish for the materials and the instructions! Thanks to Dean for assistance in putting down the sod! Thanks to Ward for the digging rod which is a great workout and a great digger!

Saturday we needed a rest so we went with Dean & Marcia to the Gilroy Garlic Festival where I had chocolate garlic ice cream, a garlic sausage sandwich, garlic corn on the cob, garlic fries, deep fried garlic, and garlic chocolate peanut butter cups.

Sunday was more relaxed and got some motivation at the end to finish fixing the front fountain. The water tube that connected the bottom to the top was pushed out by the papyrus plant growing out of control. When I hacked it back some to check out the situation I accidently cut the power cord to the pump. Nicole and Abby hacked away the papyrus some more so I was able to reinstall the tube and install the new pump.

Now we just need to get back to the fence.

The morning of the Turkey Trot was cold but the free socks made decent gloves while waiting to start. We never got to the point of running the whole thing so it was intervals all the way, which was fine. Seven weeks ago it would have been walking the whole thing so it still feels good to complete it without having to give up on the running part.

About 2-3 weeks from the end of the program two days after the most recent run I woke up with my left calf feeling like it had been through the workout from hell. No cramping, just muscle soreness. I continued running on it until No Boundaries was done which was pretty dumb but it didn’t seem to be getting any worse so it didn’t seem so bad at the time. I’ve since learned it’s a calf strain and once the program ended I’ve been resting it and wrapping it and keeping it elevated and today I was able to go without the wrapping without discomfort. Now it just feels like the muscles are tight and need stretching. Tomorrow evening I’m going to try walking the dogs (they’ll appreciate it a lot) and see how that goes. I’m glad the end seems to be in sight for the healing. Now maybe I can consider a full length version fo the program this spring.

I’m starting this at 195 pounds and body fat at 24%.  I use the Navy body fat calculator because I find it most accurate with the most easiest measuring techniques. I’ve read some studies that show it to be at least as accurate as other commonly available methods so I’m sticking with it.

After the first two days Nicole and I werre both in pain from the workouts, but by the end of the week it had thankfully transitioned to normal muscle soreness and tiredness a after a workout. I think the first two days are a shock to your system if you haven’t exercised in awhile.  By the end of the first week we both noticed body shape changes with clothes fitting differently and muscle definition more present.

At the start of the second week I measured myself again and found that the measurements used for body fat calculation had not changed enough to report a body fat difference. The book says don’t get hung up on measuring too often and that sometimes things might seem to go in the opposite direction as you build muscle, but it’s still a little disappointing. I can see and feel the differences but those changes haven’t started in the shrinking area yet.

At the start of the third week we can add in beans of all sorts and peas and chickpeas. Nicole has learned that she’s sensitive to beans, good to know! Halfway through week three we’ve finally got the supplements correct. I went to tenyearsthinner.com to look for something else and in addition to what I was looking for that we needed to be having larger doses of the EFA and DHA (2400mg preferably in a ration of 2:1) in our omega-3 fatty acids and that we need more calcium and magnesium. We’ll see what kind of impact that has in the coming days. Overall my energy levels are good and I get farther in the workouts which means muscle is being created.

End of week three and I don’t know why but I just realized I was doing the squeeze crunches slightly wrong. My stomach has been getting toned, but the lower abs weren’t getting so much. So today I started pulling my legs in too like I should have been doing all along and that certainly was felt when it came time to do the bench dips. Exercise-wise we’re going to do week three again to try and get our reps up in preparation for week four which adds more stuff!

Starting week 4 I’m noticing the layers of fat are getting thinner. I’ve dropped another body fat percentage point to 20, my thighs, and fore arms have gained in size, and I’m seeing more definition in muscles than I have before during previous periods of fitness. We decided to run through week 3 exercises again to try and get our reps up before the week four routing adds in another set of four exercises. Nicole’s back and neck are being aggravated so she’s going to start going different exercises.

Starting week 5, we can add in grains and grain based foods, but not more than 100 calories per meal. I’m thinking that the extra week on week-3 exercise was not the right thing to do. Yes, I feel that they were good workouts, but I am beginning to believe that it was really designed for you to move to the new exercise set. You might not be able to do all the reps but you need the extra exercises to start pushing you. I was even thinking this before I didn’t have any body fat reduction this week. Tomorrow the workouts do for four-day stretches and have 4 more exercises in them for a total of 16.

On to week 6 and I see definition starting to show in my arms and maybe in my abs? I’ve never had that before so I’m not sure.  When the 6 weeks we’re supposed to be able to have one cheat meal a week, but our first one came durign week six for a birthday dinner. My body doesn’t seem to have noticed despite it being the first grain I’ve had in almost six weeks. Finally the fat around my middle is starting to diminish.

End of week six and on to maintenance. So where do we stand? I’ve lost 2.4 pounds and 5% body fat which means about 10 pounds of fat lost and 8 pounds of muscle gained. My clothes certainly fit differently and I feel good in general. Even when I was hitting the gym a lot and eating well previously I hadn’t had body shape changes this quickly. I’ll be continuing this to see how far it goes.

Now that we’re in the new year I can get back on a more regular eating schedule that consists of more regular foods. I didn’t do too poorly over the holidays though; I gained 0.4 pounds from the day before Thanksgiving (November 21) through today. Now I just need to get myself to the gym.

For the anti-fitness, I finally found my cinnamon roll recipe and have put it on-line so I won’t lose it again.  So now those of you who like them won’t have to wait for me to get around to making more.

The other important part of hitting 195 is that it’s the weight I picked to actually get an exercise regimen going. I’d better get to work on that.

So now I’m back to every week and I’ll be checked again in six months. Yesterday was my first day back with the weekly shot and I already feel better today than I normally do 8 days after my last shot so I think this is a good thing. Yay for getting better!

From there Brick took over the navigation and it wasn’t long before we had looped back to the first big decision point which allowed us to take the only remaining option that led up. Quite a hill it was too. I think we were climbing that hill for 10 minutes. When we got to the top there was some more climbing, and then a decision point led us to a decision to climb the last 0.7 miles to the summit.

Once we got up there and Tammy located some shade at the actual summit, we sat down and ate and the views were definitely worth it. You were able to hear an occasional airplane in the distance but aside from that the only sound was birds and the moan of wind rushing through the trees.

After lunch and the photo-ops, we headed back down along a much more direct path to the park headquarters. I didn’t need an inhaler (yay!) and today the only major muscle soreness is from lateral stabilizing muscles in my hips. Not bad.

I’m glad I got to spend even the short time with Stephanie and others I haven’t seen in awhile and I hope it isn’t as long before it happens again.

The sand-bags were 200lbs for the light-weight men (actually middle weight but no light weights showed up so there were referred to as light-weights), 250 for the heavy-weights, and 125 for the women. There were three women competing openly since there weren’t enough for any one weight division. Apparently the main problem in carrying the sand-bag is breathing since you have to carry it in front of you. The force you exert holding on to it also keeps you from breathing effectively. You got a real feel for that when they stopped as some were light-headed and needed to be guided off the course. Walking in sand didn’t help I’m sure. The best heavy distance was about 160 feet. The best light distance was about 300 feet. The best woman distance was a tie at 180 feet.

For the dead lift the heavy-weights had to lift 500lbs as many time as they could in a minute. The lights had to lift 400, and the women had to lift 235. The best for the heavy was 11 reps, for the light I think it was 28, and for the women I think it was 9. It was a little chaotic around the platforms and hard to hear.

The boat pull was towing a row boat over a max of 60 feet in 75 seconds. The heavy contenders had to have two girls (the same each time) sitting in the boat, the lights had 1 girl, and the women towed a small weight sled with 135 lbs on it. Why they didn’t just tow the empty boat I don’t know. With the actual boat towing no one got all the way to the end. The closest someone made it was within about 4 feet. The women all made it well under 75 seconds but they didn’t tell us what the times were.

After that the top four men in each division had to do a tug of war do get more points. First got 4 and last got 1.

The big news there was that a local guy won the heavy-weight competition and thus gets an invitation to the nationals where if he does well he can turn pro and be on tv.

I’ve read that the Navy’s method is at least and generally more accurate than other body fat measurement techniques that can be easily done.

Last night I bought Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. It was made based on the research of Japanese neuroscientist. He found certain types of exercises stimulated blood flow to various areas of the brain and Nintendo took those activities and put them in electronic form. It evaluates your brain’s age and so you can see how you are improving with the best age being 20.

The initial evaluation used voice recognition where you had to say the color the color-word was drawn in so for “Red” you would say black. I paused for awhile after 10 because it said 10 completed and I thought I was done, instead it was just a milestone. Anyway, my starting brain age is 55. I look forward to getting down into the 20s.

I kept going and after about 20 minutes I noticed I was still going (yay!) but that my sides were starting to feel it from the rotating torso motion that happens. I hadn’t thought about it working out anything but my arms, cool!

After 30 minutes I decided to sit up straighter and that relieved some of the side complaints. After 40 minutes I was pretty sure I was going to make it, but I had some doubts again around 50 minutes and the last 3 minutes seemed to take longer than 3 minutes. Anyway, I think I’ll be alternating this with the regular exercise bike sessions.

Set 1 – 5 reps at 10 seconds up
Set 2 – 10 reps at 5 seconds up
Set 3 – 20 reps at a more normal speed

When I hot that goal in a given weight I’ll up the weight. I can say that it is hard and I don’t know what I’ll do for ab stuff except may increase the reps for now. I feel good and tired all over.

I also learned that using slow reps (4 counts up, 4 counts down) the workout takes a lot longer. 1.5 hours vs. 1 hour the old way. I still didn’t get strretching in at the end yet either.

My looks match my results. My lower body is fairly strong and my upper body isn’t. Another way to see that is standing calf raises. I was able to lift 405 lbs. but when I got home and saw my shoulders (what bears the weight) I saw they were bruised from the weight and not looking nice at all.

Here are the rest of the numbers:

Today I woke up with a slight queasiness and didn’t think that was a good way to work out. Instead I took it slow at home with some crunches and making sure it didn’t get worse. I also did the hamstring stretch.

It’s hard to do crunches when the dogs think it’s a lot of fun and try to lay on you to stop or decide it’s time to lick your whole face.

The basic structure of my ride was like the workout below except I only went for 40 minutes and I started at 75RPM.

My bike workouts tend to go like this:

Abs:

Lower body:

Upper body:

My goal today was to find my levels where I should be starting again with the various machines while getting a work-out as well. The levels are way below what they used to be which is a little discouraging but I know they will come back.

Also I am trying to do slow reps for each exercise (5-count up and a 5-count down) and I’m not sure how that impacts my starting guesses yet.