Losing It/Fitness
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The times while I was going through the changes in my life.. going from the Old Mal to the New Mal
Smashed it!
This morning was the Fly Day 5k, the 2nd time I have run this race. It would probably have to be my favourite run as not only do you get to run (something I actually love doing now) but you get to run on an airport! With planes landing around you! But going into this morning I had a few goals:
1. Beat Last years time
2. Run my fastest ever 5k time
Last year when I ran the Fly Day 5K for the first time I did manage to set a new record 5k pace. That and I beat my time by a solid 2 minutes. But incrementally I have been dropping my time since then. So much so that my previous best 5k time was 25:40. That’s tough to beat. Well… maybe
That is this mornings run. Yes that time is 25:10 but thats a couple of seconds under that time as I was a bit slow in stopping it after I started the run. I am absolutely stoked at what I acheived. Hell during the run I thought I was going to slow. I was pretty cold the head wind was INSANE! I guess that’s the thing when you running at an airport, especially parallel to the runway for most of it, you are either with the wind or against it. Sadly I was against it this morning. Had I gotten a bit of a tail wind helping to push me along, I might of gotten there faster 
The rest of the day was pretty epic. Even before the race the #avgeek in me was ecstatic. I couldn’t sleep much last night I was full of excitement and anticipation as I had put a lot into the race today. Well that was probably a good thing as before the race was due to start an Antonov AN124 & an Atlas 747-8F was due to be moving about the field. Add onto that an unexpected Dreamlifter as well, totally crazy day! Afterwards there was so many Boeing movements it was crazy. Add onto that the Warbirds and GA stuff all over the place, it was totally the best day since Aviation Geek Fest.
But now I am home, its 7pm and all I have eaten today is two small pancakes at breakfast this morning after the race. I am starved, I am totally shattered and right about now, I want to sleep. But I got a lot to do before I can rest tonight, and rest I will!
Training
As this week progresses I am just one more training run away from Saturday’s Fly Day 5k at the Paine Field Aviation Day. Last week I ramped it up so that I could be able to really push hard on the day.
I want to be able to two at least one of two things at the event this year. Fiest I want to be able to surpass last years time. If you have a look at this:
You can see last years run where I did it in 28 minutes. Lately on bad days when I am not running at full pace I am doing sub 29 minute runs, on an average day i am sub 27m30s, so the though of not breaking that time is pretty low.
What I want to do though is a sub 26 minute run. This is getting tougher and tougher to achieve. I am averaging low to mid 26 some days on a flat course wjen pushing it hard but like Tuesday this week:
That time would of been spot on would I not of had to stop at traffic lights three times. This won’t be a factor on Saturday as there should only br other people in my way, however the run isnt flat with about the last kilometer or so up hill (well upward incline at least).
So tomorrow morning is my final training run. It will be an all out balls to the wall push on a flat route. I hope to god nothing bad happens but it will work out either way. I don’t normally run a flat route on a Thursday but i adjusted the training to compensate as I don’t want to go to harsh the day before to give my body a slight rest before the push.
Doesn’t mean I’m giving myself Friday off though, I will probably just hit the exercise bike in the gym to give my legs a day of no pounding the joints, and then come Saturday morning it is on for young and old. If I can’t get under 26, that’s ok I can deal with it, but I certainly won’t accept a time over 28.
With the run finished I can relax with a pancake breakfast (thanks to the firefighters at PAE) and then a day full of planes flying about. Sunday will be my first rest day in almost 7 weeks. Then comes about another month or more of hard work as the next month is looking full of travel and some pretty awesome times.
But that’s for another day
An interesting Ride
I was back on the bike this morning as evidenced here:
Now it was a good ride, I finally have some decent gear (Gloves, riding shorts) and with the bike all back together and out of the storage closet, I am looking at enjoying the summer months with some riding. I am working towards training towards the Triathlon but at the moment, I still have the mountain bike tyres on. But that’s not what this quick post is about.
I was riding around where QFC is in Canyon Park, about the half way point through my ride. It was pretty quiet on the road which was good but I had one big obstacle in my way. A Flock of Geese. Great, just what I needed was to be coming off my bike (like usual) because I hit a goose. I would never hear the end of it. Now the flock of geese was not your average flock, there was a whole heap of baby geese, so I was picturing the headlines right there and then “Cyclists kills flock of Geese on Mothers Day”. Just not what I wanted. So I ended up trying to avoid them as much as possible.
However as I got up to the last goose in the way, it must of been the mother because she was ANGRY! She was hissing at me, chasing me and I couldn’t get away fast enough! Now my brain had gone from “I hope i don’t kill them to” I hope they don’t run me down!It was crazy! I was now being chased by the geese! So I had gone from being worried about killing the geese to worried about getting bit by the geese!
The rest of the ride was uneventful other than the usual almost stack that I always seem to have. It wasn’t the best weather as it did start a slow sprinkle while I was riding but I didn’t care, I was just happy to be cycling again. But what a CRAZY morning ride.
Oorah!
Today was the Registration for the Marine Corp Marathon 10K and I made it in! I was a little worried as the full marathon sold out in a matter of hours. So I wanted to make sure I got in quickly as I have always wanted to do the MCM for some reason. Not the full Marathon as I definately couldn’t run that length!
The MCM is run around the streets of Washington DC and it has been a number of years since I have been back there but the biggest drawcard of this run is it finishes at the Marine Corp Memorial:
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| From USA 2007 |
An iconic statue in DC (technically Arlington Virginia) I am looking forward at getting back there and running around a city that I do enjoy visiting.
One thing I have to mention though at the moment. Boston. What happened at the Boston marathon was shocking, it was disgusting and it is sad that people have been injured and killed. Thankfully of the people I knew who were there for it, all were uninjured and made it out actually before the bombs went off.
I know that what happened won’t change the way I run or think about running in big events like that and to be honest it wouldn’t scare me off the bigger runs, it makes me want to run them even more. So with the MCM I now have 2 runs on the drawcard for 2013 with also my triathlon in September. 1 more local one to go with… but which one…
Back in the Saddle
This morning I got myself back in the Saddle, the bike saddle that is. I feel it in my legs right now but I just needed something different after all the running I have been doing lately. Bootcamp was cancelled (meaning that my total bootcamp sessions for March came to 1, go failure!) so after thinking to myself “I can’t be assed running” and thinking that I needed to still do something and not cop out. I pondered an exercise bike in the gym but with the perfect blue sky outside, I just had to get back out there.
The blue sky outside just made it seem all so much better but it was still pretty cold and without all my riding gear (still no bike shorts, gloves etc) I just sucked it up. My hands may have gone frozen but meh I will live (turns out I had actually shoved my running gloves in my pocket, I didn’t realise this till AFTER my ride.. #fail). It was good though to get back onto the bike. I was a bit shaky to start with and I hadn’t ever rode around this area so it was different to my normal routine. I wasn’t pushing myself all that hard really because I knew that I was exploring more than anything.
The ride was good as you can see
With my usual 10k smashed in not to bad of a time so that was a good bit. But now my calves feel it, but at least my knees arent to bad. But the bike goes back in the Storage area now, till I get back from Aus in 2 weeks. That trip (which I will post more about tomorrow) is coming up FAST. And I can’t WAIT!
Hot & Sweaty
Tonight was a first for me in 2 ways. Firstly i stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to do yoga, something i always criticized saying it waa just an hour or so of stretching. Secondly for my first ever yoga experience I went for hot yoga, which according to my trainer is the hardest their is.
It all started when my trainer suggested that instead of a bootcamp session we could all go to the Ashram Hot Yoga in Kirkland. 2 sessions $10 what do I have to lose? To be honest I have always been skeptical about yoga. So many people swear by it. I always said it waa just stretching for an hour and it allows people to think it was a work out.
Hot Yoga takes that stretching and you do it in a sauna pretty much. Sounds easy right? Not for me! Since i have no balance at all well this was going to be interesting. The heat was not a problem, I felt like I was back in Qatar, with the heat, the warmth, o so good! Even though I probably sweated like never before the heat was not an issue. It was something I could dream of any time it drops below zero (Celsius that is).
The moves and everything was my downfall I had no coordination, no idea what I was doing at all and at times just kind of tried to keep up. With only 2 stops when I was out of breath I thought I did pretty well consideringy flexibility needs work.
Am I going to do it again? Sure. I think it might work better for me doing hot yoga over a massage (which I don’t often get because they never do me any good or so I think) when I need that stretch my muscles need.
It’s on again!
I woke up this morning to an email I had been hoping to see for a number of weeks now. The dates for the Paine Field Aviation Day have been set and that means the Fly Day 5K is on again! Last year I did this and I ended up smashing my expected time, and it was only a few weeks after I got here. I did blog about the run last year as it was one of the highlights of my year in 2012. So lets just hope that this year it is going to be just as much fun. But here is a problem. It is the day before the Seattle Beat the Bridge. Which I was also going to do… but now I don’t know. Beat the Bridge is an 8k run and I really don’t want to do an 8k race (cause you have to beat the bridge so it is a race) right after a 5k race. I could probably skip the Fly Day 5k, but why?
Why would I want to skip seeing this up close and personal again?
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| From Expat Life |
That is a GE90 attached to a 777-200LR. I remember running up to that point during the run and then seeing that plane sitting there and it gave me a giant burst of energy to finish. If you check out the Course map you will see that you don’t get onto the runway, but that is ok, because your running along the perimeter road and in some cases on taxi ways. The awesome thing at the moment is that there are so many 787s out there, that they are parked everywhere, it is going to be awesome.
The race does go to support Muscular Dystrophy and there is a pancake breakfast there afterwards (mmmmm pancakes) and then after the race and the pancakes. Well its Paine Field Aviation Day. A day hopefully filled with sunshine, planes and lots of shots like this:
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| From Seattle Spotting 2012 |
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| From Seattle Spotting 2012 |
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| From Seattle Spotting 2012 |
So if you feel up to running with me, well why don’t you sign up to!
Challenge Complete – Week 4/4
February is now over and done with, the month kind of just flew by really. As mentioned in this post I had set myself a challenge with my trainer to keep myself within 1 pound either side of 175lb and take 2 days off training for the month. Well now that the month is over I can let you know how i went….
FAIL!
Yeah that’s right. I failed. But in a kind of good way. I started off the month at 172.3lb. I went up & down (left & right?) throughout the month, not even remotely close to 175 at all and ended up finishing off the month this morning dead on 170lb. That’s right, I ended up overall losing 2.3lb. A good 5lb off my target wait…. Fail 1.
Then look at the 2nd part of my challenge, to take 2 days off training. Nope failed there as well. I only took 1 day off. Sure if you went through my Garmin records you would see gaps but that was either due to the fact I had watch failure (like yesterday) or it was pelting down rain and I had to go indoors for a run in the gym or I took it easy on my legs and used the exercise bike. Either way I only had 1 day off the entire month and even then I am not sure if I should count it as there sure was a bit of running involved that day. So my attempt to take 2 days off was a fail.
So overall the challenge was an utter failure but I guess in a good way. I still kept my weight in check, I still kept my running up, but you know what. Good news is as a small reward with a whole weekend of travel ahead of me, I am taking tomorrow off… Stuff it
Week 3/4… Failing..
Ok I missed a week 2 update but my goal this month to stay around 175lb is failing miserably. Not failing because im way over it, but more the opposite, I just can’t stay near it! I weighed in Friday morning at 169lb. Thats 6lb UNDER where I should be. I think a bit of it seems to come from the fact that I have been so busy and stressed lately that may have caused me to just work to hard, but that’s not excuse.
What am I doing wrong? Look at some of my running this last week.
Look at the consistence there. 2 seconds difference on the same route! I failed to take yesterday off but I did something I didn’t really want to do over the weekend. I dirty bulked. Pretty much I had a bit to much junk Saturday night (though it was tasty) but I did it to try and keep the weight up a bit. It worked. Weigned in this morning at 172lb, a whole 2lb up from the exact same time last week. That is more like it! But I doubt it will do much by Friday.
I can pretty much consider this challenge failed, but it was worth the try right?
Week 1/4 Complete
For February my trainer, Cassie, set the group a challenge. Pick a personal goal fitness/health wise that we think we could achieve and she would help us with it. I wasn’t really wanting to do the usual fitness stuff like Run a set time or something like that, so I looked at the month ahead saw that it could be a challenge on the eating side and figured if I tried to set myself a weight and stick to it. But I have been running every day since the start of November. I haven’t had a day off running in almost 3 months.
So the goal I set with Cassie was that i would maintain 175lb (plus or minus one pound) while having at LEAST 2 days off (doesn’t have to be consecutive) training during the month of february. Cassie agreed to it, I set up my eating & exercise list (which mind you I have not stopped doing since I started losing the weight over 3 years ago) so she could access it and away we went.
So Today rolls around, the end of the first week. I started off Feb at 172.3lb… a little bit lower than my goal… Not good! I usually weigh in on Mondays (and I am still doing that) but I kept up the training last week, I was a good boy (apart from Sunday when I went to skillet Diner for breakfast #nomnomnom) and kept on track eating wise during the week and I came out pretty good.
Weighed in this morning at 173.3lb and I am pretty happy with that. I think by the end of the month I can be setting at that 175lb mark and be happy with it all. Tomorrow is my first day off running in over 3 months and boy am I looking forward to it. Although I will be up at o-dark thirty for my flight, just the fact that I am not out running will be good, and I will feel like I deserve that rest (though I won’t be getting much sleep).
D5 Creation