Start of Week 7

I know I'm a few days late on my post. This past weekend was the City to Shore bike ride. I don't want to write about that because I think it deserves its own post. I'll get that post up when I get some pictures from the ride.

Last week was a little different for me. I didn't do any exercise at all because my knee was swollen and sore. I didn't want to risk not being able to ride over the weekend. Because of that, there's not much to say from the week.

I weighed 253 on Monday morning which is my weigh in day. I'm not psyched about the weight, but I am psyched because I seem to have stopped the yo-yo I've been on for the past few weeks. Hopefully I'll start to go down again soon. Although, this may just be the side effects from cycling 180 miles over 2 days. More on that later. Here are pictures from Monday.

Start of Week 6

Today is another one of those crazy Monday's. I meant to write most of my post last night, but I was too exhausted after completing a 10 mile run.

I have never run any distance in the double digits, so last night was a fantastic milestone for me. My wife and I completed the run in 1:51:42.

I had mapped a run that was going to be just over 10 miles. We ended up cutting some of it off because it was way too dark to be running on some of the the roads we were running on. For safety reasons, we ended up running zig-zags across the local high school's parking lot that just happened to be lit up still.

Before starting the run, my knee was swollen. I also have a nasty blister that I ended up cutting off at the end of our run last night. Here's what it looked like before the run.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish the whole run because of the injuries, but once we got to about mile 4, I wasn't going to stop until we hit 10. And I didn't.

I also took my end of week 4 test for push-ups last week. I did 52 in a row. AWESOME. Making serious progress on the push-ups.

This week is going to be a little more rest than normal, I think. We'll be doing our MS150 City to Shore bike ride this weekend. 100 miles on Saturday and 75 on Sunday. Hopefully the weather is good.

This morning I weighed 253.5. Headed in the right direction again. Thankfully.

Here are my pictures.

Start of Week 5

I have to make this post quick because I need to leave for work. I had some technical difficulties with my camera this morning.

Last night I did something new. I ran for 8.3 miles. The farthest I've ever attempted. I completed it in just under an hour and a half, which is just fine with me. The best part is that my legs don't even hurt too bad this morning!

During the run, my wife wasn't feeling well, so she turned around at about mile 3 and I ran the rest of the way on my own. This meant that I would have to struggle with the boredom that sometimes accompanies running, but it also meant I can run at whatever pace I wanted to.

I certainly slowed down a little, but I don't remember hitting a wall. Which is fantastic. The wall is the worst part of running, hands down. Forget all of the pain that follows. The wall sucks.

You know what else sucks? Working really hard to lose weight, and not losing weight.

I realized that I'm on a plateau. The cause of the plateau, I think, is that I'm not monitoring my food intake as much as I need to be. I work really hard at the fitness aspect of things. As a result, I'm more hungry, so I eat more. I need to cool it a little so I can start losing weight again. I'm way off of my goal pace for weight loss, so I'm gonna have to get my act together.

256 this morning.

Books

I started reading a lot in the past year or so. I'm not sure why to be honest. Maybe because for the first time in my life, I didn't have to read for school. Reading isn't always my first choice. I do find it hard to pick up a book when there are other things I could be doing (such as watching TV or pretty much any other indoor/outdoor activity). I've gotten to the point, though, that when I go to bed, I lay there and read for about 30 minutes or so before I fall asleep. It's much easier to sleep when you've just put down a book than when you've just turned off the TV.

About a week or two ago, my wife and I went on a date. It was completely unplanned. We were planning on going to watch the new Harry Potter movie in the theater before it left for good. When the movie was over, we decided to go check out the Borders inside our mall before grabbing some dinner. If you are unaware, Borders is closing, so everything is on sale. Big time. We got $70-some worth of books for just over $20.

On our way home, I had that giddy feeling I used to have when I was a kid coming home from Blockbuster with a newly rented video game. True to form, though, I didn't pick up my first new book until bed time. I guess I wasn't that excited about it.

I figured that since I draw inspiration from most of the books I read, I would write some book reviews. I don't know if any of the reviews will make the books seem interesting to you or not, but it gives me something else to write about.

I'll add a list of books on my side bar so you can see what I've got coming. Let me know if there are any books that you think I should read. I have a few books that I might even read again just so I can write a better review.

I'm currently reading The Third Man by John Geiger. That review will come in another few weeks.

Healthy Meal 2: Pasta Primavera

When you look at the nutrition facts on the side of a box of pasta, they don't look so bad. But have you ever measured out a serving of cooked pasta? I'm partial to Barilla Plus. I like the extra nutrients. Whole Wheat pasta is too hard and grainy for me. But the box of Barilla Plus says there are 7 servings of pasta in there. I usually get 3.

I decided it was a good time to figure out how to make a full meal with less pasta, but still feel like I'm getting a good amount of food. Pasta Primavera was the answer.

Pasta Primavera is basically a vegetable dish with a little bit of pasta thrown in there. Here's what I used for my recipe:

2 Chicken Breasts
Box of Pasta
2 Carrots
1 Zucchini
1 Broccoli Crown
1/2 lb Asparagus
1 Small can diced tomato w/ Italian seasoning
1/4 Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
White Wine (I used a Sauvignon Blanc)
Red Pepper Flakes, Parmesan Cheese, Salt, and Pepper to taste

This recipe serves at least 4.

I don't really measure when I cook. Mostly because I like to go by taste rather than the science of it all.

The first thing I did was cut up my veggies. I wanted everything to be bite sized so we didn't need to use a knife and fork in order to eat this meal. I started with the veggies.

The veggies are in separate bowls for this reason: They cook differently.

Once the veggies are all cut up, you can chop up the chicken into small bite sized cubes.

I started by pouring about a teaspoon of oil into a heated pan. At this point you can also get your water going for the pasta. Cook the chicken until there is just a little bit of pink left on the outside. Now pour just a small amount of wine into the pan and let the chicken simmer in the wine until it's finished cooking and the wine is mostly evaporated.

Remove the chicken from the pan and put it aside for later.

Now rinse your pan and toss a little more oil on it. Let the oil get hot and then add the onion/garlic mixture. Let that cook until the onion is translucent. Remove this mixture from the pan and then add the carrots and asparagus.

Cook this until the carrots begin to get tender. Once tender, add the zucchini and broccoli. Your water should be boiling by now. Add your pasta so it's ready to go when the vegetables are.

Pour just a little more wine into the pan. This will help to steam the vegetables a little bit. Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Once all of the vegetables are almost done cooking, you can add the can of tomato.

Stir this mixture and add your chicken to it.

You can let this simmer for a few minutes until the pasta is finished. Once the pasta is done, drain it and then return it to the pot.

You can then pour the veggies and chicken onto the pasta and stir to combine it. Because my wife is gluten free, we cook our pasta separately and instead of adding the mixture to our pasta, we just put it on top. We figured we could mix it on our plate. Also, we were too hungry to add another step. Once you plate the meal, sprinkle a little bit of Parmesan cheese on top. Yum.

Although this looks like a lot of food, you can pretty much see all of the pasta. It just covered my plate without piling up. I piled a lot of veggies and chicken on top. They're delicious!

If you are interested in having a glass of wine with this meal, I think it goes well. Especially if you drink the wine you were cooking with. 

Enjoy!

Start of Week 4

I'm in pain.

Yesterday my wife and I did our 7 mile run. I thought I'd be a little sore, but I'm limping around the apartment on this beautiful Labor Day with pain in my hip/quad, calf, and I have a huge blister on my foot. Again.

I am happy that we did that run, though. It's cool to see how far I can go. I could have gone farther too. My lungs were fine. I ran through a wall at about mile 3/4, but was good to go after that. I think the physical pain was really the hardest part of the run. Not just the normal aches and pains, but the pulled muscles and blisters.

I talked with my wife, remember that she's a Doctor of Physical Therapy, about whether I should continue with our normally scheduled workouts this week. She said that I should probably take a few more days rest to let my muscles heal up. Hopefully the blister heals up too.

So instead of our 25 mile ride scheduled for tomorrow, we'll do nothing. Wednesday is supposed to be a 5 mile run, but we'll see if I'm up for that. Thursday is a 3 miler followed by a 65 mile ride on Friday and an 8 mile ride on Sunday.

We'll be going down to the beach late Wednesday night and return home on Friday evening. This might put a damper on our workout schedule. We might have to push the bike ride off and just do runs down at the beach. It could be more fun that way anyway.

Despite feeling inclined to push through my injuries, I'm going to take off a few days here. Growing up participating in sports, you're always taught to push through the pain. You see professional athletes push through the pain too. They're role models when you're a kid. This is a lesson I repeatedly have to learn. Take time off when necessary to let your body heal. Taking a few weeks off to recover from a serious injury isn't worth it if you can take a few days off to heal up before something worse happens.

Anyway, the moment you've all been waiting for... PICTURES AND WEIGHT!

This morning: 254. Down 5 pounds from last week. Almost back on track.

Days 17 & 18

Today and yesterday were relatively boring days. I worked a lot. But I also had two runs scheduled for the two days. Here's what I have to say about them.

My theme this week has been not setting limits for myself. Pushing beyond what I think is possible to accomplish. I've been "running" since high school.1, 2, 3 miles at a time. I ran in high school for wrestling, in college for frisbee, and just to stay in shape. Now I'm running to train for a half marathon. Things are scheduled now, and I'm running further and further. The farthest I've ever gone is 8 miles, but I walked some of it because I thought I was too tired to keep going.

This week we did 6 miles. There were very few moments where I felt like giving up. I ran through my walls and just continually told myself that any negative thoughts were bullshit (a la Dhani Jones). I also continually told myself that I was having fun, regardless of if it was true or not. Believe it or not, these tactics work when you're really suffering.

Yesterday was a 4 mile run. I was still a little sore in the hip from our 6 miler. But, it was just a little pull and it didn't hurt too much before we went out, so I figured, whatever, just do it. I honestly didn't even notice the pain again until after my shower. The four miles were miserable the entire time. It was one of those days when you just go into survival mode. Push and get through it. I mentally broke the run up into about a million pieces. It's easier when you can check things off of a list and see the number decreasing.

We averaged 9:47 per mile. That's not so great. It's also a few seconds slower than our 6 mile run pace. Ugh. It was overall just a bad day for me.

I did not have high expectations for this morning. I knew it was only 3 miles, so I figured, whatever, I can just get through this and things will be fine. Until my wife says she wants to do a tempo run.

I don't give in to challenges if I honestly believe I can achieve it. I thought I was struggle on a normal paced run, but trying to run a tempo of a 9:15 mile (which was our goal) may have been out of my realm of possibilities for today. But hey, what's the worst that happens? I get tired and have to slow down.

We started running from just inside our parking lot. Turn down our street and as we get to the bottom (about a quarter mile) I feel like there is absolutely no way this is going to happen today. But I made it a point to try to keep up with my wife. At 1 mile, we had done about an 8:45 minute mile. Oh crap. We're pushing too hard. I'm gonna be toast. Our second mile was a little over 9 minutes. Oh boy. Still pushing hard, but at least that mile was at the pace we originally wanted to set.

As we start pulling into the last half mile, my wife says she's gonna push up the last little hill. She actually told me "I hate this hill so I'm gonna kill it!" Fair enough. I hate it too. But I'm dying here.

In my own head, I said, "Try to keep up, but if you can't, try to make it up after you crest the hill." She gained a few seconds on me, and I tried to pull her back in the last flat section, but I'm not sure I made up much ground, if any. Right before she broke away, she told me that on tempo runs, you shouldn't have a kick at the end. I tried to not have a kick. I may have even slowed down at the end, I'm not sure, but I definitely didn't kick.

I cross our last cross-street and look at the watch and push as hard as I can until the watch turns over to "3.0" in the "miles" section. I click stop on the timer. I'm looking very intently at the watch, but it took me a minute to figure out what our time was because my eyes were watery and I was trying to catch my breath.

Turns out, I ended at 27:35. My wife beat me by 10 seconds. Either way, we ran an 8:51 mile average. Holy hell. I've done 8 minute miles before, but only running one mile. I also did that when I was significantly closer to 200 pounds. We're talking like... 210. Not 250.

These runs just proved to me even more that I absolutely cannot set limits for myself. I need to ignore what I think is impossible to do physically and just do it. Because more often than not, I can.