Wednesday Weigh In

     Not running for a week has really had me worried about my weigh in this week.  I did really well on what I was eating this and I kept my calorie intake in check as well.  Even when we would have had to go somewhere to watch the Browns on Thursday night football, Mandy and I decided to spend the night at home instead of heading to the bar.  I really thought a pound or two increase would have shown up, but to my surprise I stayed right where I was.  In fact, if you want to get technical I lost .2 of a pound from last week so little by little I am gonna get to my goal.

11/12/14 official weigh in

177 lbs

Change: 0 lbs

Total loss from heaviest: 140 lbs

Current BMI: 27.7 (overweight)

Change: 0

     After my weigh in I got ready and headed out the door to visit my friend Katie from my Ragnar SoCal team.  With not running for a week to rest my I.T. band I have been jonesing to go for a run and I haven't hung out with Katie or her husband in while so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.  Katie and I met at a local state park that had a nice five and a half mile lollypop route through the state park nature preserve.  With my knee and Katie just running a half marathon on Sunday we kept the pace nice and easy.  The temperature, which was a nice 60 degrees yesterday, was a breezy 34 degrees today.  Once we got going I warmed up enough to make it tolerable and the trees provided enough protection from the breeze for most of the run.  Once we finished, we headed back to her house to meet up with her husband and hang out for a while before I drove back to town to meet my sister for a late lunch.  While we were talking, one of their cats sure did take a liking to me.  Estelle buried her head in my lap and  didn't want to let me up when I had to leave.

     While I was there we had talked about our goals for next year, which I have been thinking a lot about lately and I think I have them figured out, so I will be posting those pretty soon.  Also Katie had shown me a picture that she also posted on her blog of a comparison photo of her brother.  She had made the suggestion I should put one together of my first race and my marathon, which I thought was a great idea.  I look at them and the guy on the left, running the 5K, never ever thought he would be doing what the guy on the right was doing.  

 

     It just so happened that I saw this quote today and I thought it fit quite well with how I feel when looking at these two photos, so I thought I would share.
 

          

Wednesday Weigh In

     11/5/14 official weigh in

177 lbs

Change: -2 lbs

Total loss from heaviest: 140 lbs

Current BMI: 27.7 (overweight)

Change: -.3

     Closer and closer I get to that "Goal Number" I have chosen as my stopping point.  It is strange to think that I am only four pounds away from my freshman wrestling weight.  Yes that is right, I said my freshman wrestling weight.  When I started wrestling my freshman year I weighed in at 200lbs, which was the heavy weight division.  I was getting my ass handed to me because most in that class were six foot or taller and no less than 260lbs.  I spent that first month working my ass of getting down to the next weight class, which was 175.  When I finally achieved it I pretty much hovered right around the 173 mark for the remainder of the season.  Why did I choose that as my goal weight?  Well mainly because that was the last time in my life I remember being in such great shape, so it seemed like the best place to get to.

     Today I wanted to get a run in, but with my injury from my last run I didn't want to push it.  I decided to head to the gym for the first time since February or March and get my foot pod calibrated for indoor use.  The indoor track at my local YMCA is 9 laps to equal a mile and even though it is so much better than running on a treadmill but it can still get a little monotonous.  I walked a couple of laps to get warmed up and then turned my GPS off and linked my shoe pod.  To calibrate the shoe pod I first ran 9 laps at an easy pace.  When I finished that ninth lap I stopped my watch, which showed a final distance of 1.09 miles.  Through some minor mathematical calculations I got from my friend Katie's blog runsforcookies.com  .  I reset the calibration on the foot pod and ran another 9 laps at an easy pace to see if I needed to make another adjustment.  What do you know, it was spot on.  Each lap was calculated as .11 of a mile and the total added up to exactly a mile.   

     Now that my foot pod was calibrated, I really wanted to get six miles in for the day and I also wanted to see how the pod would do on an extended run.  I had two miles down, which left me 36 laps left to get my six miles in, well my knee / IT band had other ideas.  I was doing just fine until I got started on mile three.  I started to get light pain on the outside of my right knee again, but it felt like a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 so I continued.  When I got to mile 2.5 the pain jumped up to 4 or 5, but stubborn me wanted to keep going.  I stopped when I got to the end of mile three.  I just couldn't do it anymore, the pain was up to a 6 or even a seven.  It almost immediately went away when I started walking, but an aching pain slowly returned.  As far as the foot pod goes, it was pretty damn accurate after the three miles.  When I finished, the watch registered a distance of 2.99 miles.  If the pod stays that accurate throughout this winter, I will be a happy runner.

     As for the knee, I guess I am pushing myself to quickly since Columbus.  These little nagging injuries are starting to piss me off when all I want to do is run.  I am not really sure what I should do.  I am sure the smartest and best option is to just stop running for a while, but that is like asking me not to eat.       

I'M BACK!!............Almost

     So much for daylight savings time and getting an extra hour of sleep when you have a puppy.  Yesterday I had a really long day working a little over 12 hours and I was hoping to be able to sleep well into the morning, but Jedi had other plans.  We played with him for awhile till we could get him all tuckered out, but by that time I was wide awake, so no more sleep for me.  I took this picture of him just after he woke from his nap and it was so cute I had to share it.

     What a great run I had today and I owe it all to the clock that I forgot to turn back for daylight savings time.  I recently renewed my track membership at the YMCA and I had planned on going in at noon for an easy run and to calibrate my foot pod.  I got all geared up and ready to go when I saw the time on my phone and realized I still had an hour and a half till they opened.  I didn't really want to wait and it didn't feel as cold outside as it said on my phone, so I said screw it, outside run it is.

     For a cold day the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  The sun was shinning with not a cloud in the sky and barely a breeze to even mention it.  I was feeling pretty good, but I really didn't have an idea on how this run was going to go.  I planned on doing four miles and stretch it to six if things were going well and as far as my pace goes I though I would let how I felt dictate it.

     Within seconds of starting this run I felt like my old self again.  My pace immediately was hovering around the 8:50s without feeling like I was putting in much effort.  Once I hit the first quarter mile I told myself that if I still felt this good by the first mile mark I was going to go for the full six miles.  Surprise, surprise, I was still feeling good by mile one and so my run went from four to six.  As the run went on I picked up the pace taking the next two miles into the mid 8:30s.  When I hit mile four I was starting to get a little light pain on the front of my leg just above my ankle.  I slowed the pace into the 8:40s and then into the 8:50s.  The pain started to subside and I got a little over zealous and pushed it back up to an 8:30 pace for the last mile.  I got through it just fine, but sitting here typing this the pain is back and hurts when I point my toes and then bring my foot back toward the front of my leg.  I am gonna give it some ice therapy, rest and the next couple of runs I won't push the pace either.  After the run I stretched out and did my push ups, first set 40 reps, second set 20 reps and the third set 10 reps.  I think I am gonna try and hit 100 reps by the end of the year. 

When a fat guy isn't a fat guy anymore!

     For those of you that didn’t already know, I work at a Harley-Davidson Dealership, and the other day a customer was asking me some questions about the Sportster 72 model he was interested in.  He asked a question that I can’t really remember anyone ever asking me, at least about a Sportster.  His was asking what the weight limit or load limit was for the motorcycle; basically how much weight can be safely loaded on the bike.  As much as I know about these bikes and that is one question I didn’t know the answer to so I called my buddy Mark, who is a salesman, over to see if he knew the answer.  As the three of us were talking the customer said he wanted to know because he was concerned that he and his wife might exceed that limit.

     Now before I go on let me describe this gentleman for you so you can have a mental picture of the situation.  If I had to guess he was probably in his mid to late 40s, somewhere between 5’7” and 5’9” and was quite large.  Now let me give you a little more detail, the majority of his weight was in his midsection “beer gut” if you will, while the rest of his body wasn’t in shape but wasn’t overly large either.  He reminded me of me quite a bit with how he was carrying his weight.  My friend Mark, who also has had a life long battle with his weight, currently is trying to rebound from his last up swing in his scale.  So if you were standing from a far and couldn’t hear the conversation you would see two larger men and one smaller man talking.  Now I really really hate having to describe and talk about other people solely based on their size, shape and weight, but I have to so you can understand the context of the story and the comment which the customer had made.

     Now back to the story, the customer stated he was around 300 pounds and that his wife was not to skinny herself and he was concerned that the bike would not be able to handle the two of them safely.  Mark says to the customer that he is a big guy and when he owned a Sportster, he didn’t have any issues with the bike handling him or when he had a passenger.  Mark stated to the customer that he shouldn’t worry about it; the motorcycle would handle him and his wife just fine.  That’s when I chimed in and said, I rode a Sportster for five years and it handled me with or without my wife no problem.  He turned to me and said “of course not.  A little guy like you wouldn’t have a problem.”  I immediately smiled, laughed and stated that I wasn’t always this small, and that I use to weigh over 300 pounds.  Mark also piped up and stated the same thing.  We had a laugh and Mark continued on with customer, answering all of his remaining questions. 

     It wasn’t till a little while later the impact of what happened really sunk in.  I am sure this is completely common among those that have lost a significant amount of weight, but I still see and think of me has a large person.   The majority of my life has been spent as an overweight or obese man, which means all the life experiences and wisdom I have learned and acquired to this point has been as a fat man.  So as in this situation I talked as if I am 300 pounds and the man I was dealing with of course had no idea and felt like I couldn’t relate to him.  Now that is my fault for not stating that info at first so the customer would understand the context of my comments, but I don’t wanna go around saying that all the time.  I will feel like all I am doing is bragging to people when that is not my intention.  Part of me feels like I need to constantly wear a shirt with my before picture on it so people will understand some of my comments and why I make them. 

     I am constantly making choices based on the fact I think I am bigger than I am.  For example, when I ran my last 5K, at the registration table they asked me what size shirt I wanted and without a thought I told them XL.  I am a freaking size large now not an XL, why do I continue to do that.  On the flipside I don’t really want to have my mindset change.  I feel like if I start to think I am “thin” or a “little guy” I might get to comfortable and let my guard down.  Maybe I will start to feel like I don’t need to worry about eating this or that, skip a few runs for no good reason or I don’t have to put forth any effort anymore.

     I keep having these episodes where one morning I’ll look in the mirror and still see a fat guy that needs to keep going, while other times I look and go holy shit I’ve lost a lot of weight.  The crazy thing is, that when I weighed 300 pounds I would look at myself and see a guy that carries his weight well and think I am good I am not that big, and other times go W.T.F. I AM FREAKING HUGE (#).  It is so crazy how your mind and eyes can play tricks on you.  You think of yourself one way, but your mind sees something else.  You are almost never sure of who you really are and a lot of times people aren’t going to really tell you either.  When I was heavy, no one really said anything about my weight, it seemed like it wasn’t a problem and was no big deal.  At least that is what was said to my face anyway.  For example, when I couldn’t ride the roller coasters at Cedar Point, it wasn’t my fault for being to fat; it was just despicable and degrading that CP would make the seats and belts so small.  How could they treat people this way?  Now I get comments like I am getting to skinny, I need to gain weight, where did Dean go, are you sick.  WTF!!! I finally tip the scale in my favor in this battle with my weight and food demons and now I am to skinny and need to eat.  When will this bullshit stop! Which is it people? Somebody please tell me!

Wednesday Weigh In

     10/29/14 official weigh in

179 lbs

Change: -1.5 lbs

Total loss from heaviest: 138 lbs

Current BMI: 28.0 (overweight)

Change: -.2

     Well its been a little over a week and a half since Columbus and I am finally starting to get back into a bit of a routine with my life.  The one thing that I thought would be the biggest challenge for me, really wasn't to bad to be honest.   All this week I have been slowly decreasing my daily calorie limit back to where I should be now that I am not running the volume of miles I was pre marathon.  I had a couple of days were my stomach grumbled a little trying to tell me it wanted something when I knew it didn't really need anything.  I try to put that fire out with a large glass of water which seems to help it subside.

     To get the time I needed off for the race I had to switch around my days off which meant when I got back to work Tuesday of last week I had eight straight days before I would get another day off.  I know that doesn't sound that horribly bad except I had just run a freaking marathon and all I wanted to do was rest!  Today was finally the day I could truly just sit down, relax and not have to worry about anything.  Now don't think I was a complete lazy bum, I did get out of the house for a run and I headed into town to take care of a couple of things. 

     After Mandy headed off to work this morning, the pups and I decided to sleep in till almost nine before I got up and headed out for my run.  The temp was hovering in the mid 40s with the sun shining and a decent breeze to contend with.  My idea for this run was to just get 4 easy miles under my belt.  As I walked out the door I told myself not even to look at my watch, which is impossible for me, but it was a nice thought though.  During the two miles out I had that cool wind coming right at my face making it feel a little cooler than the temperature was saying it was.  When I would glance at my watch, it was mostly just to check my mileage, which is basically a lie because I know exactly where the 2 mile turn around spot is, so really I was checking my pace.

     For most of the run my knee was a non issue, but somewhere around the 2.5 mile mark a little light pain crept up on me, but quickly subsided.  The one thing I am still having issues with, is my calves.  I made it further today than on Sunday before they started to ache, but the fact is they still did.  The aching pain never really got to horribly bad, but I did add some walking at the start of miles 3 and 4 for maybe a tenth of a mile each.  I thought it would be a good idea to break it up a little and give my calves a little break.   When I got back to the house the aching diminished a lot quicker than it did on Sunday.  This tells me I am healing and if I continue to take it easy for the rest of this week I should be back to my old self really soon.  My plan is to rest Thursday and Friday; I was planning on running Saturday, but with our event that evening at work I'll be putting in at least 12 hours on my feet.  I thought it best to skip it and do my next easy run on Sunday.

     I might as well say it now, I am skipping the Monroe Half Marathon that's coming up on the 9th.  This decision was made for me by fate when I was trying to register for the race.  I spent an hour and a half trying to register, but every time I submitted my info to get to the payment screen it would kick me out.  I eventually took that as a sign that maybe I shouldn't be running it.  The more I thought about it, I felt like if it is taking this long to get my legs back from the marathon I don't know if I'll be ready to race by then.

     Anyway I have been thinking long and hard (#) about where to go from here with my running and my goals.  I have started to formulate a couple ideas that I will run by you all soon.  I think next year is shaping up to be fun and quite challenging. 

1st Post Marathon Run, Whew!

     I have been going a little stir crazy not doing any running and I decided I couldn't wait any longer, I had to get out and get a couple of easy miles in.  Sunday I didn't have to be to work until eleven which was seemed to be a perfect situation.  My legs had finally felt like they had return to normal and I was able to sleep in a little later, which allowed me to get my run in after the sun had up.  I new I wasn't going to do anything to tough, but I thought I felt good enough to do 3 miles at an easy pace.  Well, I felt good enough to maybe walk 3 miles, but to run I truly found out how deep into your muscles a hard marathon run can go.  I don't think I was even a quarter mile in when my calf muscles started barking.  I kept my pace right around a 9:50 per mile, but looking back I think I should have maybe slowed it down or even added some walking breaks in there.  Once I hit the mile and a half mark and made the u-turn back home, the outside of my right knee started to bother me a little.  It was reminiscent of the pain I was having when my I.T. band was bothering me.  The pain was very faint so it really didn't cause me to much concern at this point.  My thigh muscles were not sore, but they did feel a little tired and if I had to make a self diagnosis, my tired thigh muscles is probably the cause of my I.T. band issues.  I would venture to guess it will subside with a little more rest and as I gain some strength back.  Once I got back to the house my calves had had enough.  When I finished the marathon my entire calf muscle was sore, this felt deep like the core of my muscle still hadn't quite healed up yet.  I gave them a good stretching along with the rest of the body before I dropped and did two sets of 30 push ups.
     I decided to give myself another two days off before I try again on Wednesday.  Tonight I'll see if I can con Mandy into giving them a nice massage.  I figure with more rest, a little ice therapy and some solid stretching Wednesday's run should be a little better. :)

Final Thoughts on My First Marathon Experience

     If I was asked to give an overall grade to the Columbus Marathon committee on this year's race I would have to give the whole entire experience an A or A-.  Overall I loved the race, the course and all of the town support to go along with it.  Being as I have never run any other marathons you can take my recommendation for what its worth, but if you are trying to considering where to run your first, I would say to put it right at the top of the list.  Why I didn’t give it an A+?  Well, come on nobody is perfect! LOL! Seriously though, the layout at the expo didn’t make for a great experience and the problem with the overcrowding of the corrals at the start really bugged me.  Another was the temporary fencing they used seemed a little dangerous to me for those running along it with how the legs stuck out into the course. This was especially bad at the start, with all the runners crammed in I was running along the fence and I found myself high stepping a little to keep from tripping.  The last thing that I had issue with was the road during the 24^th or 25^th mile they took us down.   It was a road made up entirely of all brick and had a lot of ruts and high/low spots. Not that I think that kind of road is ever really good to use for any course, but at the end of the race where a lot of people are shuffling their feet vs. running normally made it a little dangerous.

     Other than those little picky things, I loved this race and would totally do it again some day.  Every water/fuel station was well maned and all the volunteers were great.  Plenty of port a potties to satisfy the size of the field and all the spectators alike. Out of the entire 26.2 the only boring part of the race, as far as the scenery goes, was a bike path with fields on either side that only lasted a few hundred yards.  I think the race committee new this because there was a lot of great signage featuring inspirational and funny quotes for a laugh and to keep us going.  This race seems to really pride itself on providing an "all about the runner" race experience and boy did they deliver.  
  

     While I was sitting here reflecting back on the marathon for this post, I couldn’t but help think back to my first ever race experience.  The idea of running a marathon at that time would have been crazy talk considering just running an entire 5K was a challenge to me.  That race was in April of 2013 and I finished the 3.1 miles with a 33:27 and an avg. mile pace of 10:46 and in just 18 months I completed a twenty six point freaking two miles averaging 8:53 per mile. 

     
     As amazing as that sounded to me I really wanted to give myself a little different perspective on this so I looked up what my weight was and what my marathon time would have been if I ran one 18 months ago.  Using the average pace from that first 5K I would've had a 4:42:05 finish time while I was weighing in at a whopping 260.5 pounds vs. Sunday's race which was 3:52:43 finish time at a weight of 177.5 pounds.  That is a difference of 42 minutes & 22 seconds and a weight difference of 83 pound.  I really don’t know what to say to that, just thinking about it out gives me a lump in my throat.

     As for my training, I will have to look back at it little more to decide what, if any, changes I would like to make.  The three 20 mile runs I think really helped me prepare for the mental aspect of the race, so I am sure those will defiantly stay in.  I do like how I kept my training plan flexible to accommodate my work and personal life schedules, while keeping it strict enough to maintain some quality training.  If I was going to make any big changes, it will revolve around doing a little more speed specific training and cross training.  I am not sure what that will entail yet, but it is on my radar. 

     The two things I couldn’t live without when it comes to marathon training, other than my shoes, is my Garmin and my Camelbak.  Despite the occasional issues with the Garmin, it really helped me analyze my runs and kept my pace in check.  My Camelbak was a life savor on the long runs.  It kept all that weight off of my hips from my fuel belt I usually use, which helped my running form and allowed me to carry enough water and nutrition to last the entire run without stopping.  I know I have been slacking on getting my product reviews done, but for now I will give both these great items two huge thumbs up.

     
    So where do I go from here?  Well I can say without a doubt this was my first, but defiantly will not be my last marathon.  When the next one will be remains a big question.  I was thinking before Columbus that if I finished the race and wanted to do another one it would be the Medical Mutual Glass City Marathon that I am one of the ambassadors for.  However, now I need to see how long my recover takes, because 7 days after that race I will be at my SoleMates reunion running a half marathon with them.  The way I feel 4 days after I am sure I could do the race, but I don't think it would be a PR attempt by any means.  The other thought I had was if I ran the Toledo half instead and the Indy half that next weekend I would qualify to join the Half Fanatics club which is on my my to do list.  So needless to say the decision to do the half or the full in Toledo is up in the air at this point.  For now, I think I am going to run the Monroe half in a couple weeks and do another turkey trot on thanksgiving.  Then I am going to concentrate on some speed work this winter and finally get down to my goal weight.