After the Wicked Half Marathon on Sept. 20, and a month of my weight hanging around the mid 180s, I decided to make the extra effort to lose weight in the runup to the Disney Marathon. I was weighing myself once a week, but decided to eliminate the weigh-ins until Halloween. The psychology is that the regular weigh-ins can be demotivating if you aren't losing the weight you think you should be... just do the best you can and see what happens.
I became more strict on the diet, eliminating the Coke altogether, the cereal and bread, and more or less going low-carb and eating more fruit. Weighing myself this morning, I came in at 179.5, which is about a 5 to 6 pound loss from where I was at the Wicked Half Marathon. It's the first time I have been below 180 pounds perhaps since my 20's. At least I can't remember the last time I was less than 180. My original goal was to be 180 or less for the marathon, but I'm amending that now to 175 or less. Obviously, it's getting increasingly difficult to take weight off as I close in on my natural limit.
The next event on the schedule is the Air Force Association 10k in Bedford on Nov. 8. I'll have Ellen back with me running the associated 5k.
Here is my weight diary since last Spring. Back in March I accidentally deleted the email that contained the January and February entries.
Date Weight
1/10 223.0
[Jan-Feb missing]
3/3 212.5
3/10 212.5
3/17 212.0
3/24 209.5
3/31 210.5
4/7 208.5
4/14 207.5
4/28 204.0
5/5 204.0
5/12 200.0
5/28 200.5
6/2 199.0
6/9 196.5
6/16 197.0
6/23 194.0
6/30 195.5
7/7 193.0
7/14 191.0
7/21 189.5
7/28 189.5
8/4 189.5
8/11 188.0
8/18 186.5
8/25 188.0
9/1 186.0
9/8 185.5
9/15 184.5
10/31 179.5
Friday, October 31, 2014
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Training Plan
Here is the training plan I'll be using:
It is the Hal Higdon Intermediate 2 plan, which I settled on after some internet research. The Higdon plans seem to be very popular out there, and feature different plans for different levels of runners. Everything I've been doing from January till now has been by way of losing weight and banking mileage to prepare for the three month marathon training. I've been running 30+ miles per week since the start of the summer and between 10 and 13 miles on my Sunday runs since July, so I think I'm in a good place. Also, for the last 3 months, I've been mimicking the form of the training (long Sunday run, cross training on Monday, short runs Tuesday and Thursday, longer run Wednesday and "pacy" run on Saturday.)
A few things I've modified a bit. On the Tuesday and Thursday short runs, I'm doing them Marine Corps style with stations. A 3/4 mile lap around the park followed by (in my back yard) a set of pushups, crunches and dumbbell bent over rows. Do that 3 times, and finish it off with a run around the neighborhood to get me to somewhere in the 3 to 4 mile range. During the soccer refereeing season (September and October) I'm refereeing on Saturdays, which I'm counting as a Saturday pace run (and, believe me, refereeing 3 U14 soccer games back to back - if you run hard like I do - is like running a good 10k race). That all ends in November when the really big mileage kicks in.
The Disney Marathon is January 11, and if you back that out, you find out that I am in week 4 right now. I'm jumping into it there, this being the first week that I am trying to follow it as strictly as I can.
The cross-training I do is weight lifting with relatively light weights (all upper body work) and a lot of reps, plus core work. I do that both Monday and Friday, although I sometimes miss Friday. So if you count the station training on Tuesday and Thursday, I'm doing upper body work of some sort Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Another thing I'm changing is I'm not running a Half Marathon in week 9 (the Sunday of November 9). Instead, I'm running the Air Force Association Fun Run in Bedford, MA (a 10K) on Saturday the 8th. I'll probably run an easy 10 miler or the like on Sunday. Other than that, I'm going to attempt to abide by the schedule as strictly as I can.
It is the Hal Higdon Intermediate 2 plan, which I settled on after some internet research. The Higdon plans seem to be very popular out there, and feature different plans for different levels of runners. Everything I've been doing from January till now has been by way of losing weight and banking mileage to prepare for the three month marathon training. I've been running 30+ miles per week since the start of the summer and between 10 and 13 miles on my Sunday runs since July, so I think I'm in a good place. Also, for the last 3 months, I've been mimicking the form of the training (long Sunday run, cross training on Monday, short runs Tuesday and Thursday, longer run Wednesday and "pacy" run on Saturday.)
A few things I've modified a bit. On the Tuesday and Thursday short runs, I'm doing them Marine Corps style with stations. A 3/4 mile lap around the park followed by (in my back yard) a set of pushups, crunches and dumbbell bent over rows. Do that 3 times, and finish it off with a run around the neighborhood to get me to somewhere in the 3 to 4 mile range. During the soccer refereeing season (September and October) I'm refereeing on Saturdays, which I'm counting as a Saturday pace run (and, believe me, refereeing 3 U14 soccer games back to back - if you run hard like I do - is like running a good 10k race). That all ends in November when the really big mileage kicks in.
The Disney Marathon is January 11, and if you back that out, you find out that I am in week 4 right now. I'm jumping into it there, this being the first week that I am trying to follow it as strictly as I can.
The cross-training I do is weight lifting with relatively light weights (all upper body work) and a lot of reps, plus core work. I do that both Monday and Friday, although I sometimes miss Friday. So if you count the station training on Tuesday and Thursday, I'm doing upper body work of some sort Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Another thing I'm changing is I'm not running a Half Marathon in week 9 (the Sunday of November 9). Instead, I'm running the Air Force Association Fun Run in Bedford, MA (a 10K) on Saturday the 8th. I'll probably run an easy 10 miler or the like on Sunday. Other than that, I'm going to attempt to abide by the schedule as strictly as I can.
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