January 2012 Measures

Once a month, I'll post my measures here on the blog in table format. Being "of a certain age" (although, I no longer use the word Album in reference to music), the will be in inches, pounds and so forth. The idea behind this is that 2012 is planned to be a year where I focus on fitness and my Ph.D.. This blog will be the one that tracks and discuss the fitness goals, triumphs and obstacles in detail. Background to the measures and fitness journey:

• I am 55 years old.
• I have run 4 marathons (Calgary, Seattle, Edmonton, Seattle) with a best time of 3:31. My running weight was a minimum of 155 and settled in at 165 pounds.
• I have bench pressed 135 pounds.
• I have just started Physio for chronic leg pain that may be related to hip cartilage degeneration.
• I am finishing off a very stressful job at the end of March and then working on my Ph.D. full-time.
• Regular exercise has not been part of my life for the last 10 years. Sedentary would be the right word to describe the last 3 years.

Measures:

A rainy week in review

Plans last week were:

• Do Yoga 3 times
• Walk/Cardio 3 times
• Meditate once.

Uggh.

I did to Yoga twice. A 15 minute round on last Monday and a 30 minute on Saturday. The 30 minute was actually beyond me physically at this stage - so I did what I could. I can feel the difference, especially in my super-tight left leg.

No Cardio, No Meditation.

So - more specific on plans. This coming week, I will:

• Do 30 Min of Yoga on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
• Do 30 Min of walking on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday
• Do 20 Min of meditation on Friday night
• Book these in my Calendar now.

Once again, let's see how the week goes.

Weeks -25 and -24

Week -25 was characterized by way too much food and no exercise. According to Lose It! I was 1414 calories over for the week. I suspect it was closer to 2000 or more.

Week -24 was fine, 653 calories under and three days of exercise. Christmas lunches are done, so things are a little saner food-wise. The only major issue is that I felt very hungry a lot of the time.

The frustrating thing with both those weeks is that the weight is not moving. I'm running on a target of 1843 calories per day. Lose it! calculates a daily intake of 1893 should be enough to get me to lose 1.5 pounds per week. In the four weeks that I've been doing this, I've been under my weekly limit by 151 calories, 430 calories, over by 1414 and finally under by 653.

My metabolism isn't slow, it's special :)

So, the only cure I know of for this is to first increase the running and decrease the percent of calories by fat. Lose It! has this fantastic feature where you can review your nutrient balance for the past as well (depending on entering it, of course). Although some of it is estimated, my % of calories from fat for the past 4 weeks was: 32%, 37%, 25% and finally 17%.

Everything I read indicates that fat breeds fat. Some authors (remember Pritikin?) advocate a diet where only 5% of your calories come from fat. That's a bit extreme for me. I think if I can keep it in the range of 20% and pump the running, we'll see if that will turn the corner.

Exercise this week consisted of a 30 minute fast walk on Thursday and two 25 minute runs on the weekend.

The weirdness is that walking still hurts my hip and stiffens my leg. Running doesn't. Note that the running is not particularly speedy. I think I was about a 14 min/mile pace on Saturday and a 13 min/mile pace average on Sunday. (Each day, though, I did a minute at 8 min/mile, just so my body remembers). The speed keeps my heart rate in the high training zone, so that's the speed I need to go. I expect that will improve quickly as heart/lungs tend to respond pretty quickly to the training effect.

Likely no post next week, I'll do a two week summary again in January.

What's been happening

As so often seems to happend when I push, push, push, the running from the spring broke down. My leg got to the point where it was practically collapsing and where I just felt crappy all the time.

After a bout of strep throat at the beginning of June, we took a 2 week vacation. The first week was in Las Vegas with 40+ degree temperatures every day. It was great. We walked and walked and walked.

The second week was at home and we ended up going to the gym practically every day. My wife is great - she pushed me to not push myself. So, I just went with the flow and that is what I have been doing since. We seem to be semi-regular at the gym/workouts (approximately 3/week). I'm feeling well, sleeping well and eating OK.

Nice.

Week 14

Monday
No plans for a run today - 2nd day sans caffiene! I will do something Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Potentially, I will also do something on Saturday.

Caffiene withdrawal is affecting my mood somewhat today - bit of a downer and things just seem to be more -- That is, molehills become mountains very easily.

Slight update. I walked at lunchtime up to Gord's, to get new outdoor Gel Kinsei 2's. According to Google Maps it is 2.25 K each way. There is also a height change of a few hundred feet. Took about 20 minutes to walk up there and about 15 to walk back (we'll call that 2k on the return as the lights just do not cooperate once you are downtown.) A notable point is that after the walk, my leg and hip definitely feel better.

Tuesday
Today I did a 20 minute walk from work towards home. Already, this week is shaping up to be better than last week. One slight issue is that I noticed my knees doing a bit of hyper extenstion during the walk. I'm not sure if it was an overuse thing, the shoe change or just random getting older issues.

Once again, though, the walk was great and very productive. Plan for the next run on Thursday.

Wednesday
I was quite happy to take the day off from exercise. Recovery time is soooo much longer at 52 than at 32. Ah well. One thing I do notice is that the training effect seems to take place perhaps even more quickly than it did before. That is quite nice actually.

Rest of the week
Thursday night got hooped by a last minute family dinner. Friday and Saturday were school and Sunday was recuperating (Grandchild sleepover :). On to the next week!

A great week

I took an "at home" vacation last week, and did it ever do my running a solid :).

First, we started with a walk to the U on Tuesday morning. Then, runs on the treadmill on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. This is probably the biggest week I've had this year in terms of aerobic exercise - man did it feel good.

One thing I've discovered is that as much as I intellectually love the "Cardiac Priority" work outs, doing the manual workout and watching the HR is better for my hip. (Digression - I slightly injured my hip about 20 years ago in a skiing accident. - On a green run when learning to ski. It manifests as a bit of Bursitis and very tight muscles in the upper thigh, especially the I.T. band. When running, the muscles eventually strengthen and then I no longer have hip issues).

The big reason it is better for my hip is the control over slope. On the C2 setting (Cardiac priority), there is always a positive slope. This becomes quite tiring for the leg and just doesn't work for it. When I do manual, I always do a few minutes a postive slope and 5-10 minutes of negative slope in the 30+ minute run. This tends to actively stretch the leg and it just feels better.