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:

I'm struggling, yet improving

Over the past year, physical fitness really just hasn't been a priority with me. I'm really finding this is taking a toll.

I'm 54 now and as my doc said "If you don't add to the bank account, eventually you run out".

I can see that in how I felt this morning. My desire these days is to get up at 5:00 or 5:30, work for an hour or two and then take the bus in to work.

My body would just not co-operate. The alarm went off at 5:30 and I felt like I could not move. I managed to reset the alarm to 6:30 and eventually got up about 6:20. I had to get my sweetie to give me a ride into work, rather than taking the bus, as I still feel too dizzy.

Not good.

So – what do I do about it?

I have been gradually and intermittently adding yoga to my life. None last week as I was fighting off a flu after a visit with the younger grandkids, but I did it 3 times the week before. A nice side benefit of yoga is that my leg starts feeling better everytime I do it.

I'm going to post how I'm doing on this every week. If I have to put it in writing, that will help motivate me.

That's all. Very simple, no grandiose plans, no schedules, no 3 month goal.

Let's see what happens.

The holiday weeks

The last few blogs, I've been focussing on weight, food and calories. However, the title of this blog is "RunBrettRun", not "LoseWeightFatBoy"!

I run (and blog about it) because I love to run. I love the feeling of running, the "click" of endorphins I get at 5 minutes in and after 20 minutes of running. The other benefits are really side benefits for me.

Changing the focus back to runnig just makes everything simpler. It is kind of a "Power of Intention" thing.

As an aside, I had thought of calling the blog "RunGordoRun". The pun of that is that my middle name is Gordon and that "Gordo" in Spanish is Fatty :).