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:

The Sunday workout.

Mini-measure Sunday - Weight 210, fat 28%. Gained a pound, but lost 2 pounds of fat.

Not truly likely - I could tell the meal at Atlas the night before had a lot of salt as I was puffy city in the morning.

I went for another run on the treadmill today, with the same settings as Saturday - 30 minute C2 workout at HR 122 - Max elevation 1.5%, max speed 5.0 MPH.

I noticed it still hunted a fair bit. I also notice my HR would occaisionally spike up to 127 or so. The machine had fun with that - crash down to 0% elevation, speed of 3.3 MPH. Calories burned were 191, 1 less than yesterday.

One minor puzzlement is that the post-workout readout showed 29:00 for the time. I'm mildly wondering if there is something wrong with the machine.

Following that I did a light dumbbell workout. We have been unable to find a bench we like, so for the moment, we use the exercise ball for things like chest press etc..

Finally, we went to the library and took out a gaggle of books on running, training and exercising.

Measuring and shopping

Well, today, we did get the treadmill, and some weights, but not an exercise bench. Actually, got all this at the Fitness Depot at Dalhousie. We purchased a Pacemaster Platinum Pro. It has a really good feel, incline and decline settings, a 3HP continuous motor and a nice smooth feel.

It was interesting going through the decision process, as we naturally would liked to have spent less. At one point my light of my light asked: "How does buying this make you feel?" and the answer was "Like a great weight is off my shoulders." Honestly, the answer somewhat surprised me. I had no idea that I was waiting for one this much. (It should be here in about a week). Now I just have to dig out my Polar chest strap :).

I do have to mention the weights I bought as well. I got these PowerBlock contraptions which double as dumbbells and toys ;). Very cool and I'm looking forward to using them.

My leg feels much better today. Marie gave it a wand work massage last night and I didn't do any stretches. I am sure something in the way I am stretching is causing the pain. I'll have to review that with Chiro/Massage tomorrow.

Finally, today was first Sunday of the month - otherwise known as Statistics Sunday.

So we have:

Stat	Value
Weight	209
Scale fat %	29%
Waist	40.5
Skinfold x4	66
Skinfold fat%	30.4%