Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Running

The half marathon clinic is going well. We are starting hill training this week which should be a challenge. My run team at work is also coming along. We have people coming and going because of summer vacations but I think that we will have 6-8 hard core half marathoners. There may be some others too but right now they are busy with other activities and I'll have to wait and see if they are going to continue with the training.

I feel really good about the improvement that I've seen in my own running and I'm also enjoying being outdoors every day. At the end of the day, feeling good is the whole point of living an active life so here's hoping that I can keep the momentum going.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I am really rooting for you and your fellow beer runners in this endeavor. Thanks for the update.

chrisrawk said...

Hi, I was wondering how your challenge was going. What have you been up to this summer? (besides running!)

Inspired by you, I started a fitness challenge for myself - joined a gym and started the 100 pushup challenge.

It feels great - but I haven't lost any weight yet. I only have about 40 minutes in the gym on my lunch break, and in that time I do 20 minutes hard cardio and 20 minutes sit-ups and weight machines. I've been going to the gym 5 days / week for about 2 and 1/2 weeks now.

I'm watching what I eat - but I do binge on weekends with big Korean BBQ meals and beer.

Any recommendations for me? Should I just be patient and I'll start losing weight after a while? Cut out the weekend BBQs?

Eric said...

Dear BB,
Re Chrisrawk's question about the BBQ's... May I recommend continueing with the odd indulgence.
They will act as a reward for all the hard work he (or you) are doing and help to keep up your interest with the program. All work and no reward makes you work less diligently, I feel, and undoes your will to succeed.

Balcony Babe said...

I like your suggestion Eric. What I do is eat a very healthy diet during the week and then treat myself a little bit on the weekend. The healthy meals accomplish two goals - one is to eat from all the food groups with a minimum of fat and salt intake. The second one is to budget wisely by taking my lunch to work and resisting the urge to eat fast food every day. So far it is working out well.

What I do is eat a piece of toast and a half cup of coffee for breakfast, about an hour before I start my work day. (This includes a half hour commute and some time to get to work early). The first thing I do at work is PT, so it is important for me not to eat too much early on.

Then I have my shower and eat some yogurt, fruit and a muffin (as well as some more coffee). At lunch I eat whatever I brought from home - usually some leftovers to heat up and a small salad with a little salad dressing for flavour.

During the day I drink one-two large containers of water with a little juice for flavour. Then at home I have leftovers for dinner - usually something different than what I ate for lunch.

The reason that there are so many leftovers around is that I buy groceries on the weekend and take time to cook up three or four meals. It is much easier to resist the fast food desire each night if I know that I only have to microwave some food, rather than cook from scratch.

This is the lazy way to eat well but I've been doing it for a couple of years and it works for me. Then on the weekends I treat myself and enjoy some takeout and baked treats. Yesterday, for example, I had a chocolate danish for breakfast from Timmies and later in the day went for a short walk to DQ for a banana split. One of the reasons I bought my house in this area was because it is close to lots of fast food places and I can walk over for a treat, rather than driving every time the munchies hit me.