My Current Running Mix

One thing I’m enjoying about running is that it gives me time to listen to a lot of music. Here is what is currently on my mp3 player, it’s a mix of high tempo, high energy songs:

Bulls On Parade – Rage Against the Machine
Naked In the Rain – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Basket Case – Green Day
The Other Side – Pendulum
Bombtrack – Rage Against the Machine
Hitchin’ a Ride – Green Day
Handlebars – Flobots
Haemoglobin – Placebo
Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
Heavy Heart – Ghostland Observatory
Showdown – Pendulum
Holland, 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel
Genius – Pitchshifter
Death By Blonde – DeVotchKa
Take a Picture – Filter
Rocket – Smashing Pumpkins
Everything About You (Edited) – Ugly Kid Joe

Going for 5k…

After yesterday’s run I was feeling full of energy this morning so decided just to do away with the last three weeks of c25k and go for a complete 5k run. Perhaps not the brightest idea, but I felt like I’d be able to do it, and it doesn’t hurt to push at boundaries every once in a while.

As per usual the first half mile or so was pretty terrible, then I managed to settle down. I decided to run into Polderpark Cronesteyn, which was as pleasant as ever, and for the first time ever I went down one of the paths through the middle of the allotments, there were birds flying around everywhere and it was really pretty.

The end of the run was awful and I think I may have pushed myself a bit too hard this time, my legs are aching pretty badly now, but I did manage to run 5k with a sub-10 minute pace! I guess this puts me in a good position to start Hal Higdon’s Novice supreme marathon training program (first week is runs of 1.5, 3, 1.5, 3 miles). I have a few weeks over the 30 he plans out before the local marathon, so I can stretch out any especially difficult bits.

You know… seven weeks ago I couldn’t run 60 seconds without puffing.

Three weeks ago running for five minutes nearly killed me

Today I just ran for 30 minutes, I wonder where I’ll be next month…

C25K — Week 6 Day 3

Program: 5min warmup walk, 25min run.

Absolutely tipping it down with rain today, which suits me just fine. After a painful first couple of minutes my legs seemed to realize what they were doing and the rest of the run was fine, no panting breath, and at the end I ran a couple of sections at maximum possible speed because I was not tired enough. Feels great.

More good news about my pace. I ran today for the first time with my Nike+ pedometer, and was pleased to find that in 25 minutes I covered 2.58 miles (9min 46sec per mile pace), so I’m well on target to manage 3 miles in 30 minutes!

I also checked the calibration of the pedometer against the Google maps route planner and it seems really close to accurate.

Goals: September 2008 Edition

At the start of every month I will write down my goals for the future, and also update with how I progressed towards last months goals. Since this is my first month I can’t say what my previous goals were, but for next time, here is what I would like to be doing in the short, medium and long-term:

Short Term (~1 month): Complete C25k program (3 weeks and 1 day remaining as of today), weight to 210lbs (get the 10 day moving average of my weight below this value on physicsdiet.com)

Medium Term (~3 months): Weight down to <200lbs (no longer obese), continue running, building fitness base. Start weightlifting.

Long Term (~1year): Weight into ‘healthy’ range, run marathon.

C25K — Week 6 Day 2

Program: 5min warmup walk, 10min run, 3min walk, 10min run

After finding the last run quite difficult I expected this one to feel the same. Fortunately it seemed to be much easier, probably because I ran in the morning (7am ish), and it was quite cold and still a bit rainy.

For the first time today I really struggled to get out of bed, and very nearly didn’t make it. For some reason I couldn’t sleep at all last night, I think I’m worrying about work too much as I kept getting out of bed to check on computer simulations. I’m also doing the journal club this week, and have a short talk at the science day.

Designing a Home Workout

For reference here is the upper body home workout I have decided to do three times per week, all exercises except for the pushups are done with a resistance band and are described on one of these three sites (1, 2, 3)

• Hundred Pushups.com Workout
• Diagonal Woodchops 2×16
• Triceps Extension 2×16
• Lateral Rows 2×16
• Biceps Curls 2×16
• Lat Pulls 2×16
• Rear Delt Fly 2×16
• Good Mornings 2×16

Where possible adjust the tension so that I’m as close as possible to failure by the last repetition.

C25K — Week 6 Day 1

Program: 5 minute warmup walk, run 5min, walk 3min, run 8min, walk 3min, run 5min

After week 5 day 3 (20 minutes running with no break) I was expecting this run to be easy, but it turned out to be pretty taxing, and I was definitely feeling it after the end of even the first running period. I think it was so hard this time because it’s the first time I have run in really hot weather (it’s currently 26 degrees outside).

After the first run I managed to settle down and the final two runs weren’t too bad. According to gmap-pedometer and some very rough calculations I am roughly on track to manage 5km in 30 minutes by the last week, assuming of course that my pace doesn’t drop. This is good news because I was a bit worried that I would do the final days run and only manage 3-4 km.

First Post

Hi there, this is the first post on my new fitness log.

About six weeks ago I decided to finally do something about my weight, and so started with the Couch to 5k running program, eating a high protein diet, and stopped drinking alcohol. Since then my weight has dropped from 224lbs to 213.5lbs, and shows no sign of slowing down

Right now this site is (obviously) very empty and I don’t have too much time to work on it, but I’ll get there in the end…

TODO:

• Write my goals down in a post
• Weight graphs to sidebar
• Blogroll
• Nicer theme
• Categories