Spring Has Begun! And There's Snow Outside...

Totally meant to post this last night, but completely forgot until I was already in bed, trying to sleep.

Oh and it snowed yesterday.

So let's see, Sunday I did nothing, since I was wiped from the 5k still. Monday I went for my 12th run, which was the last run of Week 4, so still on the 4 minute run, 1 minute walk schedule. I paced myself much better, but I didn't have any leftover energy, still being a little tired from Saturday, so I didn't have the energy to run any extra during my cool down, like my previous runs. So my pace and distance were slightly worse than what I had done before. But no big deal, it was still a pretty good run. And Monday evening I went to the CBI tournament game between TCU and OSU, and we smashed them by about 20 points. Very good game.

Tuesday I went to Dixon in the morning, for my last weigh in prior to Spring Break, and I came in at 231, which is another 4 pounds lost since the last time I weighed myself, which was... about a week and a half prior to Tuesday. Now, that's great news, but the best part is that this is the first time I've weighed this much since Sophomore or the beginning of Junior year in HS, meaning 4-5 years. I weighed 235 at the end of Summer 2010 which was fantastic and the best until now since back then in HS. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy. I've lost 20 pounds since about February 12th, a rough estimate, but that was the last time some of my family saw me, and they've already noticed the slimming down. It's a marginal victory so far, but it's something, and I look forward to everytime someone notices I look thinner. Also remember, I weighed as much as 270 during the summer prior to and most of Senior year in HS, so my health is considerably better than just a few years ago.

On the topic of my weight, I've decided since I've made a lot of progress so far, and pretty quickly as well (been 4.5 weeks since I buckled down - Februrary 19th) and have lost about 20 pounds, that I will be changing my current weight goal a bit. So by my birthday, June 15, I plan on weighing 210 or less (originally was 220), and I will shoot for 200 pounds. That's a big goal to do in 12-13 weeks (31 pounds) but that's why I made 2 goals. One that I know I can make, and one that I really want to reach, but won't be disappointed if I fall short. I'll know by May what I should be looking at in terms of how possible 200 will be.

In other news, I'm back home for Spring Break, and will be working Spring Camp next week Monday-Friday, as well as trainings tomorrow evening and all day Saturday. I also will be seeing The Hunger Games tonight, at the midnight showing in Portland at the Roseway Theater. Should hopefully be a good movie, but you never know. Oh and I had bought a jump rope a little while back, and I don't really have a space in Corvallis to use it, so I tried a little workout for the first time today out in my driveway, and I had forgotten how intense jump roping can be. I'm figuring out a good routine for myself, since I can't do long workouts with it, as it's more anaerobic. I think for now, I'll do 10 minute workouts, with a warm up and cool down, so that it comes out to be around 20 minutes. And then for now I think I'll do 1 minute jumping, with a 30 second break and walk a bit, to keep myself moving a bit. I'll do these workouts whenever I feel up to it as it isn't too demanding on the body in terms of exhausting energy or making me too sore. If I keep this up, I want to put some variety into the jumping as well as increase the time I'm jumping for to 15 or 20 minutes, and longer intervals. But for now, this will do.

Okay, I think that's about it, and I've got a hankering to play some Xbox, which seems about right since I haven't played any in a few days. Stay fancy.

St. Patricks Day

Not much has happened since my last blog post, just ran on Thursday, and had my 5k this morning.

Thursday's run went pretty well. I felt more comfortable, and had a slightly stronger pace. Overall, I ended up with a little less energy than Tuesday's run, so I ran a couple minutes during my cool down, but ended up at 3.18 miles, and kept a pace of 11:12, which is what I did on Tuesday as well. However, my running intervals were faster, which was great. The main reason my overall pace didn't increase was because on Tuesday's run, not only did I run an extra 3 minutes, but I ran it at a pretty hard pace (probably close to twice as fast as my normal pace) so that got my time much lower than it should have been for the first 34 minutes or so. I kept Friday a very lazy day, so I would have plenty of energy for this morning's 5k in Albany. I was invited to go to Dixon last night, but I knew if I went, I'd have a tough run.

Today was awesome. So I woke up at 6:23 (before my alarm... But when I have something important scheduled in the morning that I'm anxious for, I usually keep waking up accidentally), and ate at 6:45. Left the apartment about 7:30 and got to the 5k area at about 7:45-7:50. Picked up my packet with my number and what not, and got my chip ready (it was a chip timed race, to accurately time your race, for those who aren't race savvy). Out of the group that I was with (all of which were Malika's family/friends), I was the only one in nothing but shorts and a t-shirt. Classy. But I was plenty warm as soon as I started running. So the race started at 8:15, and off I went, running with Malika and her aunt Laurie. My plan was to run with Malika the whole way, but after about half a mile, she kept telling me to go on since I was slowing myself down a bit. So I ended up taking off, but I didn't feel so bad because Laurie was still with her. I ran at a pretty hard and fast pace. I was actually shocked at the rate I was going. But then it hit me, my food hadn't digested enough, and I began to get horrible stomach cramps. So unfortunately, I had to stop to walk far more often than I had hoped to (knowing I can't run a whole 5k yet without walking). I kept trudging along though, and with about half a mile left, I felt like I was going to be sick for a bit there, but I relaxed myself with a bit more walking, and was able to get going a bit more. I finished at 32'43", which is a good start. I probably would have broken 30 minutes had I run it a bit more seriously, and hadn't gotten the stomach cramps, but I'm still happy with what I got. I was also the first person finished out of the group that I ran with. My official goal (should be pretty easy in 3 and a half months) is to get sub 25 minutes for the July 4th 5k. Will keep it simple for now. When June comes around, if I'm able to run a 5k (just on my own, not necessarily a race) quite a bit faster than 25 minutes, than I'll create a goal at that point - give myself sometime to aim for when it comes down to crunch time. I still really enjoyed the run, and am glad that I did it, to see how far I've gone come July.

After the 5k, I went out for breakfast with Malika and her mother and aunt, and after that point, went home to be lazy for the rest of the day. It's 11 PM, my body has been exhausted all day (on top of about 6 hours of sleep, which if I've learned anything about myself, I can't do shit without 8-10 hours of sleep), and I'm going to bed now. Stay fancy. Today, I did not stay fancy, but rather athletic shorts and a green t-shirt - it's tough to be fancy on St. Patricks Day when you have a 5k to run.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

And vise versa, at least in this case.

So I had previously complained about my poor day on Friday, due to a few different factors (running). Well Sunday, as well as today were my two best days of running yet! It's funny how that works. On Saturday I got a nice rest by just going to Monmouth, although Greg and I did end up walking over to where he works and shooting some hoops for a bit, but that wasn't much, and just recreational. Sunday, I went on my Week 3 Day 3 run (still 3 min run, 2 min walk) and I had kept to a much better and steady pace, while still retaining some energy at the end, so I ended up running a little extra at the end and finally, FINALLY broke the 3 mile barrier that I've been hoping to cross for a while. I finished at 3.05 miles (0.13 miles farther than my previous best) while also improving my pace by a whopping 35 seconds per mile! That's incredible. I felt great, and it was a wonderful day on top of that. So then Monday I got set back a bit, health wise, as I had a total "vegging out" sort of day. Just lots of food. It wasn't too much over what my body burns in a day, about 450 more than I should be eating, but it was only one day luckily. And good thing that I had my next run today, which involved more running, to help the fact that I had a "fat" day yesterday. So today. Whew, today. My run was even better (although the weather on Sunday was far superior). It was Week 4 Day 1 of my podcast, which meant that it was 5 intervals of 4 minute jogging, with only 1 minute breaks in between. The 4 minute intervals weren't too difficult, because I went into the first one with a pretty decent pace, something that I kept up pretty well. But damn, those 1 minute walking intervals were tough on me, because before I knew it, I was back and running again. I know it's better that I only do the 1 minute of walking, but you don't even know how much I'd want an extra 30 seconds to recover my breathing. Nonetheless, I did fantastic. And I even had extra energy at the end once again, so I ran an extra 3 minutes on top of the podcast, so I ended up at 3.4 miles, and increased my overall pace by another 18 seconds (that's an improvement of 53 seconds over 2 runs), which puts me at 11:12 minutes per mile. Remember, that includes the 10 minutes of walking as a warm up and cool down. I can definitely see quite a bit of improvement, especially now that I have more endurance in terms of intervals (so I can do more than 5 now), and built up a fair amount of endurance of just pure running time. Doubled it in fact (from 2 to 4 minutes).

Other than that, not much else has happened that I haven't discussed already. I filled out my NCAA tournament bracket as usual, and of course, the first two games today (play in games to get into the normal 64 team bracket) I lost both of. But to be fair, they were teams that should have won (as in the teams that lost) but they had horrible second halves. Iona was beating BYU by 25 points, and BYU came back to win it by 6 (Iona was scoreless for 12 straight minutes!), which is the largest comeback in NCAA tournament history. I also went to Dixon this evening with Nick, to get a bit of biking in. Biked down, did 10 minutes on a bike at a moderate intensity due to still digesting some food, and then with a 5 minute warm up and cool down, I did a 15 minute HIIT on a bike. I was going for 20, but my legs were dying at 15 and I decided to call it quits, since I did have a long run today.

I've got my 5k on Saturday in Albany, which I actually just signed up for about an hour ago. I just kept putting it off, mainly due to monetary reasons. But I'm excited for that. Hoping for under 30 minutes (considering I won't spend 10 minutes as a warm up/cool down, I feel as if that's pretty reasonable), but who cares. Just going to go at the pace that Malika and I are comfortable with. I've got a slightly faster pace than hers (although I wouldn't be surprised if she has more endurance than me) so I'll motivate her to work at it, but at the same time, I don't want to push myself too hard, since this is just for fun; I think it'll work out perfectly.

Not much else to discuss. One of my new favorite foods is cajun shrimp (thanks to Greg). Put butter in skillet, put shrimp in skillit, sprinkle plenty of cajun seasoning over it, and cook. I also threw in some chipotle flakes (like crushed red pepper, but it's jalepeno with that strong chipotle/smoky flavoring). Also had some pasta with some Newman's Own red sauce added, but I put in some Sriracha hot sauce into it, and it was soooooo good.

Stay fancy.

What a Rough Day (Friday)

So as I had posted on Facebook, I delayed my blog from last night to this morning/early afternoon because I was just so exhausted. And this is how things went.

So went to bed pretty early Tuesday night as my last blog post indicated, before midnight. Amazing for me. Wednesday I went out for my Week 3 Day 1 run, which is 3 minute jogging, 5 intervals, with 2 minutes in between. I was aiming for 3 miles, but the this week is proving to be tough on me, and I managed 2.92 miles. It probably doesn't help that Tuesday I was at Dixon for 2 hours on Tuesday, so my legs were fairly fatigued from that still. Now, I got some running Smartwool socks Tuesday night, so I tried them on for my run on Wednesday, and dear lord they were amazing. My shoes don't fit me perfectly (will be getting a nice pair of running shoes during Spring Break) and after the basketball on Tuesday, I noticed that my heels got pretty beat up, so I was afraid I might develop a blister on my left heel from my run. Luckily, the Smartwool socks did their job, and they cushioned my feet perfectly. Will be buying more of these things!

But then on Thursday I went to Dixon again, with Nick, and we played basketball for a bit, but then ended up on bikes while watching the last 10 minutes of the OSU/UW basketball game (quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament). And naturally, those 10 minutes lasted 40 minutes, so that was 40 minutes on the bike. Exhausted me more than I thought, and I got back home 3 hours after leaving to go to the gym, so once again, I was pretty fatigued again. But my run yesterday was weird. I felt as if I had plenty of energy as I was doing my warm up (5 minute walk) so I went a bit harder on my first interval. BIG mistake. I really screwed myself over, and I struggled for the rest of the run. On my last interval, with 1 minute left, I actually had to start walking, because I just couldn't run another step. Then the first minute of my cool down, I ended up running to make up for it, but still. It was a huge struggle. And I ended up at 2.81 miles, which went down from Wednesday. However, I also didn't walk as long for my cool down (I keep up my Runkeeper app until I make it back to my apt, so if I'm a block away and my podcast finishes, then I walk that extra block, etc.). So I ended up improving my average pace by 2 seconds I think (not much, but it technically was an improvement). I guess there was some good news from that run - but I sure as hell had a rough time out there, considering I actually had to stop running at the end.

Then after some rest, doing some laundry, reading more Fellowship (about 110 pages in already, I really love this book), I went to Dixon to watch the OSU/Arizona game in the semifinals on a tv there (by the way, we lost horribly. Lead by 7 at half time, and then one of the worst second halves ever. We were 1/16 for field goals at one point) with Ryan and Nick, and got there about 20 minutes prior to tip off. So I decided to do a bit of interval training on a bike. Got in about 12 minutes of 2-2 minute intervals. Definitely felt the workout, but I had to stop for the game. After the game, I then did an extra 25 minutes of intervals + cool down, but I did 1-2 this time (being 1 minute intense, 2 minutes moderate) which I prefer as it's been a while since I did lots of cardio. But let me tell you, I was so tired and exhausted last night, I just never got around to the blog, and just went to sleep. So here I am, writing it at 1:00 PM, still fatigued as hell. But it was worth it.

In other news, I'll be returning back to the Zoo for work, which is always good to know that I've got my job back. And in about an hour, I'm leaving for Monmouth and going to hang out with my good friend Greg (which I know via the Zoo)! Very excited. And luckily, I can just relax all day, because my body sure as hell needs it before my run tomorrow. I should be wrapping up, so I can prepare to venture over to Monmouth. Stay fancy everybody, each and every one of you.

Phew, Almost Forgot

I was just about to head to bed, and remembered I had to write up this blog. Almost forgot, but got me right at the end of my night. However, I've been tired ALL day long, so I'm going to keep this brief, so I can get to sleep.

I didn't make it to Dixon on Sunday or Monday, as I had hoped, but I just didn't have enough energy at the times I'd prefer to go. But I was able to go today luckily. Was able to get a half court all to myself and just shoot hoops for a while. I was originally planning on doing some biking intervals when I first got there, but there was only 1 basketball left, so I thought I'd shoot first. But I ended up shooting for about 2 hours, so I was wiped, and went on home (at least I biked to and from the gym, getting a bit of biking in, but no intervals as I had hoped to do, for something a bit different). I'm hoping to improve my shot a lot by next year, as both Ryan and Nick want to play IM basketball with me being their center/forward. And well, yeah I'm only 6'0", maybe up to 6'1" with the right shoes, but I've got a lot of body mass, making me an inside kind of guy. So I literally, all 2 hours, just worked on my inside shots, and let me tell you, I improved on those kind of shots a lot in just that short amount of time. One problem is that I haven't played competitively in years and years, so a lot of my shots are without jumping (that are free throw or closer). But if I play on a team, up close especially, I'll need to jump to avoid getting blocked, so I was practicing close jump shots. I have to say, the first 10 shots or so I completely missed because I'd be overshooting, and then undershooting due to undercompensating for the jump. But I got in a nice rhythm finally, and ended up shooting 70% free throws at the end, which isn't too shabby for me. Like I said, never made it to the bikes, but I was tired enough, and hadn't had too much food prior to going to Dixon, so I needed to go home and eat some lunch.

Oh and speaking of Dixon, right before leaving, I weighed myself at 235, so I've lost another 5 pounds in the last 10 days. Of course I did weigh myself right after shooting hoops for 2 hours, but I didn't lose all that much water from just shooting, and I also had eaten a little bit before hand, plus a water bottle worth of water in me, plus my clothes (no shoes). I'd say that's pretty close to what I'd weigh in the morning after waking up. But what's important is keeping the time of my weigh ins consistent, so if I stick to after a workout in the late morning/early afternoon, should be a good way to tell how much I lose. Nonetheless, it feels great to have seen my weight continue to drop. I can see 220 pretty close already. My goal is to reach that weight by my birthday, but I bet I could be that weight by May. Once I reach my target weight, I'll evaluate where I'm at and see if I can create a new goal for my birthday in June, even if it's just an extra 5 pounds or so, anything would be great.

Haven't finished up those P90X workouts yet, but it'll happen when it happens. I'm still staying pretty active with running, as well as other ways of exercise, that I'm not concerned. It's the staying idle for 2 months that's dangerous, not postponing a couple workouts due to being tired from running and going to the gym.

Tomorrow I start up my third week of running, which will be similar to before, but now it'll be 5 intervals of 3 minute jogging, with 2 minute walking breaks. My last run ended up going for 2.86 miles, so I figure I can break 3 tomorrow. I've gradually increased my mileage on every single run, even by just 0.1 mile or so, which is great. Obviously if I increase my time running, I'll be traveling farther, but even throughout the week, I'll increase each run's distance. So I'll have my week 3 runs tomorrow, Friday, and Sunday, and then will have week 4 runs (days 1 and 2) on Tuesday and Thursday, and will then have my 5k run in albany on that Saturday, the 17th. Definitely won't be ready to run it all, but I'm sure we'll figure out a good running/walking pattern to finish it off. I'd love to finish it in under 30 minutes, which I think is possible, but I really don't know right now. I'm hoping by summer to be able to do the July 4th 5k in around 20 minutes. I'd love to say sub 20, but I'm positive that that'll be a little too ambitious for now. But hey, who knows, we'll just have to see. But I've got a 5k in 11 days, and I'm looking forward to, and will be able to see where I really am with a 5k, and able to see how far I've come when it's July.

Banana chips, the bane of my existence. I bought some at Trader Joes the other day, and they're soooo addicting. 160 calories for a 1/4 cup of them, which is a ton of calories for so little. Luckily I have them in a closed container, and only eat a couple at a time, so I actually have to work to get into them. But I've been doing well with my food log, usually 1800-2400 calories, which is where I should be. But when I get to that upper range, I definitely feel like I should eat less. So I'm working on finding foods that fill me the best, and I think foods high in protein usually make me feel the most full (while keeping less calories going into my body). So tuna, eggs, and cottage cheese have entered my diet a bit more.

And to finish things off, I finished Mossflower (second book in the Redwall series, prelude to Redwall), and I started The Fellowship of the Ring tonight. And that's it - I'm tired and going to bed, at 11 pm. Stay fancy; please, stay fancy.

Please, Not Again

I fear I am getting sick again. It's strange, I haven't been majorly sick while continuously working out, which is good. But I started feeling the symptoms yesterday, and have still kept them today. Although I'd like to point out that after a run and a few miles of both riding my bike and walking, I do feel better than this morning/early afternoon. I hope that staying active is my key to both preventing sickness, as well as reducing how bad the sickness is on my body. If it doesn't get any worse, I can't imagine seeing anything bad come from it, no missed classes or missed workouts due to it, but if it does, my body will just become crippled, just like every other cold I get. But the fact that I'm still surviving on Saturday night, when I felt the symptoms Friday morning, is astonishing to say the least. Let's hope for the best.

I apologize for once again being a day late with this blog post, I just kind of forgot last night, after Nick was hanging out here for a while in the evening, and then wanting to get to bed, hoping to make it to Dixon this morning, on top of a run. I ended up feeling pretty crummy this morning, and decided of the planned run, trip to Dixon, and basketball game, I'd have to prioritize, and I decided to keep my scheduled run instead of the other two things. It was a good choice; I slept in and went out for a run. I'm on the second week now, which means that it's 2.5 minutes of jogging, and 2.5 minutes of walking, 5 intervals (instead of the previous 4), and of course a 5 minute warm up walk with a 5 minute cool down walk at the end. I can definitely tell the difference between last week and this week, and with the possibility of being sick right now (hard to breathe during the jogging portion) and then of course my ankle (I'll explain shortly), it's been a bit tough. But I'm up to 2.7 miles on the entire run (12.5 minutes jogging, 20 minutes total walking), and it's nice to be increasing my mileage, even if I'm still walking a lot of it.

Ah right, my ankle. So last I had talked about being home, well the next morning, I noticed a decent pain in my right ankle. I carried on, had a good interview at the Oregon Zoo, ate at the Killer Burger in Sellwood that just opened (at which the cashier recognized me from eating the Marine Burger on Youtube - will post the video just below this paragraph. Also talked with the owner, Mark, and had a nice chat), but my ankle still bugged me. I drove back to Corvallis and it just got worse. The next day, Malika ended up going on her Week 2 Day 1 run, even though I figured we would have a 2 day break between weeks. But I decided to try out my run nonetheless (I'd prefer it every other day anyways, rather than 3 days a week; gets in 7 runs every 2 weeks instead of 6), and it was a bit tough. I wrapped up my ankle, but 3/5 of the way through, I had to take a 5 minute break to get off my foot, and also to rewrap it, as it was a bit too tight on me. With the increase of energy, due to taking that break, I decided to push myself and run a bit more than the podcast told me to do, to make up for that break. Yet somehow, I managed to travel an extra 0.1 mile today than I did Thursday, even though I felt sick and didn't stop at all. Interesting. By the way, I use an app called Runkeeper, on top of my podcast, which uses the GPS in the iPhone to keep track of your mileage and route, as well as time and pace, etc.

I still haven't finished up my last 2 workouts of P90X, but that's due to my ankle, and I decided that continuing my running schedule was a bit more important, and I didn't want to kill my ankle with too much work on it. By the way, I thought it was sprained due to the pain and location, but as of today, it's been doing much better. So we'll see how it is tomorrow and if I have to wrap it up at all while walking. I might actually want to wrap up my left ankle (the other one) due to compensating for the lack of strength of my right ankle. I noticed it was bugging me a bit today.

I really want to make it to Dixon tomorrow, so fingers crossed, and if I'm feeling better, hopefully I'll make it. Get on a spinning bike for a bit of intense cardio, maybe do intervals instead of just a constant pace, and also shoot some hoops. I don't see any real need to lift weights at the moment, considering that I can do a lot of exercises here at my apartment on my own time.

It's time to start heading to bed, if I plan on getting to Dixon tomorrow morning, as I'll want as much rest as possible before hand. Stay fancy.