chanson

Thanks to prodding from renaki I got out and ran again tonight. And I figured I'd just run a full workout instead of a fraction of one.

So today? This morning I did 30 push-ups and 60 curls (each arm) with 10-pound dumbbells. Tonight, I ran 5.4 miles and walked a half-mile cool-down. All told I spent over 950 calories.

And I'm probably going to make a big deal out of every workout for a while until I'm back in the habit and it isn't, uh, a big deal.

I've been slacking off since I wrote my last workout-related post. I ran one more time, and then for the rest of October and November didn't run. A couple days ago I started back in again, as part of a deal I made with myself when I had the tastiest double mocha ever on my birthday: I could start drinking caffeine again, but only if I also exercised. A month later and I'm making good on that again.

So I'm back down to running two miles a shot. Not because I'm too tired to run two miles but because my feet hurt after two miles, in that particular way which says "If you push me any more, I will give you blisters that will keep you from running for a week!" I'm also doing push-ups though, to try and balance some of this; I'll try to start back in on the curls soon too.

So that's where I'm at. Backslid a little, my weight popped up a little as a result, but I'm back at it. I will beat this and I will not stop until it's beaten — and even after.

I worked out pretty hard in August, running 18 days out of 31 for an average of about 4 days a week. I wound up running an average of 2.4 miles per workout and losing about 7 pounds.

I slacked off in September though, only running 11 days out of 30 for an average of 2.5 days a week, which didn't impact my weight. I made up for it though by dramatically increasing the distance to an average of 4.3 miles per workout!

So far, I've worked out once in October — tonight — and I ran a solid 5.5 miles. I'm hoping that this month I'll keep it up, and hit at least 4 days a week on average. Shouldn't be too hard at about 900 calories per workout...

So the other night I went running after about a week off. I started off expecting to run three miles, but I lost count of how many laps I'd run around my block. As I was mentally retracing my steps, I realized I was on my fourth lap — and I felt good!

So I decided to go for five laps. And after the fifth — I felt good!

So I decided to go for five and a half. Because five and a half laps around the 0.9-mile loop that is my block would get me to five fucking miles, baby!

That was Monday.

Tuesday, I did it again.

Wednesday, I did it again.

I took Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off. But I'm planning on doing it again on Sunday, and at least most of the coming week.

Why? Because I can! And because it's a damn good workout.

At the beginning of August, I started running again. For the first two weeks, I was only running every other day, and running a 2.5-mile course. But a week ago I switched to running a 2.0-mile course daily, and it's only taken me a week to decide to kick it up a notch. Tonight, I ran a 2.7-mile course.

Hopefully tomorrow morning I'll be able to do it again. If not, there's no shame in "only" running two miles. But I'd sure like to get back up above three miles a day — I've learned that there's no more certain way for me to take weight off and get in shape than to run three or more miles a day.

I only ran once last week, on Tuesday. I was pretty sore after that, but I managed 1.5 miles. And I'm already starting to feel the three flights of stairs that take me to and from my apartment.

Earlier today, though, I figured out that the loop around my block is 0.9 miles — or 1 mile if I run around the inside of the park outside my apartment rather than the outside. Maybe I'll be able to manage at least a lap tomorrow morning, though I have a bunch of stuff to do early tomorrow morning before my walk to work so maybe not.

We'll see.

(My walk to work. I love this!)

Tomorrow morning, I take another step towards acclimating to California by getting back on the health train. I've figured out a 0.75-mile path to run a few laps of. I've decided to kick caffeine again. And I've also decided to try giving up soft drinks at the same time.

Don't worry, I'm not about to give up my meat. Mmm.

No running yet for me! My apartment complex needed to remodel their fitness center, and install all new electrical equipment so they could run treadmills without tripping a circuit breaker. They said it would reopen on the 23rd, but it's been pushed back to Monday (the 27th). And they're having their "grand opening" from 4-7PM that day, which means I won't be able to actually start running again until Tuesday.

Ah well. At least I'll always have DDR thanks to my soft pad, PlayStation and Konamix!

Oh yeah, anyone have any recommendations for a good PlayStation to USB adaptor? I'd like to try hooking my pad up to my Mac for something. But I need an adaptor that reports the arrows as a proper DPAD or as buttons rather than as an analog stick; I've heard some of the PlayStation to USB adaptors do that.

• 25 push-ups
• 80 sit-ups
• 120 curls (each arm, 4 sets of 30) with 10 pound dumbbells
• 4 mile run
• Half mile cool-down

My new goal: Run 4.8 miles regularly before the weather gets bad enough that I'm forced to switch to a treadmill for the winter.

It also looks like I'm on track to be 160 pounds by my birthday. If I can keep this up after the weather starts to suck, I should be able to get down in the 145-150 range by the end of the year.

And my arms are getting bulgy! I have obvious biceps now! And they actually do something when I flex! I'm not sure when I'm going to upgrade from the 10 pound dumbbells, but I'm going to have to at some point if I want to keep building strength in my arms. I really don't want to do more than 150 curls overall - I'll start getting bored...

I just weighed in at 164.5 pounds!

That's fifty pounds less than my high of 215 in early 2000!

I just kicked my workout up to 2.4 miles.

I now weigh 176.5 pounds.

I look leaner than that, too. Even the spare tire is smaller. I can wear a large (rather than an XL) T-shirt again - and look good. My favorite dress shirt is almost too large to wear now.

I took my belt in another notch today without even noticing. Well, I noticed a few minutes later that I seemed to have an awful lot of belt, and counted the notches.

Two miles!

(pant pant pant pant pant)

So I went around the loop I've been running lately in my car. Turns out that the first half is 0.5 miles (like I thought) but the second "half" is actually only 0.3 miles. So one lap is 0.8 miles, rather than the full 1 mile I thought it was. One and a half laps is 1.3 miles, which is what I've been running for the past couple weeks. Today I kicked it up to two full laps, 1.6 miles, which is where I expect to be for the next week and a half.

It's also the fathest I've run continuously since spring 1993. Soon though I'll be able to move up to a full 2.1 miles (2.5 laps); when I ran track in high school, 2 miles was always the minimum workout run. I don't know if I'll ever go above 3.2 miles (4 laps) since above that point I'll start to care a bit more about the amount of time I spend running.

I went running for the first time in a long time this morning. I ran a mile. I was actually able to run the entire mile, too.

I don't think I've been able to run a complete mile since 1996 or 1997. Now if I can keep it up, maybe in a little bit I'll be able to attend Bulldog Bootcamp at Harper College without embarassing myself.