57 – 63, 63 – 66

Alright so some good stuff and some bad stuff.

Saturday morning I had my best run in a long time. I ran 5 consecutive miles in 50:15. It was only 70 degrees and I just got into a good rhythm running to Steve Winwood. I stopped after 5 and jogged a mile home. This was a good run. After it, I ate eggs whites and asparagus. A good meal!

The rest of Saturday was bad. I didn’t eat anything else until like 7pm and was also drinking beer, and just ate a whole bunch of garbage, and then was pretty hungover on Sunday. I didn’t end up running, and also ate almost nothing all day. I had a handful of peanuts, 2 small pieces of roasted pig, a kielbasa, sauerkraut, and that was basically it. I had a few beers and went to bed at like 10:30pm.

Today, we had free lunch at work, but it was lasagna, meatballs, and veggies. My plan was to just eat meatballs and veggies, but there wasn’t enough food for everyone, so I ate some lasagna. For dinner I had a Cobb salad and that was fine.

My run tonight, I was attempting 8 because I am still catching up on week 2, but I only ran 3 miles. My legs were really dead, it was 80 and humid, and I felt like I was running in sand. Gonna move past this one and attempt 11 tomorrow, and then start jamming on week 3. See ya!

45 – 51, 51 – 57

Hey blog.

Wednesday I jogged 6 miles, and it went OK. I did another Articuno raid with random people, and I failed to catch it. Not fun.

I took yesterday off because my legs felt dead. Today I jogged 6 and it was super tough. I wanted to run as far consecutively as I could, and I just didn’t go well. I ran 2 miles, walked for .1, and then basically ran .9 miles and walked .1 for the rest of the way. It was super insanely humid and I was just hurting really bad. I ended up running 5.6 of the the 6 miles, and it was just a lot of effort.

My food has not been great the last few days. I’m really struggling with the no white carbs thing, and I’ve done a few cheats. Today I had no breakfast and a salad for lunch, and roasted chicken with veggies and potatoes for dinner, but also chips and guacamole. I also had a few beers. Today in particular I did not feel like my fitness was improving, but there were some tough conditions.

As always, just gonna hang in there. My plan is 6 miles tomorrow, 8 Sunday, and then 11 Monday, and then on to week 3. See ya tomorrow!

40-45 (week 2)

Hey blog.

Tonight was a weird run. I started off fine, but after about a mile I got distracted by the fact that a large group of people were gathering to capture a Pokemon (Articunos) that I am trying to get.

I realize this is the lamest thing ever.

I ran towards the group and hung out there for like 10-15 minutes, and we beat it in a battle but I did not catch it. It was a huge waste of time. I will look back at this entry with great shame.

I kept running, and my legs felt pretty tired, which was to be expected. At some point I stopped my watch at a light, and I forgot to turn it back on, and that just stunk. I basically did what I needed to do to travel 5 miles and it was pretty ugly. This run was not important, but I had to work pretty hard to finish it.

As for food, I was starving all day today. I didn’t have breakfast. For lunch I had a Spanish omelettee and some salad. That sounds great but I had a Diet Coke, and used blue cheese dressing on the salad. For dinner I had another salad, where every ingredient was actually pretty good except for the dressing, which was ranch. I also had a beer.

I was starving as we were walking home, and I bought this salami thing, and ate about half of it. I also stayed up late and made a cheese quesadilla.

Not a good day, but the diet is “lose weight without exercising”, and I am exercising a ton. Gonna try to stick to the principles but my body is craving real carbs.

I’m running 6 miles each of the next 3 days, so I’ll try to mix it up and do something to keep me engaged and try to push what I’m capable of. See ya tomorrow!

 

30 – 40

Hey blog.

My first week went almost perfectly, with the exception of the fact that I was supposed to do my 10 miler yesterday, and ended up doing it today. I’m just gonna be honest and say the 8 miler was harder on my body than I thought it would be, and I also just didn’t feel great yesterday, probably from eating and drinking a bunch of crap. I laid on the couch all day and eventually went for a walk in Hoboken, and it was miserably humid out. I was just having a bad day and couldn’t make myself run.

The good news is that I did it today, AND the weather was actually pretty decent. It was only like 70 degrees when I ran, which felt downright arctic compared to the rest of the week. I ran with the same plan as I did on Saturday, which was 2 miles on, .25 walk, 2 miles run, .25 walk, and so on. So I ran 9 of the miles, and walked 1. This was pretty slow and took a total of 106 minutes. I got pretty fatigued at the end and was walking slow, but the best mile was probably the last one, so that was good.

A bigger issue is that my watch is messing with my head. I completely forgot that I didn’t time the first minute or so, and I was planning to run until it said 4.9 miles on the way out, but I totally forgot that. I also hit 5 miles on my watch way, way too early. I ended up running to my old 5 mile marker, and my watch said. 5.3 or so, which should have been 5.4 considering I didn’t time the first minute. That is an insane discrepancy. Being off by .1 I can deal with, but .4 is wild. The way back, it was slightly better, but said something like 5.2.

I have no idea if my watch is wrong, or if it actually updated to be correct, and I was running longer in the past. I am going to borrow Ti’s watch soon and see what it says, but this is bothering me quite a bit.

I had a pretty bad food weekend, but today I ate a hard boiled egg for breakfast, a chipotle bowl with no rice or cheese for lunch, and tilapia and asparagus for dinner. I wasn’t all that hungry today for some reason. Gonna keep doing this diet but it’s stupid and doesn’t really account for marathon training. I will eventually have to tweak it to include some different stuff but we’ll see how the very limited diet goes for a while.

Alright I have to run 6 days this week, and that will start with a 5 miler tomorrow. No time goals for this week, just completing the distances. Alright, see ya.

22-30

Hey blog,

Food real quick. Yesterday I had no breakfast, a salad for lunch, and a fried flounder platter with French fries and coleslaw and hush puppies, and several beers. It was my day off from running. It was like half a cheat day.

Today, I had an egg white omelette for breakfast, pulled pork tacos for lunch from a delicious food truck, and baked ziti and some salad for dinner, and several beers. This was mostly a cheat day. Breakfast was fine, the pulled pork tacos I’m ok with, and obviously the baked ziti was an indulgence, but I did a really hard run, which I’ll get into. I give my fuel intake the last 2 days a C+.

On to running, today I travelled 8 miles in about 82:45, and I’ll explain the “about” at length. So, we had a very busy day, and were at a very hot weddding shower for several hours, and I was chomping at the bit to get my run out of the way, because I knew it would be torture. Today wasn’t insanely hot, it was only mid to high 80s, but it was very humid. I got out for my run at like 4:30, and had plans to go out in NYC afterwards. I’ve been trying to run at least 90% of each run, and that was my plan for today.

I decided I was going to run 2 miles, walk a quarter mile, run 2 miles, and so on. This is a weird run to describe because I got completely confused about my watch, and ended up running too far on the first half, but let me just do a rough sketch of what happened. The first 2 miles were very hot and I got trapped in fenced in area by Marin Bouledvard somehow, and hit 2 miles and walked for a quarter mile. After that,  I ran for a while and stopped for water in Newport, and did not realize that my route was off, and went 4.36 miles out, thinking that my watch was fucking up, but it was not. I started running back, and realized that I made a mistake. The way back was kind of good and I felt like I got in a rhythm. I stopped at 6.5 for a while and then took it home. I was running at a good pace, and I felt like the humidity dropped a lot.

My legs very good today, which was great, especially at the end. When I finished my body struggled for a while because this was my longest run in over a year. Tomorrow I run 10 and should be challenging.

Gonna end it here. Looking to wrap up a good week 1 tomorrow. See ya.

16 – 22

Alright so I’m going to start with food, because I had a very mediocre day of food consumption. I made the dumb decision to sleep like 20 extra minutes and then had to like sprint out the door, and I did not eat breakfast, and was in court by 8:45am. I didn’t have an opportunity to eat until like 1:30pm, and I was absolutely starving, and wanted to eat whatever I could put in my face the fastest. I somehow convinced myself that Popeye’s chicken fingers were not a horrible option, despite the fact that they definitely are. I got those, and some coleslaw (instead of fries or mac and cheese or many other delicious options) and LIGHT lemonade. I inhaled my food, threw out the biscuit, and wanted to die. This was not a great choice. It was not a good choice, but there were some very bad roads I could have gone done with this meal that I avoided.

For dinner, I basically am trying to figure out how to use the ingredients that I got for my meal plan and put them to use. One of the recipes was shrimp and grits, which sounded amazing, but included a lot of cheese, butter, and obviously grits. I cooked the shrimp, and carmelized a shallot that came with the recipe. I also cooked some black beans with the shallot that we had in the pantry. Then, I threw in a couple of eggs, and some garlic, and basically just mixed everything together. It was kind of delicious, and I think pretty healthy.

After dinner I had a spoonful of peanut butter, and 8 ounces of milk. The milk is also a cheat. I am still having crazy cravings, and really wanted ice cream again tonight, and I saw milk and just said screw it. It’s a dairy product with no sugar, and I thought maybe my body was craving calcium. It happened. ONTO TO THE RUNNING.

I completed a total of 6 miles in a total of 62:35, which is faster than the 65 minutes from Tuesday. This was very rough. It was 90 again, and like 100% humidity. Despite that, the first 3 miles I actually felt pretty good, and did all 3 in a row in 27:53. Once I did that, however, I was super overheated and knew coming back would be really hard. I did a mixture of running and jogging that was probably 85% running, and stopped for water for a few minutes at one point. It was a struggle fest, but even if I was in really good shape this would have been a really tough day.

I was very encouraged by the first 3 miles of this. It was very hard conditions, and I haven’t done anything that is even remotely good running in a few months. This is a small fraction of what I’m capable of, but it felt good to do something that felt like I was making progress, even though it’s very early in the process.

Alright so the forecast for tomorrow is 96, Saturday is 91, and Sunday is 84/thunderstorm. I genuinely have no idea how I want to structure the 8 and 10 milers I have planned. I also genuinely have no idea how I am going to complete these distances, especially in the heat. For now I’m going to see what happens tomorrow, and if its at all possible, knock out the 8 miler, take off Saturday, and then do 10 Sunday. I am expecting these to be very slow and involve walking but I’m trying to run at least 90% of the distances I am covering and I’m doing a good job of that so far.

I’d like to set some short term goals for the next few weeks:

In week 2, I’d like to run 5 consecutive miles, no stopping

In week 3, I’d like to run 1 mile under 8 minutes

In week 4 I’d like to do all my workouts, because I will be in Georgia for our wedding and that will be very difficult.

Isn’t it stupid that less than 2 years ago, I ran 26 straight miles in under 8 minute miles, and my goal in 2 weeks from today is to run 1? That’s enough for now. See ya later.

 

11 – 16

Hello blog,

Today my legs were pretty sore, but once I got started they actually felt kind of not terrible. That’s not saying much, but it’s better than just regular terrible. The issue was that it was 90 degrees and very humid, even though I waited until 7:30 to run. I got through the first 2 miles in a shade under 20 minutes, and the rest of the run was pretty tough. I put together a few blocks of 6-8 minutes of running, following by 2 or 3 minutes of walking, and kept the watch running. I finished 5 miles in 55:36. That’s slow. Positive takeaways? I got through the first mile without getting winded, so that’s progress. I sweated a ton, and got gassed out like 5 different times, so that’s good for my increased lung capacity. I also drank an insane amount of water when I got home, which is also good.

I’m not really expecting a whole lot of athletic performance for a while, mostly because I’m insanely out of shape and 30 lbs overweight and its really hot and humid out. But, all of those things can change, and they hopefully will. On to food, which was another good thing I did today.

For lunch I went to Cosi, and had a salad with chicken, mixed greens, asian noodles, carrots, scallions, and reduced-fat ginger soy dressing. I didn’t eat the asian noodles. I also got turkey chili, and did not eat the amazing looking piece of bread that came alongside it. I was so close to inhaling this thing, I just ran over to the garbage can and threw it out before it tempted me any further. It also came with either chips, apples or carrots, so I chose carrots, and ate them as a snack. I just found out that I’m not really supposed to eat carrots for some reason, but that’s dumb. I’m eating carrots. You have no idea how hard it was to throw the bread away. It was very sad. This also somehow cost $16, which was not cool.

I drank a diet pepsi in the mid afternoon, which is allowed, and probably provided me absolutely no benefit except for a respite from just plain water. I also had a snack of “mango pineapple trail mix”, which I picked all of the mango, pineapple, and raisins out of, and ate the peanuts and sunflower seeds. I only did this because it was sitting in our lunch room, and it was the only thing I could possibly eat, because everything else was chips and cookies and chocolate.

For dinner I had chicken and string beans from a Chinese place. This was all that was in the dish, but it came with a thing of rice. I did not eat the rice, but holy shit did I want to eat that rice. I’m starting to have some crazy cravings, like tonight I really wanted to eat ice cream. I never, ever crave ice cream. I think I’m going through minor sugar withdrawal, which makes sense because I had been drinking a decent amount of soda the last few months. I ate some pickles just now, which I was very happy to find out that I can eat in copious amounts, should I choose to do so.

There’s also the issue of food waste, which I am trying to avoid. I am just throwing out stuff that I can’t eat. I have been subscribing to a grocery/recipe delivery plan for the last few months, and I had to cancel it, because all the recipes have tons of stuff I can’t eat. Today I got my last box and the amount of stuff in there that I can’t eat is outrageous. I’m going to try to avoid throwing it away, but there’s some stuff that just isn’t going to last in my fridge for a month, or however long I do this.

Alright anyway, tomorrow and Friday are going to be a hellscape, and the temperatures are in the mid 90s, and I am doing runs of 6 miles and 8 miles. For what its worth, the 16 miles I’ve run so far this week over the course of 3 days might surpass what I’ve done in any week over the last 2 months. I have very low expectations for the next 2 days but I would like to complete the distances, take a break on Saturday and eat all the food in the world because its my cheat day, and then somehow run 10 miles on Sunday when it is predicted to rain. Should be fun. See ya tomorrow!

5 – 11

Hey blog.

Tonight I travelled 6 miles. Well, I actually travelled a little further than 6, but I ran my watch for 6 miles, and it went OK. I did almost the whole entire first half without stopping, except for traffic lights and such, and did it in 29:45 or so. Then I walked for a little bit, stretched, and felt pretty spent, and realized the way back was going to suck. I did a mixture of running and walking, which was probably at least 90% running, and finished 6 total in 65 minutes or so.

It wasn’t super hot, but it was humid. I did better than I thought I would running consecutive miles in the first half, but it was pretty slow. The way back, my legs were real tired. I kept scuffing the ground because my leg left is pretty dead, and I just in general feel like there aren’t muscles in my body. BUT, I got through it.

My good intake today was good. I had 3 hard boiled eggs for breakfast. For lunch, my office ordered wraps and I threw out the actual wrap, and ate the inside of 2 chicken cutlet wraps with roasted peppers, and one tuna wrap. I had one tiny piece of mozzarella with some of the chicken. For dinner I sautéed bok choy, mushrooms, garlic, carrots, a Fresno chili, and maybe something else, and put a teriyaki glaze on it, and cooked a small tuna burger to go on top of it. The vegetables were part of another recipe that also had rice and bread crumbs in it, but I threw those out.

I think the fact that I actually had a wrap and threw out the wrap, and threw out the rice and bread crumbs is a good sign that I am committed to this diet, at least short term. My diet is so carb heavy usually, and I generally would never do something like that. It’s still really hard to tell how this diet is going to work for me, but let’s see.

I am going to be really sore tomorrow and I could see my body having a hard time getting through future miles. I did not reduce my miles from previous marathon plans at all to start this, and I think there’s a good chance that I will not be able to maintain those miles. I am going to try, but I just can’t see myself completing 10 miles this weeekend, even if a large part of it is walking. I’m gonna stay the course though and adjust accordingly. See ya tomorrow.

0 – 5 (Week 1, Day 1) Marathon training

I’ve had a pretty topsy turvy last few weeks, and obviously haven’t posted here in a while. I had some good stretches of running, and some good stretches of eating healthy and not drinking, but I’ve also had some bad stretches. I am not in very good shape right now, and it’s been pretty hot for the last few weeks. Any runs I have done recently have been really slow and bad, and nothing over 4 miles.

I am not going to hit my weight loss goal for the wedding and that sucks, but I still have time. But there is a time beyond my wedding, which is the rest of my life, and I am tired of being fat and slow and lethargic, and I have been tired of all of that for a really long time.

I’ve had a bunch of “Ok I’m gonna turn this thing around” posts in here, and they have not been successful for a while. Despite that, I am going to try to turn this thing around. I am doing a new diet that is basically nothing but proteins, veggies, and beans, and it will probably drive me insane. I’m also just going to jump into marathon training.

This has the potential to be a really stupid idea, for a number of reasons.

For example, my workout today was a 5 mile jog. I am not capable of jogging 5 miles. My workout tomorrow is 6 miles, and so forth. I have runs of 8 and 10 miles planned this weekend. I haven’t run 8 miles in at least a year. My plan to combat this is to just cover the miles, even if it includes walking, and see how far I get, literally.

Further, starting a super high protein, relatively low carb diet during marathon training might now be a great idea. But, I’ve never done anything like this, so I won’t know until I’ve tried it. The plan is to just eat a crazy amount of eggs, meat, beans and veggie, and that’s basically it. No dairy, no bread, no grains, no fruit. I do have one cheat day per week, where I can eat anything, so that might make things a little easier.

Today was day 1. For lunch I got a bowl from chipotle with chicken, beans, veggies, lettuce, salsa and guacamole. I didn’t think guacamole would be cool, but they specifically suggested this as a good lunch. For dinner I had leftover roasted salmon and vegetables, and 2 hard boiled eggs. I forgot to eat breakfast and thats not good because the whole thing is centered around eating a lot of the allowable foods so you feel full.

I also travelled 5 miles in 52:37. I say travelled for a few reasons. First, I probably walked about half a mile, or maybe slightly less. I didn’t stop my watch while I was walking, with the exception of the halfway point, which I planned to do. I also say travelled because my watch keeps “updating” and changing mile markers over the course of the last few months. Today, what used to be mile 2.4 is now mile 2.5. I got really hooked into certain mile markers over the years, and it just feels weird that the watch is telling me I’m running a different distance. This was at least 150 yards or so short of my old marker, and that just felt weird, so I walked to the old spot, and turned around. I’m not sure how I’m gonna deal with this going forward, but whatever.

So, my plan is to run and eat meat and eggs and beans and veggies 6 days a week, and then not run and eat whatever I want the 7th day. Hopefully this gets me to a better weight in about 4 weeks for the wedding, but long term gets me to a weight that allows me to run fast.

I know writing in here consistently has been a big part of “good” training routines, but its hard to write in here when things aren’t going well. I have really struggled to lose weight  and get back in shape, so hopefully this attempt is more successful. Alright, see ya tomorrow.

240.5 lbs – 87 days to wedding

Let me start by saying, weighing yourself every day sucks. I felt super bloated and gross today for some reason, and I just didn’t want to get on a scale. It wasn’t necessarily bad news, but it wasn’t good news. I was expecting to be quite a bit heavier today than I was yesterday, but 239 would have been nice. Anyway.

Today I did not eat breakfast again, not by choice. I ate a sandwich for lunch that was a chicken cutlet with provolone, roasted peppers and mayo. Not the healthiest thing but not awful. I always make not-so-great lunch choices when I don’t eat breakfast because I’m starving. I also drank a Snapple which is no big deal, but I’m trying to stick to water. I had a 100 calorie bag of popcorn for lunch. I ordered roast pork with rice and beans for dinner. I plan on drinking a lot of water all night.

I jogged 3 miles tonight and really didn’t want to. I procrastinated a lot, and eventually got myself out the door. It was the hottest day of the year, and it was about 84 when I ran. It was not that fun and I always have a hard time transitioning to warm weather.

Today was just not a great day and I am going to move past it. See ya tomorrow.