Andrew is getting fit

I long for Aiur

2010-07-29T21:57:28Z

I’ve been quiet as I bought Starcraft 2 and I’ve been playing it!

I’m still running etc. but time is precious at the moment!

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A good week of running

2010-07-26T02:10:46Z

I took this photo this morning while out on my pre-work 10K:

It has been gorgeous running weather the last few days. No wind and either clear skies or just a light overcast. Very, very nice.

Last week I did a total of 69.4 km at an average page of 5:48 / km. I think that was my fastest week of running ever. I think my recent focus on incorporating a bit of speedwork has started to pay off as I’m finding that I can maintain a faster pace for the same effort.

As a matter of fact, my long run yesterday ended up being run at sub 4 hour marathon pace and it felt relatively easy. My HR was in my low heart rate training zone the whole time which I think is brilliant. If I can keep that up that Taipei is going to be a blast!

I suspect that my months of doing low heart rate training has enabled me to build a very solid fitness base and now the speedwork is adding that bit extra.

In other news, my eating has not been particularly brilliant. My core meals are healthy and nutritious but I’m still allowing one too many snacks to pass my lips. My weight is still under control but I really don’t want it to start creeping up. I want it to continue creeping down!

One of my former students brought me a cake as a thank you for the help I gave in the previous semester which really didn’t help the cause (even though it was very much appreciated):

It was delicious! And I didn’t eat the whole thing – I shared it with everyone at home.

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Intervals, a wet and windy tempo run and 1000 miles

2010-07-22T05:10:59Z

On Tuesday I gave intervals a go for the first time. I did an easy warm up followed by 5 x 1k intervals: 4:32, 4:37, 4:55, 4:46, 4:52 And then a nice 2k cool down. This is the first time I’ve ever done intervals and they were good! The idea is that they will help me build a little more speed so we’ll have to see if they work.

This morning (Thursday here in NZ) I had to drop my father in law off at the airport. I was up at 4am and then straight out to drop him off and then I headed out for my run. It was pouring down with rain and there was quite a strong wind so it was a tough workout but I came in under my target goal off 55 minutes (5:30 pace) by doing the run in 54:34 (5:24 pace). I’m quite chuffed that I did so well in such atrocious conditions.

I hit a milestone for the year when I clicked by 1000 miles for the year so far this morning. I’m quite happy with that just quietly. I’m ahead of my goal of 2010 km in 2010 by quite a long way. I might switch my goal to 1500 miles. We’ll see.

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Thinking of marathon training

2010-07-18T19:49:00Z

My long run (20km) yesterday was pretty good. I chose quite a hilly route and just enjoyed it. Here’s a snapshot from the run:

It’s definitely getting warmer here in NZ. I think winter is just about done. The days are getting noticeably longer now and it is not painful to get out of the door predawn.

I did a total of 58 km last week.

I’m about 21 weeks away from the Taipei Marathon now so it’s time to start thinking about marathon training programs. Earlier in the year I mentioned I was thinking about the Brooks Hanson Marathon Training plan and I’ve decided to go with it. There’s a good write up about it here.

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Tarawera UltraMarathon

2010-07-15T01:14:40Z

I’ve decided that my major challenge for next year will be to do an ultra marathon. I’m leaning towards this one:

I’m looking at the 60K option as it would be my first ultra. It’s in March so I should have plenty of time to train after the Taipei Marathon in December.

Thoughts?

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Tuesday morning speed blast

2010-07-12T21:44:03Z

My running buddy is off overseas for a few weeks so I’m back to running on my own. It’s been really great running with him as he’s pushed the pace somewhat and much to my surprise I’ve been enjoying running a bit faster than i normally would.

As such, I decided that my Tuesday and Thursday runs are going to be faster runs. On Tuesdays I’m going to run a 5K as fast as I comfortably can (i.e. no puking!) and on Thursdays I’ll do a 10K as fast as I comfortably can.

My aim with the 5Ks is to try and break my 5K PR and probably the same with the 10Ks I guess!

This morning’s run was great. It was quite nippy (probably about 6 degrees C) which is pretty much perfect for running.

I did just over 3 laps of the Auckland Domain mile loop:

I managed to set a new 5K PR of 24:19 which is 4:52 min/km pace. I could have gone slightly faster but I’m happy with that. There was no danger of puking!

I’m really enjoying my running again and I guess I’m getting my mojo back!

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A cold run

2010-07-11T21:50:04Z

My run yesterday morning was rather nippy! 3 degrees C (37 F) by the time I got out of the door. I know that is positively balmy compared to the winters some of you run in but by Auckland standards that is freezing!

It was good to see that they are building a new cycleway along the train tracks very close to my house:

I can’t wait to run it! It seemed wrong to have such a sunny day be so cold.

I did just over 50km of running this week which was good. On Tuesday I did a 10K in under 53 minutes which was a very good tempo run for me. On Wednesday and Thursday I did back to back 10Ks in under an hour each time as well. Sunday’s long run was 20.2km in 2:05:02 which I was quite happy with.

I’ve had a really nasty cold this week as well which hasn’t helped. I actually spent most of Friday in bed. I find that when I’m sick I gravitate to comfort in food so my eating hasn’t been as clean as I’d like. But such is life and today’s a new day.

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Week in review

2010-07-03T20:48:06Z

It’s been a relatively good week this week:

On Monday I went to get a xray of my foot as my little toe is still swollen and hurting. You may recall that I knocked it a few weeks back. It originally went purple but cleared up quickly so I thought it was just bruised but it never really got better so I went and had it checked out. It turns out it is fractured and it will take a while to heal. Fortunately it doesn’t interfere with my running as my running shoes are a size larger than my normal shoes so there is no impact on it.

On Tuesday I did a nice 11km run home after work.

On Wednesday I thought about running but didn’t.

On Thursday I ran with a colleague and we did a 10km run in a blistering (by my standards) 52:40. That’s the fastest 10K I have run in over a year. I’ve been running with Peter for a few weeks now and it’s been most enjoyable. I find running with someone else forces you to push yourself a little harder than you normally would.

On Friday I went and bought some new running shoes. I went to buy some more Brooks Defyance’s but they didn’t have my size in the new model so I decided to try some Adidas Adistar Ride 2′s. To test them out I did my local 4.5km loop in 24:58 which is the fastest time I’ve ever done it in. I’m sure it’s just coincidence.

On Saturday I got up at 1:30am to watch Netherlands eliminate Brazil in the football world cup. I was supposed to go running on Saturday morning but let’s just say that while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak. Instead my wife, daughter and I went to a few of our favourite farmer’s markets and free sampled our way through the morning.

This morning, it is 8:30 and I’m already back from a 21.6km run (in 2:13:50) which was most enjoyable. My little girl is 3 years old today so we are having a family gathering this afternoon. Good times.

So my running this week has been pretty good. I’ve done 47.1 km in 4:37:08 for an average pace of 5:53/km. I’ll take that. I’m slowly building my mileage up again as it is almost time for me to start marathon training again.

I’ve also restarted the 100 pushups, 200 squats and 200 situps trifecta. I thought I’d give them all a go at the same time to get a bit of conditioning. It’s pretty much the first time I’ve done any pushups since doing the 100 a few months ago!

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No mojo!

2010-06-28T00:48:36Z

I’ve lost my blogging mojo lately. It’ll be back I’m sure but in the meantime here are some photos from my run yesterday:

First off I had an audience:

It was a beautiful winters day here in Auckland:

I even discovered a new walkway which had a great view of the mangrove swamps:

I’m still running and my weight is still stable but I just don’t feel like I have a lot to say at the moment so blogging will be light until I recover my mojo. I’m probably still in my post marathon funk.

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A manly 10 miler

2010-06-19T19:52:33Z

It was cold, it was wet and it was very windy. Nuff said!

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Thrive by Brendan Brazier

2010-06-17T23:27:12Z

I first heard about Thrive from Matt over at No Meat Athlete and it seemed like a very handy book to have so I went and got a copy.

I always had the vision of Vegans as being a bit odd but then I became vegetarian myself so I’ve had to re-evaluate my stance somewhat. Although there are those who think I’m a bit odd so I guess it all depends on perception.

The main thrust of the book is that you need to eat high quality foods that your body can break down easily for energy. It’s not at all preachy and it just focuses on which foods give you the most bang for your buck if you are vegan. A must read for someone who doesn’t eat meat and wants to get optimum nutrition for training.

After reading it I realised that when I’m eating well I’m already eating most of what he recommends. The trick is to be consistent with it!

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Food for thought

2010-06-14T20:51:25Z

I think most of us could testify to the truth of this:

What would happen to your weight if you added a tasty chocolate chip cookie to your daily diet without making any other changes? So you don’t exercise any more than you do today and you keep eating everything else that you’re eating today. Except for that extra 210 calorie chocolate chip cookie.

Your weight would go up, right? In fact, there’s a pretty well-known relationship between net calories consumed and changes in body weight than should be able to tell us by how much. That relationship tells us you will gain one pound for each additional 3,500 net calories you consume above what it takes to maintain your weight at a constant level. Likewise, you should expect to lose one pound for each 3,500 fewer net calories you consume with respect to what it takes to keep your weight steady over time.

As you might expect, the entire weight loss industry is largely built around this basic relationship. The only problem is that it the math behind the relationship doesn’t work in real life.

What happens in real life is that your body’s metabolism will adjust over time to compensate for the additional calories you’re consuming, in such a way that the amount of weight you might gain will be much smaller than what that 3,500 calories = 1 pound relationship would predict.

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Vibram Five Fingers, a stubbed toe and back on track

2010-06-13T19:49:32Z

I’ve been intrigued by the Vibram Five Fingers ever since I heard about them and this past weekend I finally managed to get my feet in a pair!

I bought the KSO’s (Keep stuff out!).

My initial impressions are pretty positive. They snugly. They are very light. It’s almost like you are not wearing shoes. I haven’t gone for a run in them yet but I’m hoping to sometime this week. I won’t be using them as my primary running shoe (at least not this year) but I do want to give them a go.

In other news I’ve had one run since the marathon (on Friday). I did a very easy 4.5km local loop with my wife and it was most enjoyable. I was supposed to do a 10K yesterday but I stubbed my toe while vacuuming and it went all purply. It hurt like hell and at first I thought I had broken it but this morning it is not really sore but it looks pretty disgusting. My whole little toe and part of my forefoot is a nice purple colour!

I’ve had a week off eating sensibly and running (as part of the post marathon relaxation) and now it’s time to get back on track. I’m cutting out all junk again and want to try and lose about 3 or 4 more kgs before I start my serious training for the Taipei marathon. More about that later.

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2010 Christchurch Marathon Race Report

2010-06-06T20:21:49Z

I went for gold in the Christchurch marathon. Gold for me is a sub 4 hour marathon. It was an ambitious goal but I knew I had a chance at it. Everything would need to come together perfectly for it to happen.

The day started off under a bit of a cloud in that the weather had closed in and it was raining heavily when I got up.

However, by the time the race started the rain had stopped and it never really returned during the race. The temperature maxed out at about 7 degrees C (44 F). I have to admit that conditions were absolutely perfect for running. We really could not have asked for better.

The course is two laps of a very flat course that follows the Avon River:

I set my virtual partner on my Garmin to run at just sub 4 hour pace. My plan was to attempt to run both halves of the course at 1:59:00ish.

I felt very good in the first half. I came in exactly on target and I was feeling strong. I must admit that I started to think I had it in the bag at that point.

The transition between the first lap and the second is quite startling. In the first lap you are surrounded by hundreds of runners at all times and then all of a sudden you are running by yourself. The whole event had only 5300 people and the great majority of them were doing either the 10K or the half option.

At the 24K mark I started to feel a little queasy and got rather worried. My downfall in the Auckland Marathon in November last year was my stomach and I really didn’t want to go through that again. However, I still was running at target pace.

Things went well until about the 28K mark and that’s when my pace started to slow. I don’t know if I hit the wall, or if I went out to fast or if my legs hadn’t recovered from the half marathon 2 weeks previously or if it was the churning stomach but I found I just couldn’t keep my pace up. Km 29 was ten seconds off the pace. Km 30 was 20 seconds off the pace and it just slowly got worse. I managed to claw it back a bit between km 36 and 38 but by km 40 I was feeling rather bad.

My aim at that point had changed to not walking and I did well up until km 41 when I thought I was going to throw up and I walked for about 50 meters till the feeling passed.

The camaraderie in the last km was great. I passed quite a few folks who were walking and encouraged them to get running (and two of the buggers did and passed me!) Everyone was really glad to get to the end of the race.

I got that burst of energy that you do in the last few hundred meters and managed to run it home. My wife, mother and daughter were at the finishing line cheering me on. I thought that was the highlight of the event!

I finished in 4:20:26. While not sub 4 hours it is still a 34 minute personal best in the marathon so I’m pretty happy. I always knew that sub 4 hours was a bit of a stretch for this marathon as I hadn’t trained for that but I have no regrets in going for it. I may have blown up somewhat but I still did better than I ever have before.

Photos will be coming!

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Aims for the 2010 Christchurch Marathon

2010-06-02T22:57:51Z

My aim for the year is to break 4 hours at the Taipei Marathon in December. Originally that was going to be my only marathon for the year but about 8 weeks ago I decided that I was going to do the Christchurch Marathon as well.

I’d like to think I could break 4 hours at the Christchurch Marathon but the odds are really against it. My training hasn’t been about improving speed but rather about improving base fitness.

Having said that here are my goals:

Dream goal: Break 4 hours!
Optimistic goal: 4:07ish
Realistic goal: 4:15

I’m pretty confident I can hit my realistic goal and even the optimistic goal should be quite doable IF I pace for that. However, I reckon I’m going to go out and try and hit my dream goal. As you do! This might mean I blow up in the second half and do another 4:50ish or worse! If that is the case well at least I’ll go out knowing I gave it a go.

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Weigh-in #22 2010: Feeling a bit blah

2010-05-31T20:54:13Z

A pretty flat week except for Thursday (big family dinner) and Sunday (general overeating!).

2010 is still looking pretty good:

I’ve been feeling a bit blah about it all and I think it is because I’m not running as much as normal. This tapering period is driving me nuts. I’m trying not to overeat as every extra gram is a gram I have to carry for 26.2 miles on Sunday!

I’ve also been neglecting everyone’s blogs…much to my shame. I’ll get my mojo back as soon as the marathon is over!

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2010 Huntly Half Marathon Race Report

2010-05-26T18:20:25Z

I ran the Solid Energy Huntly Half Marathon on Sunday. I’ve also been extremely slack and haven’t gotten around to writing up my race report until today!

My wife’s cousin originally asked me if I was keen to go run the Huntly Half as he’d heard there were good spot prizes there. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said “Sure!” as I had been planning on doing it in any case.

Huntly is about an hour or so away from Auckland and on the drive down on Sunday morning we hit a bit of fog. This meant that the start was a bit delayed as traffic had to slow down and people were still flooding in right up until the gun went off at 10:15 rather than the original 10am.

My plan for the race was to run conservatively and set a PR. This seems like a bit of a contradiction but in reality it was not. My previous 1/2 marathon PR was 1:59:04 and I set that in my very first half marathon back in 2008. I haven’t actually run a proper half since then as the 2 half marathons I’ve run since then have been classified as fun runs and the courses have been a bit short so I didn’t count them as PRs.

So I set my virtual partner on the Garmin to do a 1:58 as I wanted to practice my pacing and hopefully negative split. In previous races I’ve gone out too fast every single time. This always results in a second half that was much slower than the first half!

The first half of the race was great. I got stuck behind a lot of walkers in the beginning but I didn’t indulge in lots of weaving as I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference overall. It was probably a blessing in disguise as my first KM was the slowest of the race which is very different to my normal race outcomes.

I settled into an easy pace that was just slightly faster than my virtual partner and enjoyed the run. The scenery was quite pretty. We ran along some suburban streets then went out onto what looked like a hiking track. At about the 5km mark I realised that I had been trading places with an older lady from the YMCA Marathon club so I decided I would just fall in behind her and follow her as she was running at my target pace. This was a good move as I found the running really easy after doing that.

At the 10km mark we headed off the trails and back onto the suburban roads.

I had to give kudos to the organisers of the event. The water stops (which only had water) were positioned well and often. There were very enthusiastic volunteers manning them and it was just great.

My half way split was 57:43 which was a little fast but I felt that I was running well within myself at that point and wasn’t too concerned.

It was just before the halfway point that things started to get hilly. I must admit that the hills took me by surprise. I had thought the course was flat but from the 10km mark to (I’m guessing) 14km mark there was a serious of rolling hills which really separated the pack. I’m pleased to report I passed a lot of people on the hills which was quite satisfying.

The second half of the second half was an out and back section to the Solid Energy Coal Mine. It was quite cool as we actually ran into the mine area and ran under some mining equipment which was very different to anything I’d ever done.

I dedicated the last 4 km of my half marathon to different folks.

I started off with km 17 and thought about my mum and how proud I am of her and her efforts to get fit. Km 18 was dedicated to thinking about my dad and how he is a source of inspiration to me for taking up running. Km 19 was dedicated to my little girl and I was thinking how I’m so glad she’s only going to know a fit dad. Km 20 was dedicated to my darling wife and her support.

I had a brief problem at the beginning of km 20 when my cap caught on a tree and flew off. I fleetingly thought of leaving it there but I paid good money for that cap so I ran back and got it.

Km 21 (all .1 of it!) was dedicated to myself as I tried for a sprint finish! I didn’t quite sprint across the finish line but the last km was my fastest overall:

I managed to finish the second half in 56:39 for my first ever negative split in a race. I also finished with a fantastic PR of 1:54:22 which is a lot faster than I had aimed for. That time may be problematic next Sunday when I run the Christchurch marathon. I don’t feel that I pushed too hard but I guess time will tell. If I blow up in the marathon you’ll know why!

I really enjoyed this race and I’ll be back again next year if circumstances permit.

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Weigh-in #21 2010: Mission accomplished.

2010-05-23T17:39:45Z

Last week I set myself the goal of having an all green week and I’m pleased to report that I did it.

2010 is looking great:

However, I reached a more important milestone this week. This is the first official weigh-in post where my Physics Diet (official) weight is under goal. So I’m officially under my goal weight. Boy that is great!

It’s been just under 8 years since I said enough is enough and started losing weight. And to be honest it’s been quite the rollercoaster ride. I’ve lost then regained many a time yet each time the loss was a little bit more and the regain a little bit less.
I only started using PhysicsDiet to track my weight in about 2008 but I’ve filled in a few gaps (with memorable occasions where I knew my weight):

Slow and steady wins the race I guess?

I think I’ll try and dig out some before photos and post them here.

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Weigh-in #20 2010: So near!

2010-05-17T17:26:10Z

Oh dear! I’ve had my first gain of the year. I can live with a .02 kg gain. Although it is a bit of a wakeup call in many respects. I’m still not handling weekends well. I’ve been doing great during the week and then blowing it all over the weekend. I’m going to set myself the goal of having another all green week.

The year itself is still looking ok:

My physics diet weight was actually under goal for the first time this week but the weekend ruined it. I’m .01kg over goal weight on physics diet now. So unless I totally blow it I should be there next week!

I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet but things have been busy and unfortunately I’ve not made enough time for blogging.

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Weigh-in #19 2010: Steady as she goes

2010-05-10T11:45:00Z

As you can see from the graph it’s a pretty flat trend line this week:

The year itself is starting to flatten out a bit too:

I will be starting to cut down my mileage somewhat over the next few weeks as I enter the taper period of my marathon and half marathon training. This means I’ll have to really start watching what I eat as at the moment I can get away with a few excess calories due to the amount of running I’m doing. I really don’t want to gain weight just before the marathon! I did that last year unfortunately.

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