The Performance Monitor

The Running Free

sqlchicken — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:20:49 +0000

Ran last night but almost didn’t. Thankfully Jessica urged (read also: choice of running or doing dishes) me to get it done. In addition to running I was asked to bring our dog Brody along. We both did well but he was starting to lag behind during last few running phases.

Weak Week 2

sqlchicken — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:03:47 +0000

It’s Sunday and it’s been a full week since my last run (which I negated to blog). The weather has been wonky last few weeks which made running difficult as it was too cold. The cold snap finally broke a couple of days ago but I just didn’t run. I’ll need to basically redo week 2 next week lik I did with failed first weeks befor but I can’t make this habit o I’m only hurting myself. In the silver lining department I’m happy to report the scale showed me down 4 pounds to 256 now! Anyhow next week WILL be better.

Chugging Along

sqlchicken — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:32:48 +0000

: Cover of The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer

Well honestly yesterday I meant to run but it was ridiculously cold, I had no clean jogging clothes and I wound up sleeping on the couch most of the night (not sure why I was so damn tired). The last few days Jess and I have started drinking more water. Jess read that the amount of water we should be taking in is half your bodyweight and convert it to ounces. So for me me, I’m 260 lbs so half is 130 lbs so I should be drinking 130 oz of water a day. Unfortunately I have a ridiculous addiction to coffee, wherein I drink anywhere from 2-5 cups a day so drinking more water would definitely be beneficial!

Today’s run was actually quite great! It was week 1, day 3 of C25k so it was pretty light but the great thing is that even though I ran the same route my body is getting more used to running so I managed to run further today in the same time period. Another good thing that happened today is that I got my new book today. Which book you ask? Well thanks to my friend Brent Ozar, he recommended to me The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer. I managed to snatch it off Amazon for quite a deal! The training program in the book seems pretty straight forward and from what I’ve read so far it is very much what I’m looking for in a training guide. I’m hoping the rest of the running days go as well as today. Time to go write on some Policy-Based Management goodness and watch season premiere of The Biggest Loser!

Update: Here’s the link to the C25K app (opens iTunes)

Starting My Default Trace (Server-side of course)

sqlchicken — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:26:56 +0000

Welcome to my new personal blog. As I mentioned on my other blog post on Goals and Themeword for 2010 at sqlchicken.com one of my personal goals this year is take part in fitness events which would culminate with me taking part in a marathon. I’ve started this blog to keep myself honest and track my progress, much like Steve Jones (@way0utwest on Twitter) has with his Mile a Day blog.

So that being said it’s time to make a change and no better time than the new year! How do I plan to get started on my running journey? First is selecting a program to help me since I’ve always hated running and I haven’t really been truly active in quite a few years. After doing some research (and feedback) I discovered the Couch to 5k Program. This program brings you from literally sitting on the couch to running a 5k in 9 weeks. The timing happens to work as I plan to take part in the Gasparilla 5k race in February.

So given that I’ve started the C25K with the help of their trusty iPhone app and yesterday I restarted Week 1 / Day 1 again. Hopefully I can not only accomplish these fitness goals and stick with them but hopefully get my weight down too (260 lbs at time of this writing).