Satisfy Your Widest Ambition

… now it seems much nearer today.

What’s that all about?  Well, you may recall in my last post about my 5k goal by the end of the challenge.  I was going to complete the couch to 5k program.  On Wednesday, I went to the gym, hopped on the treadmill and did the first workout without barely breaking a sweat.  So I decided that when I went back, I would skip to the second week, b/c no use in running if I’m not even feeling challenged.  Today was supposed to be 90 seconds of jogging and 2 mins of walking.  The treadmill at the gym is pretty cool, you just tell it you’re doing speed intervals, program what speed you want to walk at, and what speed you want to jog at and then everytime you want to switch you just hit one button and it slows down or speeds up.  So I set my walk time for 3.5mph and my jog speed for 6mph.  After a 5 minute warm up I began jogging.  When I got to 90 seconds, I still wasn’t tired so I decided that I would keep going for a full 3 mins.  At the end of 3 mins, I stretched it to 5.  At the end of 5 I was sweating, but I felt I still had some in me so I decided to just run until I couldn’t run any more.  I wanted to measure where I was at so that I could properly determine what week in the 5k program to start on.  Well… when my workout ended 25 minutes later, I  was still running!!!  I ran for an entire 20 minutes at 6mph.  So I ran for a full 2 miles non stop.  At the end of the workout I probably could have ran for another 5 minutes or so, but the treadmill started it’s cooldown mode and I did have somewhere I wanted to be so I went ahead and did the cool down instead of cranking it back up.

The whole time I was doing it, I was thinking “this is crazy, I’m not in this good of shape.”  But my legs didn’t give out so I kept pumping them.  Here’s the crazy thing.  I rarely do cardio.  In the last challenge, I did 14 HIIT sessions of 20 minutes each.  I really think what helped me run that far without getting tired was all the time in the weight room.  My legs are so much stronger, and the full-body, minimum rest TNT workouts are somewhat cardiovascular themselves since you are moving from one workout to the next so quickly.  Also for the first time ever, I ran without getting shin splints.  I don’t know if it’s the new shoes I got, or the fact that I was running on a treadmill instead of outside, or that my legs are stronger, or a little bit of all three, but there was no pain during or after the run.  When I was running a few years ago, I would get the most painful shin splints you could imagine.  So Yippie!!!   I suspect that within a week or two I’ll be able to complete a 5k on the treadmill.  Then I’ll probably kick it up a notch or two with some incline or hill training or something.  Once I feel like my legs have gotten used to running again, I’ll take the show on the road and hit the pavement outside.

On a personal note: The Oklahoma State Cowboys are 7-0 for the first time since the 1940’s.  I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.  Next week we get to face #1 ranked Texas who put a major hurting on Mizzou tonight.

The Classic 52 day challenge is upon us and got kickstarted with a bang today.  I’ve set some pretty high goals for myself, and I have every intention of hitting them all.  So I thought I’d write a bit about my goals and my plan for acheiving them.  My goals for this challenge are:

• 95 Clean Eats.  This was pretty easy last time, but last time didn’t include Haloween and Thanksgiving, and a wedding.  I will still hit this goal.
• 21 RT and CT’s - 21 RT’s was no problem last time, because I don’t mind weight lifting.  I increased my CT’s because I didn’t want to leave myself any room to slack off.  So I started today, the first day, with a CT.
• Go to every single class.  I skip class.  But I’m trying to pull a 4.0 this semester, and that’s not going to happen if I keep neglecting my attendance.  So I’m going to force myself to go to every class by making it a goal.  I wanted to skip today (I want to skip every day) but I didn’t.  So far 100% adherence to this goal.
• Weigh under 220. That’s 2 lb/wk.  It’s ambitious, but doable.
• No diet soda.  This may be my toughest goal, because I love the stuff.  I’m the kind of person who is always thirsty.  If I don’t have something to drink nearby I go crazy.  I started drinking diet soda several months ago to give me a changeup to drinking just water.  But as the days went on, my soda drinking became greater and my water drinking went down.  To combat this, I bought two 32 oz nalgene bottles that I can fill with water and alternate in the fridge so I always have good, cold water to drink.  I’ve been doing this about 4/5 days now and it’s worked great.
• Complete the couch to 5k.  Again pretty self explanitory.  I did the first workout today, and it really seemed like I was beyond the physical level of a “couch” so I may skip to the second week next time and see how that suits me.  I’ve been doing cardio, so I’m not totally out of shape.  Maybe I don’t need to start at the very beginning.  I bought some awesome new running shoes and didn’t get any shin splints today, which is usually my problem with running.  Hopefully these will take care of that for good.

Also on a side note, as a reward to myself for doing so well in the last challenge, I bought myself a little something.  My old desk chair was really a piece of junk  that came from a surplus sale at the high school.  It was worn out and always leaned back when I sat in it, even if I was trying to sit forward.  It wasn’t made to be sit in for any length of time, and since I am studying MIS and will probably be sitting at my computer for long hours programming and doing other things I went ahead and bought myself a super awesome desk chair.  I went all out on this puppy, sat in every chair that Staples had, and picked the one I felt had the best quality and comfort.  I think I could sit in this thing for 15 hour shifts if I had to (with appropriate breaks for stretching and going to the gym of course).  It’s the most amazing desk chair I’ve ever sat in and it’s a Lane so I’m sure it will last me quite a long time.

I visited my Mom’s house last weekend.  I don’t have a lot of photos of myself… but she does.  I went through some of her pictures from the last few years and wow… I found some pictures of myself at my heaviest and at my lightest.  So I though I’d put ‘em up here.

Here’s me at my heaviest around Thanksgiving 07 ~300lbs:

And here’s me at my lightest around the Summer/Fall of 04 I believe (with my grandma and brother) ~180lbs:

My pie in the sky goal weight would put me about 10-15lbs below the weight I was in the above picture with a little more muscle.  I weighed about 180 in the above pic and I still wasn’t super happy w/ my physique.  There was still a lot of visible fat, around my stomach and chest, but it’s amazing looking back at pictures and seeing I was a lot thinner than I remember being.