2013 Tinkerbell Recap

So January 20th was my first race of the year, and my 3rd half marathon since I started running. It was the 2nd annual Tinkerbell Half Marathon at Disneyland, and my second time running this race. This was my first time running as part of a team, consisting of myself and my wife Lara. This was Lara's first half marathon.

The course was different this year compared to last year. More time spent in the parks at the beginning meant that we didn't hit the streets of Anaheim for any length of time until after around mile 6 as opposed to last year when we left Downtown Disney about mile 4. This was a change I was in favor of, it helped the early miles go by quicker. One thing I wasn't in favor of however was that the latter portions of the race were a lot lighter on both crowds and on course entertainment than I recall them having been for the Tinkerbell last year or for the Disneyland Half Labor Day weekend. There was still some and I tried to go out of my way to thank them for being there as it was much appreciated, but they were fewer and further between which made those later miles seem just that little bit longer than they might have otherwise.

This distance, while nothing to scoff at, didn't really impact me that much, it was Lara who was having the experience. I regretfully admit that I was terrible at keeping on pace for her, which is why she had her pace in her ear from Runkeeper during the race, and may have caused her to go out a little faster than she might have otherwise. I also was a bit overzealous in my running and got ahead of her by a few paces more often than I care to admit. But I like to think I was there for her when she needed me throughout the day. She seemed to have a fairly easy time of it until mile 8 or 9 when things started to slow down and eventually included a little bit of walking.

When all was said and done we finished together, in true Gagnam Style, with a time of 3:12:31 upright and with a smile on our faces. (I was promised 10 minutes off my time for that dance for the record) When I finished I knew it was only another few short weeks before my marathon. When Lara finished she'd done something she didn't think she could as recently as a few days before the race. It's a good reminder to me why I run, because running, like any kind of fitness, lets you continually do the impossible. With some dedication and training you can do things you never though possible and help others do the same. You can see that pure joy in someones face as they transcend their limits and do what they thought they never could.

Sure when all is said and done there may be some soreness in the feet, knees, hips, back, whatever. What's more important though is whether you've grown as an individual for having done the experience. Pain will go away, but the knowledge you are more than you once were will stick with you. Once that pain is gone suddenly you forget your promises to never do this again and find yourself signed up for another race in a few months time. Or maybe that is just us. :)

Go out there and be the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 98)

Sunday once again and time for an update.

Got back into the resistance work this week and feel better for it. Also, despite missing a day and having to reduce mileage on another, I ran the furthest today that I've run in a couple months. Making good progress toward my goal for my half next month.

Not really a lot of change in life this week, workouts continue basically as planned, getting Lara into the spirit of exercise isn't easy but she's warming to it and will get there in her own time. Got a new pair of shoes to run through my rotation today. A pair of Vibram Komodo Sports. I'll put together a "review" when I have worn them a bit and have some useful things to say. Sometimes I feel like I'm running out of things to say in these posts, and then other times I have plenty to say, so I may start reducing the frequency of these posts to only happen when I have interesting things to say, we'll have to see how that goes.

So what does the scale have to say about my week? 210, same as last week. So not too bad. Hopefully next week will see it go back down a bit.Until then, keep being the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 97)

Sunday once again and time for an update.

Back into the swing of things with the running this week. If I can put up with a sprint session this week then things will be nice and back to normal. Eating stayed pretty well in line with things I'd like despite Thanksgiving. Had some good time with family and friends this week.

So what about the future? Lara's going to be starting up on some more working out now than she had been doing previously, which is good for her and means I can start having a local workout buddy for some of my workouts now. Start her off easy and then see where life takes us. Also going to be trying to further clean up our diets from what they are now by doing the majority of our food production at home. We've been doing better with that recently but there's still plenty of room for improvement over the longer scale. Liking where the future is heading in so many areas of our lives these days.

So what about my numbers? 210 this week. Same as last week. Holding steady is good but I'd like to be down a bit from where I am right now. We'll just have to see what happens as the future unfolds. Until next week, keeping striving to be the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 88)

Sunday once again and time for an update.

Big changes in my fitness plans this week that I'm really liking already.

Firstly, this weekend Lara needed some new jeans so like a good bored husband I went along to help. While out I realized I have only one pair of jeans so I might as well try some on. Turns out, I now wear a size 34. I cannot actually remember when I last wore a 34, the other pair I have is old, from a couple pants buying generations ago, and was a 38. I've dropped 8-10 inches from my waist size in these past 88 weeks, and I feel pretty good about that.

So what else have I been changing this week? Well, last week I mentioned that I'd probably be picking up a pull-up bar, and Sunday afternoon I did. So this week I actually worked out every evening after work with some squats, pushups and pullups. My arms are not liking the pullups, probably because I tried to go straight into full pullups without much lead-in, so I'm going to be pulling back from that and working on progressing toward pullups a little more gradually. I've also been working on increasing the range of motion on my squats and improving my technique on my pushups. I'll likely be adding a couple more exercises into my newly rekindled bodyweight workout fixation in the coming weeks. Handstands and eventually handstand pushups come to mind, leg raises as well (enabled at some stage by the pullup bar). I've found some interesting reading material on progressive bodyweight training recently that I've been going through and hopefully I can start putting it in practice in my workouts and see what kind of results it will get me. I will say that my upper body seems to have gotten a lot of increased definition for a weeks worth of time, so I'm hopeful.

The other big change in my workouts this week was that I started getting up early pretty much every day and going for a run. Some of them had to be adjusted from my plans going into the week, and due to issues with my work-sleep interaction and the water at our apartment I had to skip two of my planned runs, but 5 of the last 7 days have seen me out for a run and that's an improvement I'm proud of. Hopefully I can improve on that in the coming weeks.

So what does the scale have to say this week? 208, down a pound from last week. It seems to be nearly equal measure fat and lean if my bodyfat readings are correct, which I'm never really all that sure of. One of these days I'm going to upgrade to the Withings scale and then I'll have a little more confidence in them. Anyway, until next week, be the you you want to be. No matter what you have you can make it happen.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 81)

Sunday once again and time for an update.

Smooth week this week, nothing really to report overall.

There was one thing that struck me today while I was at work that I felt deserves mention here. I realized today that I've managed to succeed in retraining myself in terms of my food cravings. I can't recall the last time I had a craving for soda or chips or various other junk food, instead I have cravings for a steak, or fish, or last night when we went out to pick up food so I could get a salad. Sure Lara gave me some crap for going out on a lateish at night food run so I could get salad, but you know what? I'm happy with that choice, though I do wish we actually had what I needed at home to have made it and not gone out at all, but baby steps I suppose.

It's a big sign of progress to me that I have cravings for healthy, primal even, foods rather than junk food or processed stuff, similarly it's nice that when I think of things to do to fill time at work practicing pistol squats comes to mind. I've come a long way on my journey so far, and I've got plenty of places to go yet before I've uncovered the ultimate expression of myself, but I'm excited to see where my exploration takes me.

So what does the scale say this week? 207, same as last week, though my bodyfat is apparently down a half a percent. Progress is progress, no matter what form it takes. Until next time, keep being the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 58)

Sunday yet again, and time for my weekly weigh-in post.

Well, this week has been one much like many others. The main difference was that some apartment hunting happened. But I also picked up something for my wife, and got directed at a few blog posts from feeds I read, that got me to thinking about a post for this week. So, here goes.

Take a look at your feet. What do they look like? I don't mean generally, they'll be foot shaped and all, but specifically right now. Do they look like feet or do they look like shoes? Those of you who know me at all can probably guess my answer to that question, they look like feet. For as long as I can recall I spend all the time that I'm at home, and usually at anyone else's as well, barefoot and loving it. It's comfortable, natural, and leaves me feeling lighter and more maneuverable than where I to be wearing shoes. These goals have impacted my choice of casual footwear at least as heavily. My feet developed a deep rich tan matching whatever my current sandals were. But recently that tan line has been changing, a trip to Disneyland helped with that.

What has brought about this change you might wonder, and to what. Well, a change in footwear of course. Around 8 months ago now I picked up a new pair of shoes from the REI that had just opened in Tucson. A pair of Black Vibram Fivefingers Classics. At the time I picked them up to use as running shoes, and that was pretty much their exclusive use for me until mid-January or so. They did very well at that and when it warms up enough that I get back out running in the mornings again they will resume being used for that if things continue as they are now. But last month I started wearing them as my wearing around shoes instead of the Birkenstocks I had been wearing. I don't regret this at all and I don't plan to go back.

Now, a lot of you will look at these and wonder how on earth anyone could wear those. They look ugly you might think, they can't possibly be comfortable, you'll hurt yourself if you run in them, they'll destroy your feet, ruin your arches, etc. Well, I can gladly report that I've found that, potential ugliness aside, after the first week or so there was no pain at all, and the other possible issues were also non-existent. The pain was something I fully expected, and it was much reduced as I had worked out most of the kinks in my stride during my running in them. If you look at most tennis shoes and various other types of footwear you'll likely find that there is a lot of padding in the heel of the shoe and that the insole has a very defined arch built in. These things have a couple of effects. The heel cushioning reduces the impact force of your heel hitting the ground first when you walk in an effort to minimize the amount by which you are damaging your leg joints and hip joints. The defined arch keeps your foot in an arched shape at all times rather than letting it flex downward over the course of your stride. Compare those behaviors to how you walk when you are barefoot, you land further toward the front of your foot (personally, I land on the balls of my feet but others seem to land with the ball and the heel at around the same time) and your arch flexes to absorb impact.

There have been a number of studies on human strides that I won't delve into too much here, though you will find links at the end of this post, but suffice to say that the more natural impact, and the lowest force applied to the joints, happens when you don't land on your heels. As to the arch, the human body is a funny thing about that. While you might think that you need arch support to keep your foot functioning properly, structurally speaking supporting an arch is the worst thing you can do for it. Support in the middle of the arch actually weakens it dramatically, which in the case of your foot means weakening the muscles and tendons in the area and limiting how well they can do their job. In this case that's a very important job. Your foot is built so that the arch acts like a spring, absorbing impact force and then letting it back out when you take your next step. Using this absorption in your arch your stride becomes more energy efficient and you can keep walking or running over a much larger distance.

The Vibrams, and other shoes like them, have almost no cushion on them at all, and minimal structure let alone arch support. This forces your stride into a mode that better mimics the barefoot behaviors, but has the benefit of that rubber sole keeping you from cutting yourself on the glass and rocks that are so often strewn about in our modern environment. I love these shoes and can tell you certainly that they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. They may seem expensive at first, but they are cheaper than the Birkenstocks I was wearing before and comparable to standard running shoes and various other high quality footwear, many of which are far less comfortable.

Speaking of comfort, here's a great example of that. I wore these shoes for 5 solid days of walking around Disneyland with minimal pain, certainly much less than I had the last time I was there for 3 days and had my Birks and a pair of sneakers, which is understandable when putting in that much mileage, even still I felt light on my feet to the point of jumping on and over random obstacles as we traversed the park. I got no fewer than 17 people asking me over the course of those 5 days about my shoes, most of whom had never seen them before, and a few of whom had considered them or just didn't think wearing them to the park was a feasible option. I even ran into one woman who also had the idea to wear hers to the park and we had a fun little chat about them with some other guests waiting near us. Shoes that are comfortable, and a conversation starter. Can't go wrong there. Plus, they are machine washable.

Well, having ditched the weight of my Birks in favor of the much lighter Vibrams has left me feeling lighter on my feet, but has it left me lighter elsewhere? Probably not, but let's see what the scale says about it. 199.5 this week, down .1 from last week. Weight staying fairly steady as is to be expected. Well, that's it for this week, until next week, go out and be the you you've always wanted to be.

P.S. For those of you wondering what it was that I got for my wife it was a pair of the Vibram Jaya's in the Black/Grey color. My only complaint from what I've heard about them so far is that they don't come in sizes big enough I could wear them.

Consolidated research on barefoot walking/running:
Unshod.org Research Page
Harvard's Barefoot Running page - amazingly comprehensive guide to what I'm talking about here
New York Magazine Article on Barefooting

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 31)

After a week off I return this fine Sunday morning for another installment of my weekly weigh-in.

I return this week different a somewhat different man. I say this because a number of big things have been happening all at once in my life. The reason I didn't make a post last week was due to the fact my summer job was ending and I was having to move and finish that up all day Sunday leaving me no time to get to the scale, let alone the computer. The previous Monday, I got married to the most wonderful woman I have ever known. Now I am typing this from Phoenix where we are currently living while searching for work and trying to get by on what we've got. So far we're doing alright with that part, and hopeful about the jobs part. But enough about my personal life, that should go in another post anyway, on to some stuff about me and losing weight shall we?

The past couple weeks I've done decently I think. In the name both of saving money and saving calories Lara and I have been splitting more entrees between us when we go out to decent places, this is something that has worked out well because she doesn't eat much in general and I really shouldn't. Plus, because we are only buying one entree instead of two we can afford to get something nicer than we might otherwise which seems to have the effect of making the food seem that much more filling somehow. All in all that's been a good strategy.

The part that I think I've done less well with is that we ate out almost exclusively for most of the last two weeks, due to moving and what not we didn't have the time or a place to cook our own food until late this last week. However, by splitting as I said above I think I made out alright for myself. I had a lot of very nice dinners out with friends from Tucson we may not get to see again for a while.

Now comes the real question though, what does the scale have to say about the last couple weeks and the many changes they have brought? 241.2 is what it has to say about it. That's down 8.2 pounds from 2 weeks ago when I last weighed in here. As I said then I suspect slightly that the scale I was using then may have been slightly different from the one I normally use, so this may not be entirely accurate, but even still the numbers are good. That leaves me down 41.9 pounds from when I started in January, slightly more than the weight of an average 5 year old child. Seems like whatever I've been doing all this time is really working out fairly well.

Until next week, eat well and eat smart.

Ruminations at the start of a year.

I'm really bad at this whole blogging thing aren't I? Haven't even been keeping up with the one scheduled thing I try to do here. I'll do my best to try and post at least one Link Dump a month, and other stuff as I have the time. I've got the majority of 2-3 posts already worked out, just have to actually make them.

Anyway, a little meat for the post shall we?

Just got back to school from Winter break. Break was great, always nice to spend time with the family and not having school or work to get back to. I would have loved to have more time off, but I'm also somewhat glad to be back because now I get to spend time with my "other family" here. Over break I was the best man in a friends wedding, congratulations on that by the way if you read this. Lara and I also started getting serious about planning ours, which involved some work on a guest list, a day trip to Sedona to scout out some possibilities of getting married up there, and a trip to a big wedding expo in Phoenix just yesterday. It's a very interesting experience trying to plan something like this, like nothing of done before and probably not very much like anything I'll ever plan in the future. That's what's been up with my life recently, oh and actually graduating from school in May.

As I said, hoping to post at least once or twice a month, but I really can't make promises about this cause I'm forgetful, and have little idea what my schedule for the semester will hold. So, until the next time I'm here, enjoy yourself.

A Random Crazy Idea

As most likely all the people who will read this via my facebook,  and almost certainly the few who read this via my blog, know, I'm getting married. In case you didn't already know, the likely date is to be next August. Lara doesn't particularly like to fly, and we were both interested in going to the family reunion being held the end of next August in Nova Scotia, so we hit upon the idea of driving. It would be a long trip, but we could use it as an excuse to see a lot of cool things and visit people neither of us sees often.

Why am I telling you this? I've never been to many of the places we'd be driving through, and you might have. As a result you may have useful insight into things that are fun to do. If you do, feel free to post a comment. A Google map of the currently planned route can be found here. And at the bottom of this post I'll drop a list, in order, of the current states/provinces that the route would take us through. In addition to fun things to see, suggestions of places to stay and eat are more than welcome. Those of you who are friends with Lara on her facebook have possibly seen her note about this, so don't feel compelled to post here too.

Italicized states are those that are close to the planned path and as a result we'd probably pass through if we can just to say we did (I'm a completionist like that, have to hit all the states someday :P) Stuff in parenthesis are places we'd likely visit, usually because one of us has family there. We've been tossing around a few alterations to the map, like going through Missouri and Kansas instead of Iowa and Nebraska, but this is what we're looking at right now at least.

So feel free to comment with ideas, telling me I'm crazy, or just whatever.

U.S.
New Mexico
Texas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Georgia (Atlanta)
South Carolina (Greenville)
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Washington, D.C.
Pennsylvania
Delaware
New Jersey
New York
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine

Canada
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia (probably visiting Prince Edward Island, and Fort Halifax)
New Brunswick
Quebec
Ontario

U.S.
Michigan
Indiana
Illinois (Chicago)
Iowa
Nebraska
Colorado (Denver)
Wyoming
Utah
Nevada
California
Arizona