Mar 28, 2014

2014 weeks 11 and 12

Random thoughts about my runs and anything else that comes to mind.

So there are two major things going on in my life right now, and running is taking a back-seat to that. I expect my weeks to be mostly fake-zeros with a weekend long run until things settle down.

 Here's photos of everything I eat: http://instagram.com/stevetursi

Weight loss contest update (I am in two weight-loss contests right now.)
* Lifetime Fitness 90-Day challenge:
I missed the March 25 weigh-in, but I was plateauing anyway and wouldn't have done great. As of March 26 (according to my March 17 weigh-in), my bodyfat is down 20%, which is second place in the Montvale NJ club but still not in the top 100 nationally.

* Hertz "thinner winner" employee weight loss contest:
My score, -11.87%, put me past Piff-Looger and I am over one percent over his 10.8%. He's has dropped to fourth place. But I'm still not in first - some guy in our OKC office came out of nowhere and is 0.33% over me, so I'm still in second out of 480 (first loser.) This is as of the weigh-in on March 7 - but the results weren't posted until March 25th (which is why this blog post is delayed). On March 20th I weighed in again and had a great result - putting me at almost 15% loss.



Daily log..

Wednesday March 12
I tried to make it to the Lifetime CRT class at 5:30 but I couldn't get out of work on time.. so instead I went to the hertz gym and ran 3.01 miles on the treadmill.. in 23:58. Big weight loss today: 272.8 - Down 2½lbs since yesterday.

Thursday March 13
Another winner of a weight loss day. 271.2. 4lbs in 2 days. Wouldn't it be great if every day was like that? That'd be 14lbs/week! I'm just worried about the next plateau and when that's going to happen and how long it'll last.

My run today - 2 miles in 22:38 on the treadmill - was blah. Not feeling a ton of energy.

Pi Day Friday March 14
Lunchtime run with Ami. For some reason we were in a hurry today and ran 2.45 miles at 8:46 pace, and ran the last quarter at about 7:30.

Saturday March 15
6 laps (18 miles) at Rockland Lake with Ami in 3:13. Felt strong for the middle 4 laps, and not so strong in the first and last laps. Had a protein-eggs-blackcoffee shake prior to the run, and zero calories during the run, so this was a good sign of fat adaptation occurring, albeit more slowly than I'd prefer.

Sunday March 16
Crummy day at bowling (134/142/168-444) followed by 5+ laps at the Mahwah High School track.

St. Patricks Day Monday March 17
Broke another treadmill at the office gym, after a mere 7 minutes at about 8 minutes per mile. Not happy. Was on track for another sub-24 5K. I went outside, in 24ºF weather, in my shorts and t-shirt, and ran 2.36 more miles in 20:33.

There was a special at the bowling alley tonight, and I went by myself and played ten games for practice. My scores were 129-118-122-157-168-166-129-231-205-139. Turns out I just need 7 games to warm up.

Tuesday March 18
Lifetime run group, and since there wasn't anyone slow to run with, I ran up front with the fast guys - and they actually couldn't keep up with me! One of them said to me, "I thought you were big and slow!" That was gratifying.

Wednesday March 19
Things are about to get really busy for a week. The daily run is just something that I need to do alongside all the other things I need to do. Today, I ran on the treadmill for ten minutes before taking an hour long group exercise class.

Thursday March 20
Easy 2.7 mile loop around the block in 26 minutes with Ami

Friday March 21
Afternoon short loop around the neighborhood near Joey's school at dusk. 1.2 miles.

Saturday March 22
Conveniently, we had a planned light weekend between last Saturday's 18 miles and next Saturday's planned 21. I would have liked to do 12 today, but it turns out that I did half that. Ran with the lifetime group, where we did 6.5 miles in 57 minutes. This was a tough run for me, especially with the hills!
Sunday March 23
Ran with the tri club for the the first time in a couple of months, where I managed to keep up with the front-runners at 8:30 or so for 4 miles before peeling off and relaxing for the last mile or so back to the car, then home to go back to work.

That afternoon, at bowling, I shot much better this week. In fact, I have a new high game and tied my high series. - 162-194-246 for a 602 series. Here's how that big game went:


Monday March 24
Joey had his first lacrosse practice today, and that means track season has started for me. I get to do a workout on the track around the field he practices on. And today, I decided that I'd finally do an outdoor 5K to see how I do when not on the hamster wheel. And an hour before the run, I did something that I hadn't done since early February.

Rocket Fuel?
I cooked up a bit of simple carbs and ate it before the run. I've been running on zero calories every run for the better part of two months, and while at first it was very difficult, I've adapted to it nicely and most of my runs are more comfortable now. However, it's been in the back of my mind - even after adaptation, will I still get better performance with some traditional fuel?

The result: I ran 24:37, 70 seconds faster than my 5K PR set in 2011. This is not surprising - I am lighter, in better shape, and this was on a flat accurately-measured track, and that 5K was on hilly roads with a bit of trail thrown in. The rice? It is an interesting experiment, and I was hoping the answer would be obvious. But the problem with this experiment is that I had no control. If I had been thinking, I would have run the 5K on the diet that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks, and then going back later and running it again on the rice. And there are so many independent factors (such as weather - it was about 32ºF at this run) that I'd have to repeat it a bunch of times and average out the results. But my hunch is that the rice did NOT give me a significant performance increase. I'm fairly certain I could have broken 25 on my low-calorie diet.

The track (at Suffern Middle School) has a 5000m start line measured, 200m from the finish line. This gave me a convenient and easy way to verify that I was on track to meet my 25-minute goal - run each of the 25 half-laps in a minute or less, which I did. My slowest half-lap was 1:00.5.

By the way, I jogged 5 laps before the run to warm up. And the rice was upsetting my stomach.

Tuesday March 25
I ran for ten minutes on the treadmill (fast - 1.3 miles), before doing a few sets barbell squats at lunch, then I sat in the steam room.

Mar 13, 2014

2014 Week 10

Random thoughts about my runs and anything else that comes to mind.

So there are two major things going on in my life right now, and running is taking a back-seat to that. I expect my weeks to be mostly fake-zeros with a weekend long run until things settle down.

 Here's photos of everything I eat: http://instagram.com/stevetursi

Weight loss contest update (I am in two weight-loss contests right now.)
* Lifetime Fitness 90-Day challenge: Bodyfat percentage is down 14%, which is 3rd place in Montvale but not in the top 100 nationally.  If I was in the weight loss contest, my 10% would be first in montvale by a huge margin and 10th nationally. With a $10,000 grand prize, I'm really kicking myself for choosing the bodyfat option.
Official Lifetime bodyfat percentage scores
* Hertz "thinner winner" employee weight loss contest: 7.5lbs in two weeks. Which isn't bad, but it could be a lot better if more than 4 days of the 14-day period had significant drops.

Official Hertz weigh-in  scores
Morning weight readings. Yellow highlight is the period between the hertz weigh-ins.

Daily log..

Ash Wednesday March 5
Lots going on today (don't ask) do I did 2 miles quick as I can (16 minutes) on the treadmill at lunch.

Thursday March 6
Still really busy. Went to a glacier track and ran on the 6" deep ice surface for 5 laps, which took 15 minutes. I tripped once and sunk once in the first lap, but the next four laps were uneventful.

Friday March 7
Still busy. Worked from home in the morning, and got ten minutes on the treadmill (1.14 miles) at lunchtime when I arrived at the office. I was going to try to take a group exercise class in the afternoon, but it wasn't happening.

Saturday March 8
Finally a weekend day where I can relax. I relaxed by running 18 miles at Rockefeller State Park with Ami. Great run. Notably, I did the first 12 miles on a completely empty stomach, and then the next 6 on a slurry of beet juice, superstarch, and BCAAs. Energy levels were still off, but I can't deny that long runs on zero calories are getting easier. Perhaps the fat adaptation is really kicking in now.

I will say that the weather is really kicking in. This run started out at 35º, but ended at near 55º. The plowed parts of Rockefeller (which are actually outside the bounds of the State Park) had an amazing clear and dry running surface, but the majority of the park, which is unplowed, had an uneven glacier surface that didn't soften up before we finished our run, limiting us to (mostly) the farms. We did try to run the glacier, but it was difficult and I was worried about twisting my bum ankle.

Sunday March 9
So the weight loss are still going, but I'm in the second plateau and this one is worst than the first. It's really annoying. These plateaus are a total pain in the ass. Consider that yesterday I ran 18 miles, 12 of them on an empty stomach and 6 on some beet juice, had smoothie after the run, a small lunch, and skipped dinner because I wasn't hungry. How is it possible that I'm UP 0.2lbs this morning? Plateaus, that's how. F-ing plateaus.
(Note - this was written before the weight loss contest update. On march 10th I started to drop weight again.)
Bowling this week: 167-146-182, 495 series. OK given how I've been doing lately.

Monday March 10
Went to the track at Mahwah High School, which was mostly clear of snow, and ran five laps.

Tuesday March 11
Lifetime Social running group. I hung out in the back of the pack with Carol. Lots of hills. 4.25 miles in an hour.

Mar 5, 2014

2014 Week 9

Random thoughts about my runs and anything else that comes to mind.

 Here's photos of everything I eat: http://instagram.com/stevetursi

Weight loss contest update. I am in two weight-loss contests right now.
The work weight loss contest weigh-in was actually back on Feb 20, and my 286 weight was enough to move me from tenth to second place out of 480.. a mere 0.02% behind first place.
Second Place is the First Loser.  You're in my crosshairs, Piff-Looger! (whoever you are)
The gym weight loss contest is also going well. I don't know where I rank nationally (probably not in the top 100), but bodyfat %, which didn't go down at all last week, is down 2% this week. If the bioelectric impedance fat-measurement device is accurate (a VERY big if) then my bodyfat percentage has gone down 4.4% in four weeks - over 21 lbs of fat lost.


Wednesday Feb 26
At lunchtime, I set the treadmill with a "calories goal" (as opposed to a mileage or time goal), punched in 500 and my age and weight, and let 'er rip. Stopped me when it thought I reached 500 calories, which was 21 minutes and 2.3 miles. Then I did a few sets of bench press. After work, I returned to the gym to take a 50/50 class, which was really hard!

Thursday Feb 27
Cracked 280 this morning - scale read 279.6, after reading 281.6 yesterday. I love to see that kind of momentum, particularly after seeing 285 way back on the 17th, but then 3 days til 284, another 3 days til 283, and 2 days til 282 - 3 lbs in 7 days which is OK (I guess) but won't win any contests nor outlast my patience. In contrast, as of today I've lost 3.2lbs in 2 days and seeing the chart stop to drop off like that is really encouraging. Hopefully it lasts more than a couple of days before the next plateau.

Every multiple of 10 (290, 280, 270) is a huge milestone and serves as a resolution to my determination. But getting into the 250s will be particularly meaningful to me. 259 in particular is the threshold where my BMI drops below 30 - the obese/overweight line. (Yes, I know about your arguments against BMI.)

Saturday Morning
Saddle River Run
Friday Feb 28
1.6 mile Lonergan Loop Fake Zero. Rest day.

Saturday Mar 1
Met up with Dan and Ami at Saddle River County Park (the northern end of this is colloquially called the "Duck Pond", but we didn't meet there) and ran 15 miles up and down and around a bit. Great run on basically zero calories. I was really starved for energy by the end, so I mark this as a great "force that adaptation" run.

Sunday Mar 2
Snowstorm looming (actually at the time of this writing - pre-storm - it looks like it'll pass us to the south and basically be a bust up here), and with Joey not quite feeling well enough for church, I stayed home and did the 1.6 mile Lonergan Loop fake zero again.

Got swept in bowling (no longer in first place), where I shot a dismal 134 followed by meh 165 and 166 for a 465 series.

Monday March 3
Treadmill. Decent 40-minute run where I ran 4.57 miles. Weighed myself before and after this run, and lost two lbs. That's two pints - a quart of sweat - a Big Gulp (yuck) - in 40 minutes. In normal indoor temps.

Tuesday March 4
Weight this morning was 279.4 despite disciplined eating and training! F-ing plateaus. Running with the Lifetime Club (kind of), I had to cut it short to run errands. 3.45 treadmill miles in 30:00.

Continuation of graph from above to Wednesday Morning. F you, plateau.