getting buff

So after some experimentation I think I have identified a solution for short pants that satisfies my dual goals of not making me so self-conscious that I want to kill myself and also being non-chafing and comfortable. However it does involve me wearing fake Kmart skins under mens running shorts so I do feel like a bit of a dick. But it is comfortable and cool which is going to be increasingly important as summer comes.

Tonight I headed out for a run and was looking forward to it all afternoon. Which is pretty unremarkable except for the fact that I am pretty sure I said only a month ago that I never feel like going for a run on a Friday night at the end of a long week. And it was very cool, I had a great run and felt fantastic.

For those that asked, our darling daughter puppy dog's biopsy came back showing a malignant tumour so she is in surgery today having it removed. Owning boxers we should be used to this, but it always comes as a blow. Will know more about the prognosis when the removed tissue is tested.

She will be home tonight and fine from the operation (although probably a bit more sensitive from interference by the monster). But we won't know whether the op has been a success until next week.

UPDATE - the pathology tests come back the most favourable of three grades of tumour. We have to keep an eye on her and there is a chance of recurrence or spread but hopefully all will be well. She has a big ugly incision at the moment but it is a good thing she is still so gorgeous.

Starting Weight - 107.5kg
Current Weight - 102.5kg
Total weight loss - 5kg
This week's weight loss - 0.5kg

Back again. Well all going in the right direction albeit slowly.

So while watching the votes come in, I have been sucked in to doing the following - naming 100 things about me.

1. I am an identical twin.
2. I have only broken a bone once in my life - and it was my left leg two weeks after my twin had plaster removed after breaking her left leg.
3. I played cricket at high school. My jobs were opening batsman, second bowler and getting my team mates run out.
4. I have completed about a quarter of a bachelor of theology.
5. When I was at uni I worked as a residential care worker for disabled adults.
6. This was much more attractive than working in customer service.
7. I currently work as a lawyer in insolvency litigation.
8. When I was growing up there were between 6 and 8 kids in our family at any one time.
9. I really like kids but don't want any of my own.
10. Hub came to the same conclusion independently but we initially were too scared to tell each other as we had already decided to have kids.
11. I have two boxer dogs whom I totally love.
12. In my life I have learnt German, Russion and Polish.
13. I lived in Poland for a year when I was 17.
14. I lived in Germany for six months when I was 20.
15. I am not a tidy person though I am very organised.
16. I clean the house when I am grumpy because I figure that seeing as I am already feeling crap, it won't depress me.
17. I can knit and sew but rarely bother to do either.
18. I love playing trivia games but most people I know won't play with me.
19. Hub has banned me from playing chess because I get too competitive (and he kept beating me).
20. As a result I have "just said no" to playing chess for over ten years (even thoug I like it).
21. I took up running as a 17 year old on the spur of the moment and ran a 10K race in about 53 mins
22. I still have my finishing photo from that race (I found it the other day).
23. I used to play squash a lot and trained with state squads and development squads, but was never quite good enough to make it.
24. I was married at 23.
25. My wedding day was 364 days after my twin sister's - it makes it easy to remember her anniversary.
26. I can never remember how many years I have been married.
27. I just checked the date on the memorial plate from our wedding - eight years so far.
28. Hub was married previously but I was too young to attend his first wedding.
29. I made it to the second one.
30. We played "wake me up before you go go" as our wedding recessional.
31. I am a rabid collingwood supporter but have no idea where I got this from.
32. People sometimes I assume that I started barracking for collingwood when I met Hub. This is totally untrue.
33. I have been on the waiting list for MCC membership for about 9 years.
34. In 2002 I purchased a scalped ticket for the AFL grand final and sat in the uppermost corner of the olympic stand in the driving rain. It would have been worth it if we had won.
35. In 2003 I got a ticket for the AFL grand final through my club membership. I swapped seats with a guy who couldn't bear to watch the game.
36. I brew my own beer.
37. I brew my own wine.
38. My favourite home brewed wine (so far) is mead (honey wine). Yum.
39. I have another blog which gets thousands of hits per day.
40. Hub and I plan to buy a small acreage and try to be semi self sufficient.
41. We currently own a house on the peninsula that we try to get to most weeks.
42. Our house has a cedar hot tub on the back verandah.
43. We have a housemate ("the Lodger") whose body clock is currenlty almost exactly the reverse of ours (he goes to bed at about 7am).
44. I go to church in a pub every Tuesday night.
45. Hub and the dogs are down at our beach house for a week.
46. Sometimes I notice that the dogs are missing more than Hub.
47. When I was in primary school I used to compete in swimming.
48. I have a veggie garden and love home grown veggies.
49. Red meat sometimes gives me a stomach ache, so I don't eat it much.
50. I discovered Buffy late, but watched the entire seven seasons in the space of a couple of months.
51. I have never read a Lord of the Rings book.
52. I have never watched a Lord of the Rings movie.
53. I once had to read the Hobbit for a book club but tricked Hub into believing that I had not read it because I didn't like it.
54. I hate science fiction.
55. Except for the science fiction that isn't too science fictiony (eg Orson Scott Card).
56. I don't get soccer or rugby
57. For a couple of years I played a lot of golf. I would like to take it up again when I lose some more weight.
58. I love cooking casseroles and collect old fashioned recipe books.
59. I hardly ever eat sweet things.
60. I am currently studying for a doctorate in law.
61. I am way behind in my study.
62. From time to time I sing at church, but I don't consider myself a good singer.
63. I think I am very good at my job but I let myself down sometimes.
64. I am much more like my Dad than my mum in personality.
65. My taste in music tends towards the "sensitive white guy" music.
66. This is not crappy pop music, but folk influenced guitar based songwriting.
67. A lot of the stuff in my life is secondary to my priority to make a difference for others.
68. A lot of the time other stuff gets in the way of my priority to make a difference for others.
69. I actually answer to "deege" as it is my family's nickname for me.
70. My first two initials are DJ, hence "deege".
71. Other members of my family have family nicknames "Twistie" and "Pineapple".
72. Last weekend I spent a lot of money on leather couches.
73. I don't think that I have ever run more than 10K in my life.
74. I plan to do this in the next two or three weeks.
75. I am currently writing a book with Hub which I don't know whether it will ever be finished.
76. I used to write children's stories about a monster called "Urk".
77. I am incredibly klutzy. I have a rather noticeable scar on my arm from falling against a broken door knob which I totally knew was there.
78. When I was about 5 or 6 I took up running - generally up and down our (long) driveway.
79. I grew up on a hobby farm from the age of 2 until I was 17.
80. When I went overseas for a year, my parents jokingly threatened to sell the house while I was overseas.
81. 8 months later they sold the house.
82. My older brother is the black sheep in the family (for good reason). He is still not welcome at family events but we are one of the few people in the family who have decent relationship with him.
83. I know too many people who have had crappy things happen in their life.
84. I used to keep towels in my car purely for the occasional spur of the moment skinny dip.
85. I never knew what weight I was until I determined to lose weight.
86. I was just as self conscious about my body when I was extremely fit and healthy as I am now.
87. I smoked for over ten years and tried to quit for at least five of those.
88. The thing that made me quit was Hub saying he was worried he wouldn't be able to grow old with me.
89. We have a four wheel drive even though we don't go four wheel driving. I swore I would never do that.
90. I never speed and hate being in a car with people that speed (even a little bit).
91. I have loved reading ever since I was about 3.
92. I have a terrible habit of staying up too late at night even though I love sleep.
93. I appeared on the Couchman show twice.
94. I once kissed 6 guys in one night (I was young and it was like a competition with a girlfriend).
95. My "type" is incredibly consistent - and Hub fits within the parameters.
96. I am not within Hub's type.
97. I once kissed another guy when I was married.
98. I am related (distantly) to Andrew Bolt.
99. I bite my nails.
100. Once I get fit and back to where I want to be, my life will be pretty much perfect.

The plan said 80mins this morning but I had to cut it a bit short because needed to take darling daughter to the vet. Weighed up leaving it till the afternoon but decided procrastination (even for a couple of hours) was not a great idea.

Difficult conditions due to the insane wind - made for very tough going a lot of the time. When it wasn't blowing a gale, the sun came out and had quite a bit of heat in it. But the run was prtty good exploring a different direction along the merri creek trail and ended up just over 6km. When it gets a bit warmer (and lighter) will be good to go there more often for some of my midweek runs.

I got back and it was a mad rush to get showered and off to the vet (DD had to have a lump biopsied) and found good cause to be pleased that I had not put off until this afternoon - the heavens opened and it began bucketing down.

The thing that I love about running is that every day is a new one. Last night I had a crappy run but my run tonight was great fun. The fastest training pace on a measured course yet. A great confidence booster after the race from hell.

I am at the stage where I am going to have to extend my normal midweek running route because it is only just taking me 30min to do. Which is a great problem to have. I boringly only run around the streets most days because I run at night and I like to run where there are street lights. The new route that I am going to implement from next week should be somewhere about 4.5 - 5km. But it is the distance that if you had described it to me as a non-runner, my brain would explode from the fact that it is so far.

Me: My garmin ran out of batteries a couple of minutes into my run tonight. Did you leave it switched on when you borrowed it?
Hub: No.
Me: Did you switch it off? You know, press the little power button thingy?
Hub: Maybe not.
Me: Hmmm.
Hub: Hey, the watch strap on this heart rate monitor is getting all worn out - see how it is splitting?
Me: That is not "ordinary wear and tear".
Hub: Did the monster get it?
Me: Yessss. So next time you are switching off my garmin after using it, please make sure you put it up on the shelf.

Last night's run was awful. I set out at a decent speed but then nudge died so I have no idea what speed I was going after the first k or so. But everything hurt. My legs were aching all over - not pains or cramps just dull aching. I really wanted to stop, but seeing as it didn't feel like an injury or anything I kept going till I had finished the loop.

I am scheduled for a slightly longer run tonight so let's hope that those aches and pains have been knocked out of the system. I would be tempted to skip it, but skipping leads to routine changes, routine changes lead to calendar clashes, calendar clashes lead to violation of THE PLAN. Which is bad.

Starting Weight - 107.5kg
Current Weight - 103kg
Total weight loss - 4.5kg
This week's weight loss - +2kg

Mumblegrumble. The scales are all over the place lately - have had vastly different readings over the course of the last couple of weeks. Maybe they are menopausal?

Someone got to this blog by searching for "getting buff in one week". Me thinks they might have been disappointed. No magic tricks, here!!

Before the run yesterday one of the other ausrunners asked me what my plan was for the race. My approximate answer was "MmmmmIdunno". In the great spirit of experimentation, I have determined to see whether having some sort of plan or intentionality about the race will make a difference for the next one.

So the finely tuned plan is as follows:

1. Long runs. I have put together a schedule of runs over the coming month, still increasing my time but observing the 10% rule. This should see me doing another three runs of 80-90 mins. The long runs increase my confidence because I know that I have actually done that distance before and longer which is a big mental boost on the day


2. Short runs. Over the past month I have missed far too many midweek runs. The body complains when I string running days together too often so if I do miss a run, I often find it difficult to reschedule. But for the next month I am going to be very good about the midweek runs and try to avoid hayfever and all those things which tend to put me off track


3. Preparation. Okay, I am going to be sensible this time about making sure I am stretched and hydrated and not just turn my mind to these things when I rock up on the morning.


4. Outfit. Running in the heat is that much more difficult when you are carrying extra kilos so, even though exposing the flesh makes me pretty self conscious, the half tights, t-shirt and dark coloured hat didn't do me any favours when I was feeling hot. So over the next month I will experiment with various shorts options to find something that doesn't chafe and hopefully doesn't make me look like lumpy sausages.


5. Enjoyment. Put SiS1 behind me and write it off as a bad day. Concentrate on enjoying myself at SiS2 and don't load up with too many expectations. If I meet the goals that I had for SiS1, then I will already show an improvement of over 10mins which is nothing to sneeze at.


6. Practice. I am going to see whether I can swing it one day to go and run the course again, just to replace the ugly memory with a nice one.

I am actually trying to convince Hub to come along and run the 4km at SiS2. He has been doing a run/walk program which has had a few hold ups, but has just managed to achieve running for 30min non-stop. He normally works on Sundays, but has the day of SiS2 off so is half considering coming along to cheer me on, but I am trying to convince him to sign up himself.

If he only had signed up for the series, we could have matching lurid blue running tops.

Well today was the Spring into Shape 1 and the splits tell it all really. Went out pretty briskly (for me) in the first K, then at about 1.5K I had a pretty painful cramp in my right shin. Stopped and stretched and tried to run gently through it, but wasn't happening today.

Walked for a couple of km which was still pretty painful and was resigned to walking the whole of the second lap as the cramp still wasn't loosening and felt really sore (ouch, ouch, ouch). But as I started to feel a bit looser, tested it out for a little bit until the next drink station and then realised that I only had about 3k to go. Beautiful day and gorgeous course so managed to talk myself into just going for an easy 3km in the nice weather.

Though when you are having a bad day, you feel like everything is falling apart. Was getting a dehydration headache and everything seemed like it was sore. By the time I got the legs turning over again, I felt pretty self conscious because I was going alongside a bunch of walkers and there I was puffing away attempting a quasi run.

Official time is 1:10:01.46, running 130th in age category, 641st overall (split time 35:22.45). There is lots of improvement still to come. Bring on SiS2!!

EDIT - I don't know what was going on today, but I wasn't right. I came home and lunch caused painful stomach cramps, then had a nanny nap for three hours and felt much better though had some issues with pins and needles in hands and feet. At the moment I think that I was poorly hydrated which was exacerbated by it being a bit warmer than I am used to running in. Hopefully can manage this better next race day. Thankfully I don't seem to have any long term effects or injuries.

Starting Weight - 107.5kg
Current Weight - 101kg
Total weight loss - 6.5kg
This week's weight loss - 2.5kg

Heh. This looks pretty impressive but is really just righting the ship after a couple of weeks where the numbers on the scale were not truly representative of the situation and one week of retaining water. But nice to be back on track anyway. It must have been the fish and chips I ate on the weekend.

I had a really good long run planned for today - finally determined to check out part of a trail that runs near to the weekender. And then I woke with eyes and nose streaming experiencing a terrible attack of hayfever. I don't get it often but when I do, I feel like I am completely out of action.

I spent the day simulatneously snapping at Hub and struggling to cope with normal saturday errands while I was steadfastly determined to go for my run. After doing a bit of cleaning up, I stood with tears streaming down my face (barely affected by the mega strength anti-histamine) and I began to deal with the fact that there was no way I was going to be able to do my run.

Oh well, I will go for a couple of shorter runs during the week before SiS1. And I will leave my maps so that I can revisit this run at a later date.

I am a victim of a genetic lottery in that I happen to be an identical twin. Most people find that pretty cool (except one of the partners at work who totally freaked out when I showed her my sister's pictures of her and her first child in the hospital - apparently it looked too much like me).

However, one of the little advertised aspects of being a twin is that every man and his dog wants you to join in scientific studies, because you just happen to be the perfect experimental and control group all in one. So my younger years were spent hanging out in mobile labs testing my spatial awareness or colour discernment or whatever.

So when I was doing my exercise study today the testers asked me whether I had ever done studies before and they were fascinated to hear that I had basically spent my childhood being tested, measured and evaluated in the interests of science.

So the testing was all kind of interesting. In lieu of a complete blow by blow, I will mention two moments. The first was when they outlined what we would be doing and said blah blah blah measurement blah blah blah tension blah blah blah six minute kms blah blah blah hopping. Whoops. I actually felt scared to raise the fact that I didn't know whether I could run 6mins kms. It was a lot faster than the 8km p/h pace that had been noted in the information sheets. I felt like a loser, but in the midst of all of that uncertainty I feel a bit of ahchievement that I managed that pace for about 4min. While slow, that is conclusively the first time that I have run that pace for any time at all since I began this adventure. So I am proud of being a bit of a loser.

The second fun moment was when they took some blood from me and the tester said something along the lines of "I have to fill this out for you - some legal reasons or something". And I responded with "Those bloody lawyers, they spoil everything!!". She had the grace to hear the tone and recognise that I was a lawyer. It gave me a giggle.

So my final testing session is in two weeks time. I wonder if I can practice between now and then so I get better at running 6min kms for short periods of time.

So a pair of work pants I only bought a couple of weeks ago now requires a belt. You've got to love that, but this lifestyle gig can get expensive with all the changing wardrobe.

Took nudge out to draw a new picture last night. Added an extra block or so to my normal mid-week run after roughly calculating that it would make my run about 4km without having to go over any ground. Then of course at the end I had to run back and forth in front of my house for a couple of minutes to get nudge to tick over from 3.8km. That makes for a very funny picture indeed.

Tomorrow night I have a testing session for an ASICs sponsored study that I have volunteered for. It is about the way that hormones influence women runners and the results might be used by ASICs to improve their women's gear. I am a little nervous because, while I fulfill the requirements of the study (running three times a week for 30 mins plus), I am hardly madam sports star. The little (well big actually) fat chick inside of me half thinks they are going to look at me and go "What were you thinking??" But then I remind myself that I fit the criteria, and dammit I am a prime representative of the highly lucrative plodding overweight beginner runner market. Hear me roar!!

Actually, the hardest thing about this will be running on a treadmill without falling off or looking like a goon (I haven't really run on a treadmill in years). Plus they are deliberately testing me on the first day of my *ahem* cycle, so it isn't going to be the most comfortable or easiest day for running (which I guess is kind of the point of the study). At least I can be thankful that this is the first time since I have started this journey that running plus impending menstrual cycle does not equal "curled in a ball on the floor moaning incoherently with muscle pain".

Heh, one final thing that amused me about the study is that the instructions said that some exercise will be involved in the testing and I should therefore wear shorts. Socks and shoes would be provided by ASICs. It immediately occurred to me that something was missing in those instructions. Think I might take along a T-shirt as well just in case.

So at the suggestion of some people I downloaded Sporttracks to use for my record keeping and for nudge. Had a panic moment when nudge froze during data transfer and had to reset him - thought I had lost those wonderful couple of runs I had already put in the system. Phew.

I quite like Sporttracks though the documentation isn't great so it is taking a little bit of time to learn my way around it. As a start I transferred all of my records over from my running log at coolrunning so that I have all of my information in one place. It was fun reading through all of my progress so far and some of the comments on the runs. One thing I noticed is that I evidently recorded the distance it felt like rather than the distance it probably was. As a result my run walk result over 4km is recorded as being faster than when I just run. My biggest distance month was the month I started recording distance. I don't think that it is too accurate though.

Anyway, I like to preserve the innacuracies. Nudge has brought a new level of precision to my recording and I would really like to just continue to improve my monthly kilometrage and time on my feet, particularly now that I know that my sums are pretty much correct.

Nudge has disabused me of the notion of my "ordinary training pace" as well, unfortunately. Turns out I have lots of training paces, a lot of them slower than the one that I previously had notched as my slowest. Huh. Who knew that I could be even slower than I previously thought? I have to keep reminding myself that even if a particular route is 3.9km instead of 4km, it doesn't change the fact that I have improved my speed over that distance a fair bit.

So reading over the records was just what I needed. So what if nudge is a big fat spoilsport regarding some of my distances. The fact is, just a couple of months ago it took me a week or so to fully recover from a run of 6km. With any luck my long run this week will crack the 10km mark, to be followed by a light week (which now amazingly enough means two or three gentle 25min jogs) in preparation for SiS1 a week later.

Bring it awn!

Starting Weight - 107.5kg
Current Weight - 103.5kg
Total weight loss - 4.0kg
This week's weight loss - +0.5kg

More than once I have thought that if I was just going by weight, I would have given up this gig already. But I keep dropping dress sizes and requiring belts on things even when the scales don't show a difference. I have considered more than once removing the weekly weigh in because frankly I don't like how it makes the whole thing about the scales, and it makes people kind of get the wrong impression about what is happening. It all feels a bit weight watcher meeting to me, when it is really just for my personal records. And I don't like feeling the need to justify what is happening or feeling like people impliedly have to congratulate or encourage this when I am perfectly at peace about the whole thing and thrilled with all the little things that are showing my progress.

I am a compulsive record keeper, so on balance I have decided to keep going with this so that I can continue making nice little graphs and records. However, I am going to turn the comments off on WWI posts, so no weight watcher meeting feeling. Hopefully that will allow me to achieve a happy compromise of keeping track of stuff in an accountable fashion without becoming (or feeling like I am becoming) all about the scales.

So spent a long run with the garmin today and he whispered his name to me - nudge. Not really that sexy or anything, but what can you do? That's what he said his name was.

It was so cool today with the garmin - I could just run wherever I wanted and feel confident that I knew where I was going and figure out how long it was taking. I have also discovered that the distance shown on nudge is always slightly less than the distance shown on motionbased when I upload the results. The FAQ on motionbased suggests that this is because they do a more accurate analysis of the GPS data. Enough reason for me to take the longer distance as gospel.

So I was conscious today of drawing a good picture with nudge. I didn't want an out and back course because that wouldn't be a nice picture. Pathetic. But hey, it was a motivating factor when I felt crappy, and I ended up doing a 75min run without too much trouble (although admittedly empahsis on the "slow" of the LSD. You can see the route here

BTW How cool is that map function? It rocks, truly. Two weeks to SiS1