Run Sam Run

Following my fitness journey to hit a goal weight of 180lbs as well as additional fitness related goals from running, to lifting, to soccer and more!

[run-sam-run]

Race Day Updates!

Hello again everyone! It's June 4th and as of last Sunday I have completed my second run of the year!

My official time was, drumroll please...

...

...

24:20! That means in just about a month I shaved down over half a minute from my previous time and I felt far better during my run than last time. The course was very different from 5k#1, mostly in terms of elevation. Whereas the first was predominately downhill for the first half, and then steep incline to finish (about 100ft of elevation change in just the last half mile alone), this race has a much more varied amount of elevation change. I found that while it was more difficult in the earlier miles, it overall made for a more enjoyable run because it allowed me to have opportunities to slow my pace on flat/decline portions and catch my breath for the oncoming inclines. The race finished with two back to back steep inclines (although of relatively short distances), then balanced out for a short spell and ran uphill one last time to make it to the finish line. I powered through the final two inclines, caught my breath and powered through the finish line!

I finished 10th of the 30 men aged 25-29, I finished 189th overall out of 926 runners, and my average pace was 7:50. I felt gassed at the very end but I was able to recoup quickly, and I enjoyed a complimentary beer at the beer garden right afterwards!

While I didn't feel 100% in the weeks leading up to this race, and I doubted my ability to actually improve upon my last time due to the short time elapsed between races, I'm really happy with the results and I'm looking forward to the improvements that can be made with 2-3 months of increased training. While I did have some runner's knee issues, some lighter loads and a week of rest have greatly improved the discomfort and pain, and I've been focusing on improving running and lifting form, as well as improving my mobility exercise approach and stretch routine prior to and following runs.

[run-sam-run]

Week Race Preview and Injury updates

So this week is both exciting and difficult.

Last week I sustained a bit of an injury that I've self-diagnosed as runner's knee. The problem started after picking up the intensity of my runs, and tacking on soccer to boot. I noticed my left knee starting to feel tight and achy and it was made far worse this past week. On a slow run I physically felt my knee stiffen up on the last leg of my run, and within a couple of days I had to stop a lifting session early due to discomfort and pain in my knee while performing barbell squats. I took a bit of time last week trying to let it rest, taking on stretches and strengthening exercises, as well as introducing muscle rolling into my regiment. Since then, my knee has felt much better, I was able to play soccer without noticeable discomfort this past weekend and this morning I did a slow run where I didn't have any serious pain, discomfort or stiffness.

Now this week is an interesting one, because due to the knee injury I'm noticing my time is a bit slower than usual on my runs which makes me want to ramp up intensity and speed work, but that would work against the recoup of my knee and the race week preparation process of taking it light. I've decided to just try and hold myself to light lifting where I remove barbell squats for the time being, and then focus on a slow run today and some interval running this week.

The race I'm running is a predominately flat 5k (yay!) and it'll be out of town, so I'll be spending the night at my parent's the day before so the drive is much shorter the following morning. I'm hoping to beat my last time, and hopefully if possible hit a sub 24 minute 5k. The leg between my last 5k and this one was a very brief window to get my time down so I won't be rough on myself if I didn't improve too much--but given that the elevation change is substantially smaller on this race--I expect to see at least some better time this Sunday.

[run-sam-run]

A Week in Review, and a Scale Victory! 5/6-5/12

If you've been following this blog you'll know that I've expressed some disappointment with my weekend in New York and what it meant for my goals and more particularly for my weight. I'm really happy, however, to say that I spent all week working hard to get back on track and to get my weight where it should be and I am officially 10 pounds down on the year!

This week I kept a tight watch on my calories, I skipped on weekend drinks to save calories and to help my overall goal of reducing my alcohol intake, and my seven day average weight is now officially at 220!

I had a really good week, all things considered, I ate well and made sure to stay on track with my exercise and I spent the weekend at my parents (where I normally struggle to eat properly) and I came out lighter than before I arrived! On top of that, I was still able to manage soccer this past weekend because they had moved our meet up time from 10AM to 6PM to allow everyone time to visit their mother for Mother's Day, so I ended up getting 2 and 1/2 hours in of soccer to boot!

It just feels great to see the hard work pay off, and for the number on the scale to match what I want to see. This weekend coming up I'm travelling out of town where it will be very easy to overeat or indulge on a lot of high calorie, low nutrient options, so I'm going to bring a ton of fresh produce and veggie sides with me to make sure that I don't go off track.

[run-sam-run]

Feeling Rough and Wanted to Share

So my intentions with this blog were to treat it as a diary or journal, to catalog all of my victories but also all of my shortcomings. Weight loss isn't a straight line, it's filled with little bumps up and drops down, but as long as the trend continues downward, we're successful.

This past weekend I was doing really well, despite enjoy myself on Friday night I was still maintaining 220lbs and change, about 10lbs down from my starting weight. Saturday, we had a destination wedding out of state to attend, and it was lavish. I enjoyed some drinks, enjoyed some food, and yesterday pairing my hungover feelings with all day travel, we didn't really do any conscious eating and resorted to easy takeout.

Today I stepped on the scale and within 48 hours I've gone from 220 to 224.5.

I know that this is a lot of bloating, water weight, etc. and that I didn't gain 4.5lbs of actual weight in the past 48 hours, but holy hell do I feel deflated and defeated. I'm trying hard to not let this deter me from working hard this week to get my weight back to normal, but it's really making me feel awful. I feel ashamed to log my weight today, and I'm not looking forward to the three or four days of eating right and exercising just to get back to 220, ruining my average weight in the process.

I wanted to share this here because I want to not only vent and let myself get this off of my mind, but in the event that anyone really takes the time to read these posts, and finds some sort of solace in others going through the same difficulties that they have and overcoming them. As defeated as I feel, sometimes these moments make me more focused and lead to more success in the long term, and with another race coming up the first weekend of June, I'm focusing on working hard to prepare this month to continue to improve my 5k time while shedding more weight.

[run-sam-run]

Race Day Update!

For those that have been following along on my journey, you'll likely recall that I am going to sign up for multiple 5k races so that I can officially track my race time in an attempt to run a sub-22 minute 5k! The first race I did was a local one, I wanted to run this race first because my previous PR was made on this run. It's a grueling 5k, the entire first half is downhill, and the entire second half is uphill, featuring a nearly 100 foot incline in the last half mile of the race.

I wanted to run this race to ensure that my first race's benchmark was against the same obstacles and terrain, so that I wouldn't be lead astray by a comparable run on an easier race. The race was an absolute pain, I remained at a constant pace that I felt wasn't too fast going downhill, I ran harder going uphill and caught my breath on flat portions, and I pushed myself on the home stretch (I even dead sprinted across the finish line) but I finished with a recorded 24 minutes and 52 seconds! That official time is roughly one minute faster than my prior PR of 25:44, and it means I'm well on my way to achieve my goal of a 22 minute 5k by the end of the year!

I'll be spending the next couple of weeks searching for my next race, I'd love to do a total of three, potentially four races this year, and I want to look into neighboring towns for new races to run. I was hoping for a better race time, but I was recovering from an injury the prior week and I don't think I can be upset about the time I did get!

[run-sam-run]

Week in Review 4/15-4/21

So this past week was a bit of a rough one. I haven't kept up with all of the exercise I planned on doing, but I did the best with what I could. I went upstate to my cousin's cabin to help with some maintenance over the weekend, and due to a busy work day I wasn't able to get my second run in this week. I did do a good deal of hard work up in the mountains, so I'm not overly concerned with missing a lifting day, but I do feel as though I didn't do my best with regards to running.

What I am happy with, is that the cabin--which is notorious for being rather unhealthy (meals aren't very balanced, typically a lot of high calorie snacks, and tons of high fat meals with little high volume veggies), I managed to stay on pace with my weight loss and I didn't balloon up after a weekend of poor diet.

This week is all about race prep, because in fun news I have my first of hopefully three or four 5ks coming up! This is a race I've run before, and it's difficult for ending on a really steep incline. I'm going to fit in two runs and two lifts, with my third run being my race and for the week the motto is 'nice and easy'. I'm going to run slow paced runs, and I'm not going to push it in the weight room so I can cut down on injury potential, and Saturday I'm going to come out swinging and hopefully land a brand new race PR! The time to beat is 25:44, which is the last pace I ran this specific race at. I've been able to hit sub 25, but my goal is to land in the 23s this time around. This week is going to be about meal prepping, eating well, and getting in all of my exercise so that I'm perfectly poised to run a great race time!

[run-sam-run]

A week in review: 4/7-4/14

This week was an interesting one because my week and weekend got suddenly busy but I managed to get in some great exercise. On Tuesday I not only lifted weights, but I actually played 3 v 3 soccer with some friends after work! I was able to get a traditional run in, and although I didn’t get another lifting day in I more than made up for it by doing a ton of yard work for my parents. On Sunday, not only did I play another round of soccer like usual, but I played for 2.5 hours rather than my usual 2!

[run-sam-run]

Nice little sunset run!

Today was a bit of a long day, and certainly very busy. After work I had to rush home, throw down a dinner and then jump into an hour long Spanish lesson. I sat on my phone for half an hour, cozy in bed and complacent but I knew I had to go for a run today.

So I strapped on my shoes and my reflective vest and I ran! I didn’t push too hard, but I felt like it was sufficiently challenging. I have been circling 25:30 consistently on most runs, if not outright beating that pace and I’m really excited for my first 5K of the year this month!

[run-sam-run]

You will never have greater or lesser dominion that that over your self... the height of a man's success is gauged by his self-mastery... he who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.

-Leonardo Da Vinci

[run-sam-run]

California Update 4/2/2024

This past weekend was a lot. I took four flights, one of which was a red-eye, in a total of four days, and I stayed at someone else's apartment with a ton of plans that meant I was running all over and not eating on a regimented schedule. It made it difficult to find the time or energy to exercise, made it incredibly difficult to find ways to get a filling, balanced diet in, and ultimately it felt like I just broke even with health and fitness goals.

Lets start with my goals that I set:

Hit all of my workouts (failed)

2. Track Calories every day of the week (failed)

3. Limit my drinking this weekend to only one night (failed).

While my list looks atrocious, I failed to meet every goal I set, I'm not too disheartened, because in a more micro sense I did in some capacity mitigate what could have been a disaster. Despite irregular and often times unsatisfying meals, I still managed to maintain a healthier diet for the course of the weekend. I drank a little bit outside of the day of the planned party, but it was only a total of three drinks over the other three days. While I didn't hit all of my workouts for the week, I did still push myself to get in a run and a lift while away this weekend!

So it's easy to look at the weekend, and look at the scale and be upset, but honestly given all that I went through this weekend I'm surprised that it isn't worse and that is something to be proud of in and of itself!

This week I'm getting right and getting back to normal. Should be a good week!

[run-sam-run]

Week in Review (3/17 - 3/24)

This week is full of more failure than triumph unfortunately. Starting this past weekend I celebrated my god daughter's birthday and St Patrick's Day in a 48 hour span, and while I was able to mitigate the caloric damages with some soccer on Saturday, I was so incredibly busy with work throughout the week that managing to fit in anything more than two lifts and one treadmill run was just too much to ask.

Work got incredibly busy and I had to make sacrifices during the week, unfortunately I allowed this, paired with my birthday this week, to indulge on sweets, put a pause on exercising as diligently, and eating on a far more disordered schedule. From Wednesday on, we ate out in some capacity nearly every day, having a wedding tasting on Wednesday, a birthday celebration dinner on Friday and Saturday, and then celebrating my significant other's grandmother's birthday on Sunday, followed by an early Easter dinner with my family.

I was unable to fit in any exercise this weekend, and the eating and drinking I did from Wednesday to today has caused me to remain stagnant in weight and then balloon up this morning to 226. I know that it's primarily water weight and bloating from less than ideal eating, but it feels like such a stupid set back to have to work back down to my seven day average of 223, just to get my schedule, eating and drinking habits ruined again this weekend when we go to visit my soon to be brother-in-law in California.

While I'm disheartened with where I'm starting this week, I've surprisingly felt determined and ready to catch up on a short week that is bound to be wild, and get my self back in order and take on this travel heavy long weekend with a strong sense of determination with regards to exercise, calorie tracking, and alcohol limitation.

My goals for the week are as follows:

Hit all of my workouts this week (this will be tricky as I'll have to find time to squeeze in a run while I'm away, but I'm determined to run--even on a vacation!)

Track calories every day of the week, no exceptions

Limit my drinking this weekend to only one night (we have night-time plans with future BIL and his friends, so I'll be allowing myself a night with a couple of drinks, but ultimately limiting total intake).

I'm confident that I'll be able to tackle this week and start April off on the right foot. Based on my weight loss goal for the year, my first weigh-in is April 1st, and to stay on track for the total weight loss of 30lbs, I should weigh in at about 222.50 on average. That should be no problem if I stick to my tracking, don't allow travel to make me feel like I should ease up, and fit in all of my workouts!

[run-sam-run]

A Discussion on Weight

I know I normally post discussions around my current performance on runs, how well I'm eating, or how much I'm moving, but I wanted to make a post to talk about weight loss in the event that this might reach some people who really struggle with staying consistent when the scale doesn't produce what they would like to see.

Weight fluctuates every. single. day.

I think that too often, people weigh themselves and get discouraged and give up when the number goes up marginally, or feel a big boon of excitement when it drops and then crushing disappointment when it rebounds. I used to weigh myself once a week because I didn't like how often I would look at the scale each day and get discouraged when I would see my weight stagnate or go up, even though I was eating well and exercising constantly.

A person's weight can fluctuate by anywhere from 4-7lbs in a single day and is impacted by a plethora of different factors such as water intake, daily food intake, bathroom habits, sleep habits, water retention, etc. and taking your weight every single day and measuring success on a 7-day average will help to weed out the fluctuations and show you the most accurate depiction of your weight loss. Just to show you an example from my past week, on Saturday I went out for St. Patrick's day, I drank a ton, I ate a little more recklessly than usual (late night munchies at the bar around 1AM), and the next day I drank a ton of water and didn't move all that much. Over the course of three days I weighed in at 222, then 225 and then back down to around 223.

When I saw 225 I felt awful, I immediately regretted going out, I was beating myself up over loosening up and backtracking so much after a week of good work--and then the next day came and my weight went back to normal. In complete transparency I wanted to attach a snippet from my weight journal, which shows my day to day weight followed by a rolling seven day average, and despite the spike in my weight after drinking, my average weight still remained relatively consistent!

As you can see my weight jumped for two days and dropped back down, but as an average I never broke 224 at any point throughout the week.

So this is just a message to those who may come across this that your weight will change for a thousand different reasons but so long as the overall trend is healthy, sustainable weight loss, you shouldn't get discouraged and keep plugging away!

[run-sam-run]

Week Review (And Mileage update!) 3/10-3/17

So this past week was a busy one, especially the weekend. I was incredibly active and I did a great job on calories for the majority of the week with my only week spots being on Saturday for St Patrick's Day.

Some Achievements from the week:

I was able to fit in two soccer games in the week, which isn't typical. Usually a 2 hr game is enough for me for one day and it takes me time to recover!

I went for a more casual run on Tuesday and while I ended up pushing a touch harder than needed, I wasn't quite at a race pace--And I still hit a 25min pace or so, which means the race pace wasn't a fluke!

Although I did enjoy myself from a calorie and drink perspective on Saturday, I still managed to get out for a soccer match before the day to level some of the damage done!

Throughout the week despite having a bit of a balooning effect in the past two days (wow, wonder where that came from), my weight is still down on a seven day average from last week.

My current run log (which includes my soccer games as an average of 4 miles run, even though it's really closer to 6-7) officially has me breaking 100 total miles in the new year!

Some things that challenged me, or that I wish I did better on:

Drinking. Friday I ended up drinking a decent amount as well, and Saturday was more than I'd drank in a while. I had really fun plans with friends out at the bars and despite my best intentions I wasn't as in check as I would have wanted. Ultimately I had a lot of fun, and this isn't about exclusion, but moderation. I'm not going to knock myself too hard, especially because my body felt so rough for the next 48 hours that it's made me want to avoid alcohol for the next week at the least, and not in a 'I'm never going to drink again because I'm super hungover' kind of way, more in a 'I'm recognizing the lasting effects even after the first morning of drinking on my wellbeing, mental health and focus'.

Ultimately it was a good week that could have been a lot worse but I was resilient and strong on.

[run-sam-run]

NSV! NEW PB TIME!

Today I went for a run and decided to make it a tempo/race pace style of run, and to my surprise (and my body's, given how stiff, side stitched and exhausted I was upon finishing) I ran a COMPLETELY NEW PB. Not a new PB this year, not a new PB since my last actual race, a completely new personal best.

I'm completely shocked, it was a really difficult and grueling run. At the start of my out and back there was a ton of wind resistance, and I started off the bat with a really fast pace of about 7:30 for the first mile, I started getting pretty beat within the first half mile but I continued to push nice, long strides and the best effort I could manage.

I ended up beating my original personal best by just under a minute, and in the first two months of the new year I'm already on a fantastic pace to reach my goal of a sub 22 minute 5k!

Tomorrow I plan to take my second lifting day of the week, then Saturday I plan to take a nice easy run, maybe even a long run, and then Sunday I'll either plan to play soccer or do an easy/long run depending on how I'm feeling!

[run-sam-run]

"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too." -Paulo Coelho

[run-sam-run]

Touching on non-fitness goals

As I discussed earlier in my blog, I have a few goals that aren't technically fitness related, most notably I want to learn some programming languages like SQL and Python. Very recently there was a sale on Udemy courses, so I was able to purchase two very comprehensive courses on both SQL and Python, so I can get started with some structured learning that will provide me with a certificate!

I'm going to start with SQL, and the hopes are that I can get my work to pay for an SSRS course as well so that I can start building reports for the company. Then, from there I'd like to move onto Python, which I think will be more useful for my career going forward, but SQL seems to be more valuable in the short term.

[run-sam-run]

Great Start to March! Weekend Review and looking ahead to the month

So over the end of last week and into the weekend I had run twice, lifted once and substituted my last run for not one, but two days of playing pick up soccer. It's the first weekend I've done something like this, usually my legs are too beat up or I'm too tired after one day! Not only did I play two days, but I played two days at a pretty high output!

This was a huge non-scale victory for me, I don't think I've felt this in shape in a while, even though it came at the expense of my second lifting day for the week. Ultimately, I wasn't missing my lift this week because I was lazy, but rather because I wanted to prioritize another active pastime, so I'm completely content with missing one day this week and being more diligent going forward.

As an update on my weight, I've gotten back to losing again and I've now clocked in at exactly 224lbs this morning on my 7-day average! Looks like I'm making great progress since mid-February, and I'm ahead of schedule for meeting my annual goal for losing 30 pounds on the year. Hopefully I can crush that goal by the fall, and start chipping away towards my ultimate health goal of hitting 180lbs!

But one month at a time, one week at a time, one day at a time! Let's look at March. This month I can see a couple of things impeding progress, most of which involve my birthday! I have a weekend dinner planned with my close friend and his daughter (whose birthday is near mine), so I expect lots of good food and high calorie desserts, and then we'll likely be celebrating my birthday with my immediate family so there is more ice cream and cake, and lastly I'll be ending the month with a long weekend trip to California to visit my future brother-in-law, so I could see vacation mode getting turned on and a few too many drinks/high calorie meals in the weekend. So all of that being said, my goals for March are simple:

Be diligent about my eating and drinking this month to make sure I'm still in line with my goals, but allowing myself some fun for my birthday!

Continue losing weight, and hit 220lbs by the end of the month

Start fishing this month!!

Start up the SQL course that I purchased this past week.

All-in-all it should be a really enjoyable month, with the clocks moving forward and weather hopefully getting nicer.