So What’s Up Next?

April 19, 2012 by

This is the question I’ve been thinking about since the official 12 weeks ended. In order to continue staying healthy, I think it is important to always have some sort of goal in mind. Maybe it’s an event (5K, 10K, Triathlon, or maybe a program like Body for LIFE or P90X), or maybe it’s a life even that you want to look good for (i.e. a family reunion). Maybe it’s a certain weight that you are trying to work your weight up to (i.e. be able to bench a certain amount). Something – just anything. Otherwise it is easy to rationalize skipping a day here or there or not eat as healthy as you should. I’ve been thinking for the last 2 weeks what my next goal is going to be.

So I’m not officially on Body For Life right now, but I’m still following the same schedule since the initial 12 weeks ended. I’m continuing to eat 6 times a day and exercise 6 days a week – 3 days weights 3 days cardio. This is the 2nd week now that I’ve been running with my son in the mornings. He has really taken a liking to it. We’ve been doing 2 miles in the morning before school 3 times per week. After getting up at 6:15 (or more like 6:24) – why the 9 minute snooze on an iPhone and why isn’t it configurable? I digress….we jump in the car around 6:35 or so, hit the trail around 6:40, and run until 7:00. I cook him some eggs while he showers. In addition to running and getting in shape, he’s eating healthier in the mornings now. It’s much healthier for him to have some eggs than eggo waffles. Yes, he’s been known to eat 6 eggo waffles in one sitting before school. We had to crack down on that one and install a daily limit. The eggo waffles really not that healthy. It’s good that my son loves eggs and will take them any day over the the eggo waffles.

After several weeks of pondering what my next goal should be, I’ve decided to do a 5K with my son. He already ran an unofficial one once this year over Easter and could totally do an official one. We’re going to start looking around to see what there is in the greater Austin Area. Once we choose one and register, I’ll be posting it here. I’m really excited. I’ve never done any sort of official race before – it will be a first for both of us together!

5k

Filed Under: Running Tagged With: ,

An Unlikely Mile Run

April 15, 2012 by

This week we got to soccer practice a little early. There is a trail that runs around the soccer fields and winds around a park. Allison was going to run it while I was running soccer practice, but she wanted to know how long the lap was before she ran it. I said I’d run it for her and track it with Runkeeper so that she would know how far it is. I pulled out my iPhone and loaded up Runkeeper, my favorite app for tracking running, biking, etc. It does gps tracking and tells you how far, how fast, elevation, etc. All of the data is synced to your account on runkeeper.com and is stored there permanently. If anyone has a runkeeper account, send me a street team request. You can view all of my activities here.

So…back to my story. I figured I would just run it real quick for her so she could plan how many laps she would do. I had my soccer cleats on in preparation for soccer practice and took off around the trail in them.

Since I had cleats on, I ran on the grass right next to the gravel trail. Running in cleats is not really the most comfortable thing, let me tell you. It even made me miss my old run down running shoes (which, btw need to be replaced badly). Check out the lining on them that is getting worn down…

As I rounded the last bend and looked towards the place where I started I looked down at my phone and it was almost a mile with my time around 7:30. I didn’t even realize I was running that fast. I guess I was nervous about being late to my own team’s soccer practice so I kept a good pace. I finished the mile in less than 8 minutes, clocking in at 7:50:

I guess all of that interval running I did during Body For Life has really paid off and helped condition my heart. Last week I didn’t do any interval running, but ran 2 miles Mon, Wed & Fri early in the morning with my son before school. I could tell a difference with him at his soccer game on Saturday. He was much better conditioned and did not get tired in the 2nd half like he usually does. He also scored his first goal of the season – woohoo!

As for me, I totally could have done the mile faster. I wasn’t even trying for a fast mile – plus, I was in soccer cleats! I now know a good place outside to time myself in a mile. At some point in the near future I’m going to do a real for real timed mile test. I’ll be interested to see how fast I can do it when I’m actually trying to get a good time. I’ll keep you updated once I do it. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Running, Technology

Running with my son

April 8, 2012 by

We spent Easter weekend at the beautiful JW Marriott Resort in San Antonio, Texas. We had a great time there and enjoyed relaxing in the lazy river:

They had a nice gym there, and I was going to lift a few weights yesterday. I figured I’d bring my son along. He’s always been fascinated with the gym and wanted to work out with me. Honestly, he’s a little young at 10 to start doing weight training, but I figured on vacation he would enjoy at least seeing the gym, all of the equipment, the exercises I do, etc – and maybe try a few light weights. The gym was unfortunately only for guests 16 and older, so he wasn’t able to go. I decided to skip the gym and do something else instead with him – go running. But…he only wore his crocs to the resort and didn’t bring any shoes to run in. So we decided to run barefoot on the golf course. The grass felt nice on our feet and we started out with the goal to run 2 miles together. At 2 miles, my son wanted to keep going and do 2.5. Then at 2.5 he wanted to do 3, which then turned into a 5K at 3.2 miles. We had a great run with some beautiful runs on the golf course and finished in around 32 minutes. I was quite proud of my son, who really showed some heart.

I’m still coaching my son’s soccer team, and we’ve decided to start running together in order to increase his endurance for soccer. We have practice Tuesday and Thursday, so we’re going to start running Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. I’m excited to start doing this with my son!

Filed Under: Running

Body For Life 12 Week Challenge Completion

April 4, 2012 by

I thought that the challenge was 90 days. In some places I’ve seen it written 90 days, others 12 weeks, and others 3 months. They’re all pretty close to eachother, but I guess 12 weeks is the one that the Body For Life website goes by. I registered at bodyforlife.com with my start date of Jan 9 and got an email Sunday congratulating me for finishing the 12 week challenge. It’s time for me now to do a write-up and submit it to the challenge along with before and after pictures. I’ll be working on that this week.

This has been an awesome experience! I have learned many things that I will take with me and incorporate in my day-to-day living going forward. Now I’m mulling over in my mind what I want to tackle next. I’ve been thinking about maybe training for a 5k, 10k, then half marathon. If I do increase my running for that, I’m still going to do weights 3 times a week like I’ve been doing while on Body For Life. I don’t want to lose what I’ve worked so hard to get. Maybe I’ll do P90X or a triathalon. Maybe I’ll bike from New York to LA. Seriously, I was thinking the other day about how cool that would be. Some fireman rode their bikes from LA to New York in memory of 911. Google Maps says it is around 2800 miles. 100 miles a day. 28 days. That would be pretty awesome. I would need to take a month off of work, though. Then maybe another month to recover 😉 Some day…

Stay healthy, my friends! I’m going to continue blogging about my adventures as I seek to live a healthy life and stay fit.

Filed Under: Body For Life

Day 83: Week 12 Weigh-in

March 31, 2012 by

Last week I gave a little sneak preview of something that was coming soon on my wife’s blog. She partnershipped with Scotts and me to do a promotional post about Scott’s fertilizer system:

The post is now live over at House of Hepworths – go check it out along with some more pics of me!

Now, for my this week’s weigh-in and pictures. If you remember, last week I had lost 2 pounds. I was a little frustrated because I’m trying to gain muscle now. Well – good news. This week I gained 3 pounds. Two weeks ago I was 160, dropped to 158, then back up to 161 this week.

Over the last two weeks, it’s a net of 1 pound gain. Here is the chart of my weight since I started Body For Life. You can see the initial weight loss as I burned off fat, and I’ve planed a little bit as I’m eating more and trying to gain more muscle, with a gradual increase of 4 pounds over the last 5 weeks. The first 7 weeks I lost around 2 pounds per week and the last 5 I’ve gained an average of 1.25 pounds per week.

Now, for my pictures this week. I’ve done a compilation similar to what I did after four weeks for this week’s pictures. First, the usual pics:

Now, with the progression every two weeks (click to enlarge):

There’s not much left for me in the 12 week Body For Life Challenge. Tomorrow marks 12 weeks to the day since I started. I’ve heard that many times you can’t see a huge difference until at least 6 or 8 weeks. If you’re doing Body For Life and don’t see huge improvements, even through 8 weeks, just keep sticking to it. My most drastic improvements showed the last 4 weeks. You are building muscle all along, but at some point you burn off enough fat for the muscle to start showing through. This has been an amazing experience that I’ll never forget.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Pictures Tagged With:
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