Monday, April 11

Holy Half 10K

I set a goal - couch to 10K. It is finished. It is complete.

There's always something nice about setting a goal, working towards it and achieving it.

It was a hot day - near 80 degrees and the race started at 10 a.m.

I raced with friends Kyler and Rebecca.

It was weird, at the start of the race, no one wanted to toe the start line. Kyler was at the front raring to go and there was no on else around him.

It would have been nice to sit at the front and feel like I was ready to race.

But I was actually ready to run a 10K.

My goal was to run the whole race. During the first two miles, I mainly thought to myself that I was running too fast. Then it got hot and I was battling to stay slow and not pass the people in front of me.

During miles 3-5 I had a Paul Tergat quote that I had in my mind as a mantra I repeated --- "Ask yourself, can I give more? Usually the answer is yes."

I just repeated the first part of the quote and it was plenty.

As the half-marathon finishers came in, a lot of people needed medical attention. I felt lucky I was able to finish the race without passing out. I pray that everyone recovers well from the race.

I think I may look to do the Sunburst as my next goal.

Sunday, April 3

Race week

OK - it's race week. Today I had two runs --- about five miles on trails in the morning and two miles in my neighborhood in the evening.


I tried to run fast in the evening and realized that my speed is far away from where I want it to be. Or where I would like to be.

So the goal is just to finish the race, have a good time and be relatively alert.

So my goal for the week is to try to be active everyday at 10 a.m. It may be tough, but that's this weeks' goal.

Monday 10 am --- vigorous 2 mile walk to test the pedometer again and see how many steps are in a mile --- afterwards stretch, do push-ups and sit-ups.

Tuesday 10 am --- run hills at the park

Wednesday 10 am --- walking, visiting an English class. I may do a vigorous walk later in the day.

Thursday - 10 am - 3 mile run --- last run before the race, practice the mindset of the race, go out slow and try to just have fun.

Friday --- 10 vigorous walking maybe 3 miles

Saturday 10 am --- 1 mile vigorous walk ----


Sunday -- 10 am --- 10K race.


This is my plan for the week. Hopefully it will all go well and I haven't made God laugh too hard. We'll see.

Pedometer accuracy

I've done google searches on pedometer criticism. The main one I found is that pedometers don't measure workout intensity.

But the one I wonder the most about is pedometer accuracy. I went around and counted 100 steps several times last night and then looked at the pedometer. The pedometer numbers didn't reflect that.

I also know that every step is not going to be the same.

And I've noticed that when I go the bathroom and zip or unzip my pants or pull down or pull up my pants, the pedometer registers that as a step or two.

So, in some ways, I'll take the pedometer numbers with a grain of salt.

But it is a good measure, I suppose, of how much I get up from my desk and walk around and not spend time just staring at the computer. And it motivates me to do that more. It's also something to do when I'm waiting on the computer to load or save something. (We get the idea that saving something should be instant, but with the programs I'm working with saving often takes a minute or so, plenty of time to get up and walk away from the computer instead of getting frustrated at how slow it is.)

Here are the numbers for my first three nights at work with a pedometer, using my currently established estimate of 2000 steps equals a mile.


Thursday night shift -- 9001 miles - 4.5 miles (10 hours)

Friday night shift -- 10,843 - 5.4 miles (11 hours)

Saturday night shift --18, 820 - 9.4 miles (12 hours)

The interesting thing about the saturday night shift is that I felt very tired at the beginning of the shift and didn't walk around that much. After midnight though, I walked with a little bit more intensity at a couple of points.

All in all, a good use of my time. I was also very productive at my job, so it was all positive.