Monday walk and new Weight!

I forgot to post this last night. But E and I went out for a nice little evening walk to get some light exercise after work.



But there is happier news for this week. Two days in a row I have weighed in at 179. Thus I am even happier to say that I am officially under 180 pounds for the first time in a year. Actually, I honestly do not know when I went over 180 pounds I just know that sometime in the lead up of the November elections the stress, poor eating and poor exercise habits and I found myself over that weight. From there I continued to gain more with the April municipal elections and after losing those elections I spiraled out of control with my weight and lack of exercise. I soon reached 192 pounds on July 10th. Since then I have lost 13 pounds. Just 19 more to go but we will celebrate in small steps of reaching the under at 5 pound increments (174, 169, 164 and the goal weight of 160 or 159).

Gah! Where have I been?

Wow, have I failed miserably on this task of keeping the site updated. Especially now that we are into the fourth day of June and I haven't posted my June goal yet!

Just horrible of me. Well here it is:



125 kilometers for the month - easy enough for me to do considering that I am either walking or running (or a combination of both) for five kilometers basically every day.

So cheer me on and leave a nice comment or something!

Bucket List Running

I was appalled at this question posed by Mark Remy over at Runner's World.

So, today's hand grenade -- er, question -- is this: What do you think of folks who run a marathon for the sole reason of crossing it off some sort of "bucket list"?

And has this to add on:

OK. So this guy -- who I'm sure is a very nice man, by the way, with the best intentions in the world -- is basically lumping marathon running in with bungee jumping, seeing the Grand Canyon, getting a tattoo, reading Moby-Dick, and (you can't make this stuff up) owning a Miata. Just another "thing to do" before he dies. One more square in the hopscotch game of life. Tra la la.

Does anyone find this just a little bit irritating? Almost, well... insulting?

I don't know what was bothering Mark Remy when he started writing this that set him off. But why should someone go on a rant about how insulting that someone wants to be able to cross off a marathon from their bucket list? Especially someone who writes for a leading magazine on running.

In my opinion the more people running the better. It will help them get out the door and get some physical activity. There is no denying that our communities need a little of this. But even more so it speaks volumes to professional runners and athletes that someone holds up what you do as something that they would put on a list of things to do before they die. It's not "just another "thing to do" its one of the ultimate achievements that a person has on a list that would allow them to die happily.

And Mark Remy is going to blow it to smithereens with his grenade of a question?

Setting Goals

Everyone of us has a something bigger we want to achieve - running a faster 5k, losing a certain amount of weight or just trying to run more often. The only way to be able to do this is to set goals along the way of reaching the bigger picture. The video below shows you how to use Nike+ to these goals. I always have my goals on the right hand side of this blog. Making smaller goals will help you find your way to that grand goal that takes time.

February Goal

I accomplished my January goal and now it is time to move onto the February goal. 79 kilometers in 28 days. Very doable!

Making goals

When you want to achieve something it is vital for success to set small goals towards the final product. As we have seen this week my goal is a twelve week training program designed to slowly put me into good shape beginning with a large amount of walking to longer distances of running. During this time I will place upon myself these types of small goals to motivate myself.

This past Monday I set a goal of working out 15 times in the next four weeks. Nike+ is going to keep track of it just like they do with everything else! Its a great system. So as you can see I am at five workouts (it didn't catch Sunday's) and I am ahead of the required pace. Therefore I can take a day off - but I won't. That would get me off my training schedule - the purpose of this goal is to get the reward of knowing I can do it. Also, Nike+ will give me a medal in my online collection - its fun.



Just another of the great things about Nike+ and helping me stay motivated!