News to me

Well, today was a busy day. I got up and went and worked out this morning for an hour and a half. I started the workout with a 2.5 mile jog and then ended with a hours worth of drills. Needless to say I was feeling pretty tired after that. I am deciding on whether or not to go work out tomorrow morning. It will all depend on Tiffany and if she will be going to her Mary Kay meeting on Monday night.

I talked to my sister who was in the Air force and is now finishing up her masters and teaches a fitness class for Extreme Body Shaping. She apparently has been getting a chuckle out of my blog and the way that I eat, so I will be "trying" to change the way that I eat and not count calories but instead lower my complex carbs and increase my protein. I am going to try and eat more fruits and veggies and try and stay away from white bread. I am also going to try and eat more fiber and whole wheat products.

Only time will tell. Any suggestions?

Ouch

Well, a good workout yesterday. Lots of squats and leg lifts. Worked my lower body pretty good and now today I am sore. I am going to go workout an extra day on Saturday because I was unable to workout on Tuesday and I hear that it is pretty brutal on Saturdays.

My eating yesterday was not terrible but could have been better.

Breakfast:

1. BK Crossant 340
2. Small Hash Brown 230

Lunch:

1. Turkey Sandwitch 260
2. chips 140
3. Pudding Cup 102

Snack:

1. Banana 110
2. Med Diet Cherry Limeade 15

Dinner:

1. Steak Fajita 228

Total: 1213 calories

I think I did pretty good, only ate one fajita. I was pretty hungry after getting home from work, but did not want to eat before my workout because it did not go well the day before when I did that, so I just ate one fajita to get something in my stomach, with the intention of eating more after my workout. When I got home I was not hungry and was just ready to take a shower and rest.

This morning I did pretty good, had special K with half a banana and a hard boiled egg. I have yet to have a coke and I am feeling it, I might just go upstairs and get me a diet coke.

Core workout

Well had a pretty good workout yesterday. We worked our core for an hour, it was brutal. It is not just the workout but you have to jog about a mile before the workout starts to get your heart rate up. That just kills me sometimes.

One thing that I need to try is not to eat right before my workout. It was tough working out after eating delicious turkey tacos that Tiffany made for dinner.

Well, another week almost gone and another Saturday run about to be here. This Saturday we will be meeting at 6 am at Pinnacle Mountain State Park at the Visitor's Center. The scheduled distances are: 1 mi (half marathon build up), 4 mi (marathon build up), 6 mi, and 8 mi. Don't forget your bug spray AND your water and/or sports drink.

Well, today I need to jog a mile and a half. Not sure if am going to stick with my schedule but instead do the boot camp. I think that I will do better at the boot camp.

Since I did not wake up in time this morning, I was unable to get a proper breakfast. I ended up running out the door with 20 min to get the kids to school, and in traffic, it takes about 30. Because of this, I did not get the breakfast that I wanted to eat which was special K with bananas and one packet of Splenda. Instead I had to settle on Burger King croissant meal. I will be headed home for lunch, and I might just walk/jog my distance at lunch.

Since I blog every day, I think I am going to blog what I eat to get a sense of my food intake. If anyone has any calorie counting web sites that they recommend, please let me know.

Bah

I got out and jogged yesterday but was unable to workout with the group. I was watching the kids last night while Tiffany when out with some women from our church. I got 1.5 miles in, this is the distance for training. To tell you the truth, I might start slacking off of the marathon training runs but instead just workout 4 days of the week at the park with the fitness group. I find myself very very tired if I do both in one day.

To give you an update on the compression shorts that I purchased last week, I love them. They really help out with my runs. I don't get any more chafing and they really feel good. Here is my run from yesterday, link.

I did not do well today eating wise. My daughter wanted to go to eat donuts this morning, so I obliged and we ate donuts. I had a ham and cheese croissant with a donut, it was good but not good for me.

New workout

I am trying something new. I started up a bootcamp at a park close to me. It is lead by a former Marine and it is an hour a day, 4-6 days a week. I am going to try and go 4 days a week. Juggling that with Tiffany s schedule and the kids schedule will be a task, but I will work it out.

I also jogged 2ish miles yesterday just like me training schedule posted and it was rough doing that and 1 hour of workout. Here is the link for yesterdays run. The break in the run is when I stopped to talk to the workout instructor about the class.

What a weekend

Wow, what a weekend. This past weekend was really busy. One thing that I did not do was get out and run. I just had a hard time getting up in the morning and run. I did mow the yard, but waking up at 5:30 to go run at 6, just did not happen. Well today I have 2 miles to get done, easy enough.

I started using my phone to tether an internet connection while at work, and might I add, it works quite well and is pretty quick. I was able to stream Hulu and youtube just fine.

This is going to be a good week, I just know it.

Finally Friday

Well, I ran my 2 miles yesterday and I can honestly say that it felt great. Here is the link for my runkeeper log. I decided to run a different route, and I liked the change. I also upped my pace to under a 15 min mile ;-).

Here are a few pics that I took of my kids.



The first one is my kids going for a ride, but they got pulled over by the po-po (Police), I think they were speeding.



Here is another of my daughter going to school today. Today is picture day so my wife wanted me to take a picture of her before school. She had her clothes for today laying out all week just waiting for pictures.

New running shorts

Well, I have been doing some research on some new running shorts and I think I am going to try some compression shorts under my normal shorts. From what I read they seem to work well with chafing when being a bigger guy, I have been getting lately since I have been running.

I am thinking about getting "Under Armor Heat Gear Compression Shorts" Hopefully I can find a pair at a decent pair for a good price. I will let you know how they turn out.

This Saturdays run

I forgot to post (like anyone follows this blog) this Saturday we will be meeting at 6 am at the old Harvest Foods parking lot in the Riverdale Shopping Center on Cantrell Road in Little Rock. The scheduled distances are: marathon build up - 3 miles; folks who are doing maintenance distances - 4 miles, 6 miles, and 8 miles.

If you need directions, just let me know and I will let you know.

Good day off

Well, yesterday was my day off from jogging and I quite enjoyed it. I spent the time with the family inside and outside of the house. I will be jogging this evening, I will be doing my usual 2.3ish miles at the lake. I have been following the 3/2 breathing while jogging, and I really feel that I can go further without walking now. I am not going to push myself and I will stick with my current podrunner intervals course though.

I want to mention that if there is anyone wanting to know more about training for the LR marathon or just wanting to get out and jog/run, you can go to http://www.littlerockmarathon.com/ and click on training on the right side and sign up for the emails. In the emails it tells you where they meet to run every Saturday morning. If you have never jogging before, don't feel intimidated also. You have to start somewhere and they know that, they are very supportive.

What I am going to do this year is train for the full marathon but run just the half. I have never run anything before, and want to really get out there and run the half marathon. I think it is a good start. I have run 1 or 2 5ks, but nothing over that, time to get to work ;-)

Getting easier

Well, I got out and jogged and walked yesterday, my usual 2.3 miles. It seems to be getting better and better, not feeling as winded after it. One thing that I changed up was my breathing. I changed it to the 3/2 method, 3 steps in and 2 steps out and I can really see a difference. My stats are below:

Duration: 0:38:19 minutes
Distance: 2.31 miles
Avg Pace: 16:35 per mile
Avg Speed: 3.62 mph

Not to bad if I don't say myself

Well, if anyone is wanting to know, here is my runkeeper run, it is public, http://bit.ly/cHD5S. You can follow me on twitter also.

My Run

Well, I got out and jogged yesterday, but did not run my usual 2 miles. Here are my stats:

Duration: 0:28:38
Distance: 1.66 miles
Avg Pace: 17:13 per mile
Avg Speed: 3.49 mph

It was a good jog, I am not going by speed but instead distance, so the easier it gets for the further I go, I am happy. I had to stop early because it started to rain and my kids and wife were at the playground waiting for me to finish.

I will get out today, after work, and jog/walk again. I am on the second week of pod intervals to help me get distance I will follow the podcast for my short runs, and on Saturday, if I ever get up, I will just do my log runs, 3+ miles without doing pod intervals.

Party Time

Over the weekend, my daughter went to a birthday party. The party was for a 5 year old boy who is apparently into monster trucks. At the party they had a few large trucks in the parking lot, so here is a pictures of my son at the drivers wheel of a jacked up jeep.

Well, I will be getting out and jogging today if it kills me. I brought my lunch today because of us budgeting and because I believe that me eating out during lunch is my main cause of my weight. If I can cut my lunches out to a turkey sandwich and a small bag of chips for lunch, I can loose weight.

I will be starting week 2 of the couch to 5k podcast. So far I really like it, i have been jogging/walking 2.5 miles pretty easily and when I get done, I usually feel pretty good. Again if anyone is intrestered in the podcast, here it is.

Weekend

Well, it was a pretty normal weekend, did not do any running, was up late last night with my son and me and the wife argued some because we both have different views on how we should put him back to sleep. That's another story altogether. My kids were dedicated on my church tonight, it was nice but they messed up on the slide show when they called our name and only had my oldest daughters name.

I need to get back on track on Monday with my running, I think last week with the softball game, it really threw me off and really made me sore for most of the week. I did not feel like jogging or doing anything for that matter, I was exhausted.

Have a good run..

Bad week

Well, I had a bad week in working out. I think the 2 softball games that I did on Monday really wore me out this week. I did not get out to run on since Tuesday but I will see about tonight and tomorrow morning. Below is this weeks meet with the LR running group.

This Saturday we will be meeting at the River Market in downtown Little Rock at 6 am. The scheduled distances are: 3 miles (marathon build up), 4 miles, 6 miles, and 8 miles. Directions: We meet at the corner of the River Market where Boulevard Bread is located - the corner of President Clinton BLVD and Commerce.

I did get out and mow the back yard yesterday, so I did get out some oversize.

Wed Run

Well, I ran my lap around the lakes and runkeeper messed up. After getting back to the computer it said that I ran 22 miles :-) I wish. I did move on to week to of the pod runners interval couch to 5k pod cast. I noticed that the jogging part was a little faster and a little longer. I am glad that I got the run out of the way, and now I can enjoy the rest of my day working and with my family.

I found these 7 tips on completerunning.com about breathing while running:

1. Try slowing down before attempting to change your breathing.
2. Focus on longer, deeper breaths.
3. Breath more from your diaphragm (belly) than your chest (chest breathing is more shallow).
4. Focus on exhaling more fully. This will remove more CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and allow for deeper inhalations of O2 (Oxygen).
5. Allow air to enter through both the nose and mouth. This will allow for maximum O2 intake.
6. Aim to take three footsteps for every inhale, and two footsteps for every exhale (3:2 ratio). A good descriptions of this can be found on Military.com:

Many experts will say that to fully oxygenate the muscles and clear the body of carbon dioxide you should breathe a 3:2 inhale-to-exhale ratio; full inhales and full exhales. This means you INHALE on the LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT foot strikes and EXHALE fully on the RIGHT, LEFT foot strikes. This pattern is not that hard to turn into a habit, but it may require you to slow your pace down for a few runs to master the technique. You will notice a lower heart rate as you are able to get more oxygen in and more importantly push all the carbon dioxide out of your body. You may notice that you naturally drop to a 2:1 ratio when you are really pushing it to the finish. That is OK. But realize it is difficult to maintain a pace that requires you to breathe at a 2:1 ratio.

7. One last thing – try not to over-think your breathing! It’s best to try to slow down, relax, and let yourself fall into your body’s natural rhythm.

Yesterdays run

Well I was unable to run last night, my wife was not feeling good and it rained. I am trying to motivate myself to go during lunch, as of this post I will go home, change, jog my route, eat real quick and then go back to work. I have never done this before so it will be a learning experience. If it works, maybe it will motivate me to go during my lunch break at my daughters school track down the road.

I will let you know in a few hours ;-)

A Long Day

Well, this day is over and I am about to fall asleep. Work was busy and when I got home I cooked dinner and then went to play 2 back to back softball games. Luckily it was my last game of the season. I did not get a chance to run today but I think playing 2 softball games qualifies enough exercise.

Well, I am going to begin budgeting, not that we absolutely need it but I want to really start saving and get those things that I really want. My wife wants to get a new washer and drying and I want to be able to get it for her, but I can't because I know that we can't afford it. I need new components for my computer but again, I know that right now money is tight and we really can't afford it. One day though I will get it !!

I have been taking a multivitamin in the mornings, and I believe that it has been giving me that little extra kick, because today I came home and ate lunch and after wards, instead of just sitting and watching TV, I vacuumed the floor, picked up toys and moved the patio table back to its position on the deck.

What do you think, the multivitamins giving me that kick?

The wife and I are going to start planing out our meals, so if there is anyone out there that has some suggestions on planing a weeks meal please let me know. In the meantime, I will do some research and find out what I can do to plan out a weeks worth of meals ahead of time. It will be a challenge.

Deck

Well, as promised, here is the deck, before, during and after.





I have to do some touch up work and some of the stain was no even on some of the boards, but all in all, pretty good job if I don't say so myself. The sad thing is that I ran out of stain, so there are areas that need to be restained or stained and I have to go buy another gallon to do it. I will prob only use a tenth of it.

I used Cabot simi-solid deck stain with tile red color, and everything I read it should last me for 2-4 years.

What you think?

A long day

Well, This day is about over, it is 1am and I am about done with my work. It all started today with me jogging my usual lap around the lake (stats are below) and then got hot and messy from there.

Me and the wife finally got around to finishing up our deck. I have been working to get the old stain removed, cleaned and re-stained for about 3 months now. It took 6 hours to stain the railing and about 1 hour for me to finish up the floor of the deck. All in all I think it looks good, but I will have to get one more gallon to do my touch up because we used up the 2 gallons that we got.

btw, it was 95 degrees today ;-)

My daughter came home today. I am glad that she is home, I missed her. Me and the wife have been keeping the house pretty clean since she was gone, now we have to let my daughter know that the house needs to stay clean and that she will have to pick up after herself. She is about to turn 5 in October, is that asking too much?

I will get some pics of the deck up over the next few days. I will have a before and after.

2.34 miles
16.16 pace
3.69 Avg speed
363 Calories burned

I will be resting tomorrow.

A good day

Well it was a pretty good day yesterday. I got home and let my wife take a nap because she was up late with our son. I decided to take him for a stroll around the neighborhood and he decided to fall into a mud puddle against my advice (my son is 15 months old if you did not know). Well, to put it plainly he was not happy. I finally got home and got him cleaned up and my wife had a nice nap.

I ended up going jogging to the pod runner podcast and man did it make a difference in my distance. The interval training that it told me to do helped me go much further without getting as winded and I felt like I had a mush better workout. My stats were:

2.28 miles
16.09 pace
3.72 avg Speed
345 Calories burned

I got home dripping with sweat, but feeling great. It has been awhile since I have felt that good. I am looking forward to really hitting that 225 pound mark. It is only 17 pounds away and now I know that I can get to it. I have been trying to get down to 225 for years and years, and now I feel like I can do it.

New found love

Well, I guess I have been out of the loop for awhile. I have just found a bunch of podcast specifically for running and working out. It is setup so that you run to the beat of the music. I think I am in love ;-). I have been looking for something like this for awhile. The neat thing is that it is a podcast, so every week or so a new one comes out so all you do is hook your ipod up to iTunes it automatically transfers it to it.

I am getting energized about getting in shape and loosing weight. I went home for lunch today and had a ham and cheese sandwich and a fruit cup. I am thinking about running at my daughters gym at her school. I get free membership since she goes to preschool there. A lot of these music tracks are 30-45 min long, all I have to do is grab a quick lunch after jogging or just bring something and eat it at my desk, hmm.

Well, my daughter comes back from her vacation with Nanna and Pawpaw this weekend. I am happy to have here back despite what I say sometimes. I do miss her, and I hope she had a good time. I am sure some pictures were taken, so if I get any I will upload them for all to see.

Sorry

Sorry for no post yesterday, but I have been pretty busy. I went on call yesterday and also went to a Vmware vSphere 4.0 launch party. The presentation was pretty good, we run Vmware here where I work, and I really need to learn more about it.

Regarding my running, I have been staying on track, and I weighed myself last night and I am down 5 pounds from last week. I was surprised, it is really getting me motivated to get out more. My run today will be 2-3 miles. I am going to try and push it.

I found a new training program that I am going to try out, Podrunner. It is a podcast for running. It is basically the couch to 5k program put to music. Your pace is the music beats and it tells you when to jog and when to run. I am going to try it out today and see how it goes. They have one for 5k, 8k and 10k. The 5k program is a 10 week program.

This Saturday I will be meeting at 6 am @ the start of the NLR River Trail
(across from Alltel Arena, by the I-30 boat launch & the NLR Rowing Club
Boathouse). Since this is my long day, I will be going 4 miles. I don't expect to jog the whole thing, but I will be having fun doing it ;-)

Unbelievable

Well, like I said before this is a new week and a new me. Yesterday after getting home the first thing I did was get my running shoes and changed into my running gear. After a short talk to my wife, I went to the park where it was Hot, Hot Hot !! Man I did not realize how hot it really was, I think it was around 95 degrees.

I used RunKeeper to keep track of my pace and time and for my run yesterday I ran a total of 1.70 miles with an avg. pace of 15:17. I know what some of you are saying, 15:17 is not running that is walking. Well to me it is jogging and it felt like it. I maintained about a 4mph rate till a little past the 1 mile mark. It is a start.

So today I went home for lunch and ate with my wife. I also got some chicken ready for tonight's dinner. If anyone is wondering what I am having tonight it is called, Unbelievable Chicken . It looked good and I like to grill so, I setup the marinade while I was at home and now the chicken is sitting nicly in my refrigerator. I will try and post the recipe if I cook so you can get an idea of what I eat.

My Delimma

It is a new week and a new me. I have to get out and jog this week. I am in a contest at my job to loose weight, the winning team gets $5000 and I am dead last in my team. I believe that our team is in 24th place. I can't even get motivated by cash to loose weight and eat right.

I found out today while eating that a group next to me is bringing their lunches and eating in the break room. I am going to try this for a week to see how it goes. in addition to saving money by not eating out, maybe I will break my cycle of eating out during lunch and eat in and loose some weight.

What really scares me is this fact that I found out, One in five kids and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. I have 2 kids right now and I have a 50/50 chance that one of them will be overweight or obese. I can't see my kids like that and I won't. Is it enough motivation for me to loose my weight? I don't know.

I can read and read and read till my eyes bleed, and I know what I need to do but I am just lacking motivation to do it. I think it is enough time for me to say that I am going to try and just do it. So when i get home, I am going to change and go jogging and not even think about it. If I start thinking about it., I will have a harder time getting going.

WDS

Well, now the weekend is over and I can get back to work. This week, I will be trying to setup a Windows Deployment service, so I can easily upgrade and install windows servers. Just to recap, I am a Windows Administrator for a Telecommunications company in Little Rock, AR.

Since we have not setup WDS before, it has to be done in a sandbox. WDS needs 3 things before you can install it.

DNS
Active Directory
DHCP

Being in a sandbox, is makes it hard because it is hard to get files to the server.
A good install guide to install WDS in windows 2008 is here.

Blah

A pretty busy day today. My son decided to wake up all though the night last night so my wife was up all night with him. So this morning I let her sleep in while I took care of my son. Hopefully tonight he won't do the same.

I did not get out and run this weekend, I have been pretty lazy. When did I get lazy in my life? Not sure but it does suck. I kept talking myself into not going. This is one of the things that I do best ;-). I has been raining all day today, but finally the rain stopped so at least I got outside and got a 30 min walk with my wife.

Have a good one..