You must think all I talk about is running the Robie Creek half marathon. Looking back at my recent posts, I would have to agree with you

Yesterday, I, with a few co-workers, ran the uphill portion of the race course. We started out at Fort Boise, ran the pavement (about 3 miles), then the uphill portion of the race on the dirt road (about 5+ miles). The run went very well for me. For comparison, during last year’s race, I took 1:26:33 to make it to the summit which including some walking near the top. Yesterday’s training run took 1:18:38 – whoo hoo. Armed with this information, I had to figure out what my expected time would be given the split reading at the summit. If I am like other runners from last year that took that much time (or that little time depending on how you look at it), I can expect to complete the run right around the 1:50:00 mark.

Another co-worker of mine, one who didn’t run with us yesterday, is doing most of his training on a treadmill. While I don’t think I could use a treadmill on a regular basis (even though I can sit on a erg all day – go figure), he has been pleased with results to date, mainly because he can get an intense workout in a short amount of time.

Today’s exercise includes the already completed 100 sit ups and the planned run with the dog.

[tags]robie creek, half marathon, running, treadmill, treadmill workout[/tags]

I guess my wife loves me. I say this because she bought me a digital scale, a Taylor 5578 bodyfat scale to be specific. The scale is a Valentine’s present – actually a pre-Valentine’s day present since my 11 year old teenage son dropped enough hints for me to put two and two together.

It is a nifty little scale. Of course, it measures your weight and does so to the nearest tenth of a pound. Expect the results I post going forward to have numbers that resolve down to the tenth of a pound. I don’t know exactly how it does all the magic to report your weight, body fat and % of weight consisting of water, but it does. It does mention that your feet should be damp. I’ll quote how the body fat is measured:

This instrument uses BIA (Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis). BIA is one of the most accurate methods of measuring body fat. It simply sends a harmless signal through the fat and muscle in your body. This method calculates both your personal weight and body fat simultaneously, thus giving you a more accurate reading of your overall health and fitness.

To get that level of detail, you need to program in your height (to the nearest tenth of an inch), your age, your sex, and whether you are a “normal” person or an “athletic” person. For what it is worth, the manual that comes with the digital scale considers a person athletic if they do 10 hours or more per week of aerobic activity and has a resting heart rate of 60 beats per minute.

In the presence of the family, I stepped up on the scale and weighed 181.6 pounds. This was taken just after dinner with my running clothes on, sans shoes and socks. I’m not so sure I believe the report back that 21% of my weight is fat. The other number was 57% of my weight consisting of water. I’ll do what I always do in the morning and weigh myself with very little clothing and see if that body fat percentage changes.

Anyway, my wife orginally planned on putting the scale out before she goes to bed tonight and leaving a few pieces of candy on the scale. I guess she was planning on teasing me.

[tags]digital scale, Taylor bodyfat scale[/tags]

Might be time for a digital scale. My weight seems to be “fluctuating”.

Today’s weigh in was two pounds less than yesterday’s. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be looking at my weight every day. I say wrong. Keeping track of my weight and weight loss daily keeps me motivated to make sure I am doing what needs to be done to loss the weight I plan on losing. If you are thinking that I am going overboard, you’re not the only one, my wife agrees with you.

As mentioned previously, I made the end of the day the focus for drinking water and I think it worked better. No “anxiety” during the day if you know what I mean.

And tonight I rowed for an hour, 13572 meters with a 2:12.6 / 500 meter average PLUS a one mile jog home. Yeah baby, I feel a good night’s sleep coming on. Each 12:00 split was faster than the previous split.

Oh, and another thing, no snacks or dessert today.

[tags]digital scale, ergometer[/tags]

By now you should know that I LOVE the erg. And what’s not to love about it? This machine of torture provides the most hideous type of workout – the one that keeps you locked down to the machine until you complete your sentence.

I’m just kidding … I do thing the erg is a great machine for working out on and keeping track of your efforts. One small tip that you might find helpful for getting good erg stats is to look for the “memory” option. I forget exactly how to get to that option in the menu, but once there you can review the most recent workouts. The best part is that it returns your splits. For instance, if you program the erg for a 10,000 meter workout, you can review the results and the memory will return your total time and the time for each 2,000 meter split. Saves you the effort of having to memorize your splits as you do them if you want to keep track of your efforts.

[tags]erg, ergometer[/tags]

Just a short update on my pedometer usage.

I have consistently used my pedometer every day. Yesterday was the biggest day for number of steps, 23386 with about half of that coming from an hour run (see previous post) for 6.4 miles.

The days that are sub 10000 steps are because I didn’t run that day, those are the days I have gone to the YMCA to use the rowing machine.

EDIT: Went for a walk with the dog and kids – we were playing hide and go seek with the dog and I lost my pedometer. Crap. This is the second time I have lost a pedometer, remind me never to buy a pedometer that doesn’t strap on some how. This pedometer clips on.

I rowed this afternoon and did 5km in 19:38, 1:57.8 per 500 meters.
[tags]pedometer[/tags]

My first full day of using the SportBrain pedometer.

Part of the reason I like this pedometer so much is that it provides a web site that tracks your stats. Stuff like distance, speed, number of steps for the day.

Once you connect your pedometer to the computer via the USB cable, open the SportBrain program on your computer, the stats get automatically uploaded to the site.

Here’s a summary of your daily stats:

On the right hand side of the page you can see your speed throughout the day. Notice that I started the day around 7AM – that is my walk out to the car then my walk into work followed by what looks like a couple hours at the desk (that has to change!). At lunch I went for a fifteen minute walk, then again around 1:45PM I went for another short run. When I came home tonight, I went for a 45 minute run with the dog (that’s the “pink” part of the chart.

An finally, the next image shows the total steps for each day for the last seven days. I just received this pedometer in the mail yesterday, hence the reason only 200+ steps show up. Today, I put in close to 16,000 steps.

[tags]pedometer, running[/tags]