Anthony’s Notebook

Picture taken on my morning run.

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I did not feel like working out this morning. I am eleven weeks into a sixteen week marathon training schedule and I have the day off from work. A small part of me wanted to stay in bed and sleep until the sun was fully up and shining. The idea of throwing on clothes, my Vibram Five Finger shoes, and heading down to the basement for weight training did not seem appealing. The little voice inside my head told me to get up and go, so I did. I got up, surfed the web, read a few blogs/rss feeds, and planned my workout. No excuses and no bitching about it.

Looking back at my training schedule, I have missed only a couple planned workouts in the past few years. Most mornings I am totally prepared and anxious to run, lift, practice yoga, or bike. So, most mornings I am motivated. There are a few mornings where it is cold, raining, dark, or I am tired from being out late and I just don't feel like getting out of bed. It is those mornings where I have to steady my mind and really stop thinking. My brain is telling me to sleep and reminding me: how warm it is under the covers, the wife is there, the dog is there, everyone is asleep, and it is not nice out. My only motivation is shutting off my brain and focusing on the idea of movement, weight, and energy. I think of keywords like: go, move, lift, and do it. This seems like a lot of meditation, but it only takes about three seconds to go from zero to getting out of bed. Once I am up, I will be working out thirty minutes later.

I really don't know where the motivation to work out comes from; but I do know that on mornings where I am not motivated, it takes mental effort to start moving. It is this same mental effort that tells me to squeeze out a couple more reps, a few more miles, or hold a pose a few more breaths. It is not a thinking effort for me, it is something more primal. I do not like to fail, nor let myself or others down. I do not think about failing to go the distance, hitting the mark, performing the reps, or accomplishing something. I constantly visualize proper form, technique, and success in all of my workouts. I guess it can be called having a singular mind.

Most of my workouts are performed alone: no spotter, no classes, no partner. If I need instruction, I go to class until I feel I have learned what I need and then research, mimic, and plan my own workouts based on what I learned in the classroom or studio. When working out with others, I feel I am distracted; not focused. I also carry this singular mind to the movements within the workouts by not worrying about time and weight. In weight lifting, I normally perform eight to ten compound exercises that hit every muscle group for a symmetrical workout. I only perform one set per exercise to muscle failure. I am not worried about rep count, sets, and stacking weight. I only focus on proper form and using the heaviest weight I can handle to sweat-dripping failure. Nothing complex, just basic HIT principles. When running, I only think about covering the target distance and focusing inward, listening to my body's breathing and constant warning signs of exhaustion and fatigue. So I try to keep things simple, using a singular mind, and visualizing success.

Why I workout, and do so with intensity and focus, is no big secret to those who know me. Good health is a gift. Any number of things can happen and your health can be taken from you. Knowing this, it is your responsibility to be a good custodian of your body. I do this by staying balanced, eating responsibly, working out, resting, and taking care of myself medically. I had a health scare a couple of years ago and it totally opened my eyes. I now know that good health can be fleeting. I absolutely want to enjoy every minute of physical activity this body has in it. I will not take my second chance at mobility and good health for granted. Lastly, exercise makes me happy. That is all the motivation I need. :-)

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I have lost 55 pounds since the end of May 2009. This is just a follow-up to my previous weight-loss post. I thought I would include more data and updated pictures. Since the last post, I have lost another 10 pounds. I am about where I want to be weight-wise. If you look at my favorite foods chart, you will notice there are still a sizable number of junk foods on the list. I was hoping to have more fruits and vegetables represented, so my next goal is to have more fruits and vegetables at the top and chips and candy at the bottom or gone.

Loseit.com added more features to both their iPhone app and their website, reports being the most interesting and the source of my graphics for this post. From analyzing my data, it is apparent that December was a bad month for me. Though my exercise was fairly consistent, I consumed too many calories and I had weight gain of a couple of pounds. Once I hit my goal of 155, my BMI will be 25; still "overweight," but I will be happy with that result. If I dropped to 150, my BMI would be "normal" at 24.2. At the moment, my weight is 156 with a BMI of 25.2. My waist is ~31 inches and my height is 5'6". If I lost too much more weight, my wife would kill me because we would have to replace my wardrobe again and that would be too much on the budget. :-)

From my favorite exercises chart, you will see that weightlifting and running are my primary activities with calisthenics being the third. I substituted the calisthenics activity for recording yoga sessions in the Lose It iPhone app, because I didn't feel the yoga activity setting accurately reflected real caloric expenditures. I only added in yardwork, house cleaning, and snow shoveling when I was performing particularly hefty projects around the house. My favorite apps for helping me lose weight and keep it off are: Lose It, Run Keeper, and Fitness Builder. The combination of the three of these apps have helped me to easily lose weight and track my workouts. That's it for now, I will post more around the anniversary of starting my diet--end of May-ish.

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Tomorrow is the beginning of my 16-week training schedule for the Ocean Drive Marathon, scheduled for March 28, 2010. I plan on following this schedule for the next 16 weeks. The schedule includes only weight training and runs, but I may switch a weight training session for a bike ride or add in a yoga session--depending on the weather or my mood. My marathon schedule is a mash-up of the Hal Higdon novice schedule and the Runner's World "Less-is-more" marathon plan. Essentially I took the 3-day running idea from Runner's world and modified Mr. Higdon's novice schedule--dropping rest and run days and adding weight training. It isn't much different than what I have been doing for months, so it won't be much of a challenge--except increased mileage of course. :-) I will update this page, striking completed workouts, as I move forward. I have no idea how many distance runs I have completed since 2002, but this is pretty much the schedule I have followed for all of them--except in 2004. In 2004, I only weight trained once a week and ran in excess of 100 miles a week for almost 7 weeks straight. My 2004 schedule (for the St. Louis Marathon) was about 35 weeks long and not an abbreviated 16. This will be my first full marathon since 2006. Wish me luck.

Update (2/17/2010): Registered for the marathon. I know it's before my first 18-miler and I am breaking my own rule of not registering before I complete first long training run, but I am feeling pretty confident. I might even set my sights on breaking my previous PR of 3:31, set in 2004 at the St. Louis Marathon.

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Pictures of Cole and Murray running the 2009 Philadelphia Marathon. Cole finished at 4:32 and Murray at 3:27. Good job gents!

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I have lost 45 pounds since the last week of May, approximately 20 weeks. That is about 2.25 pounds per week. I started at 211 pounds and now weigh 166 pounds, at 66 inches in height. My initial weight loss goal was 170 pounds or a loss of 41 pounds. When I reached the first goal, around the second week of September, I decided to create a new goal of 165 pounds. Now that I am very close to the second goal, I have decided to push my weight goal to 160 pounds. This new goal will probably do two things: put me closer to an optimal BMI and probably let my ab muscles show through a bit better. My weight loss was not difficult and did not take a long time. I was already exercising and eating the right foods. The problem was that I was eating way too much. Instead of staying within 1500 calories or so, I was shoveling in 4000 or so calories per day. I kept wondering what the hell am I doing wrong!? I was exercising with frequency and intensity, but was only gaining weight and/or hovering around 215.

In the middle of May, the executive director of our department told me about an iPhone app named Lose It. It is a free application that measures calories (expended and consumed), plans weight loss/gain/maintenance, and plots the data over time. I downloaded the app and added a couple of other iPhone apps to aid me in my endeavor. I wanted a good way of keeping track of my running, biking, and weight lifting, so I downloaded Run Keeper and Fitness Builder too. I use/d Run Keeper to keep track of my hiking, biking, and running. I have written before about my struggles with rheumatoid arthritis, so I had to hike and bike before I could start running. Run Keeper was the perfect tool for managing all of my data and helping me to translate that data for Lose It. I use/d Fitness Builder to track all of my resistance training, from free weights to machines to kettlebell workouts. I created 19 custom workouts in the app and kept track of every rep and every set while working out in the man-cave (basement). A great number of my custom workouts were based on information that came out of Dumbbell Training for Strength and Fitness by Matt Brzycki and Fred Fornicola. Again, I would track my time spent lifting and move that data into Lose It for a more accurate calorie count. I also used Google Calendar as a tool for keeping a simple record of workouts, type, and distance (hiking, biking, running) at a glance.

The pictures attached to this post are not doctored. The "before" picture shows me the night before I started tracking calories and the "after" pic was taken today after returning from a short 4.5 mile run out at Ridley Creek State Park with the wife and dog. You might notice that the before pic was taken with my old first-generation iPhone and today's pic was taken with the new 3GS. Run Keeper required GPS to track location when I was hiking, biking, or running.

The reason I picked 170 pounds for my first goal was because the Marine Corps has height/weight standards and 170 was the upper limit for my height. Being a former Marine, I wanted to fit within those standards--even though I have been out of the Corps since 1994. When I reached the 170 pound goal, I realized I could do better and adjusted my goal to meet a more ideal weight. Another motivational aid was to subscribe to magazines, blogs (RSS), and Twitter feeds that focus on exercise. My subscriptions include Runner's World, Men's Health, Yoga Journal, Flex, and various blogs/Twitter feeds from professional figure competitors, runners, and bodybuilders. Whenever I didn't feel like hitting the man-cave at 6 AM, I would open a Flex magazine and leaf through for motivation. When I didn't feel like getting out and running in the rain, I would get on Google Reader and peruse a few blog feeds by athletes. You get the picture. I kept motivated even when I wasn't feeling it.

To be quite honest, losing the weight was not difficult. Yeah, I gave up a lot of sweets for vegetables, but it wasn't terrible. With the three iPhone apps, motivational reading material, and seeing the pounds fall off, it was really easy and happened much faster than I had anticipated. One thing that I did, which I haven't talked about, was visiting the doctor regularly. Because of RA, I was seeing a doctor every few months anyway; but with the weight loss goal, I visited a nurse for well-visits a few times over the past couple of months for added safety. I highly recommend making a well-visit before, during, and after your own program. It makes a difference and will probably keep you from doing something you may regret later.

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It was a nice hike this morning. We added a bit of distance to our normal route and I finished up with body weight exercises: push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups. I keep hovering around 180 pounds. I want to lose another 10 pounds though. I have been pretty good with the diet, although I am running close in calories on a daily basis. My weight loss has held steady at 2 pounds per week. I have only missed two workouts in three years. I won't miss a workout this calendar year. ;-)

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