Feb 19 2009
Progressing as planned!
Took a whole minute off my 5k today. 27:24. I did the first mile in 8:03, and the last 3/4 mile at 7:34 pace. I think. Everything was a little blurry at that point. I’ll do some longer distance this week, and then next Thursday try for 26 minutes. I’m pretty confident that I can hit 25 minutes within 3 weeks, but we’ll see how that goes.
I either need to take a little more time between waking up and working out, or I need to just hold off on the coffee until after I’ve run. “Coffee slosh” is brutal when you’re trying to set a personal best.
My weight loss seems to have stalled at 7 pounds (I’m at 203 now). I am, however, losing body fat, which really is just as good. I think the disparity is due to strength training. I can’t seem to find an exact figure anywhere, but I’ve heard that muscle weighs two to three times as much by volume as fat, depending on the specific muscle and the person. If anyone knows better, please speak up in the comments!
I figure I have a couple of options to lose the remaining 13 pounds. Just reducing calorie intake would do it eventually, ditto for increasing cardiovascular exercise. Cutting back on the weight training would do it too, at the cost of muscle mass but with the result of a more compact and efficient body composition. If I were going to focus on running or cycling, I think that would be the way to go. But I’m going to start swimming again at some point, which takes a considerable amount of upper body strength. So the only reasonable path to take seems to involve eating less and running more, which totally sucks. Oh well. At my height and build, 190 pounds is exactly where I need to be if I’m going to be a competitive athlete. Also, being 13 pounds lighter would mean 39 fewer pounds of force every time my foot hits the ground while running, and based on Dad’s knee history that is pretty important to me.
Are there any nutritionists in the audience? I’d love some pointers on how to cut back on calories while still getting all the necessary nutrients. What’s a good protein:carb:fat ratio for someone training for a marathon? How many grams of protein should a 200 pound guy trying to lose weight (but not muscle) have daily?
