A Quick Update on My Weight

by Brandon  

I meant to include this with yesterday’s post, but it completely slipped my mind, so here we are.

In my post on turning 30 at the end of January, I wrote about one of my side goals for this year being losing the last 20-ish pounds that have been hanging around. The ultimate goal is to help me run faster, and losing some extra weight is probably one of the “easiest” ways of accomplishing that. I don’t plan on turning this back into a weight loss blog, but in the interest of accountability and motivation, I figured I would report on my progress on a monthly(-ish) basis.

A quick recap of my 2012 weight loss:

  • January 1: 221
  • February 1: 215.6
  • March 1: 210.8

So that makes 10.2 pounds lost in 2 months. That’s a little more than 1 pound/week. I’ll take it.

February in Review

by Brandon  
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You may have noticed that I haven’t been doing much writing lately. I hope to change that soon. We’ve had a crazy winter here, and it’s kept me very busy as of late. Back at the start of February, we had a water pipe burst downstairs and make quite a mess. Then, later that same week, our roof started leaking. As they say, when it rains it pours (through your roof!). Needless to say, much of my “free time” this month has been taken up by doing repairs and dealing with the aftermath.

While I haven’t been able to find much time to write lately, fortunately I have still been finding time to run. These have been much-needed runs. With everything that’s been going on, I likely would have gone completely mad if it had kept me from running as well. Instead, I actually made February – the shortest month of the year – my highest mileage month ever. And, unlike last month when we were subjected to weeks-long sub-zero temperatures, very few of these miles were run inside on the treadmill.

It’s amazing how much our perspective changes over time. There were actually a few weeks during February that I was a bit disappointed about not getting more miles in. But looking back at the end of the month, I hit my highest monthly mileage ever at 142.4 miles. Every week of February, I had higher mileage than even my highest mileage week going into my first marathon in December 2010.

Looking back at the start of last year, when I was still recovering from my ITBS injury, my mileage was very low. In both January and February of this year, I ran more miles than January through March of last year combined.

It’s hard to be disappointed with that.

Wrapping My Head Around Running 50 Miles

by Brandon  
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I’ve done it. I’ve committed to running the Resurrection Pass 50 Miler in July.

Well, as much as I can commit anyway, since it’s an extremely low-key race with no “official” registration. When I sent an email to the race director this week saying that I’d like to register, this was the entirety of the response that I got:

There’s no formal registration or entry fee.  Just show up around 5 am at the start to sign up.  In lieu of an entry fee, a much appreciated donation of $20 at the finish to help cover aid station expenses, etc. is accepted.  Let me know if you have questions re aid stations, course, start/finish locations, etc.  You have to be self-sufficient for the 38 miles of trail, although there are several stream crossings where you can access water.

This is essentially a “fatass” event, where there’s little-to-no support, no fees and no awards. Just a group of runners getting together to have a good time and run a lot of miles. Looking at the results from last year, there were 30 runners for the 50 miler, so it’s definitely not a huge event, but that’s just fine by me. And it looks like a perfect race for my first ultramarathon. In a subsequent email with the race director, after mentioning that this would be my first 50 miler, he replied with this:

The Res Pass is a good race for first time 50 milers, as it is a very runnable trail without a lot of climbing to get over the pass. We have lots of first time 50s in this race, and seems all of them end up finishing.

Long before I committed myself to running this race, I started consuming every bit of information I could find on what it takes to run 50 miles. From books, to blogs, to podcasts, I’ve been immersing myself in the world of ultrarunning. I’ll put together another post on resources for ultrarunning, but for now I’ll just touch on a few of the most useful things I’ve read lately.

  • iRunFar.com – pretty much THE website for ultrarunning. Tons of information on the “hows” of running an ultramarathon, with lots of interviews with seasoned ultrarunners that are chock-full of useful info.
  • Relentless Forward Progress – written by Bryon Powell of the previously mentioned iRunFar.com, this book takes all the great content from his website, and organizes it into easily-digestible book form. This book is mostly aimed at new ultrarunners, and covers everything you need to know to run your first ultramarathon, from training plans, to nutrition, to handling aid stations. If you are even thinking about running an ultramarathon, I can’t recommend this book enough.
  • Running Through the Wall: Personal Encounters with the Ultramarathon – this book isn’t so much about the “hows” of running an ultramarathon as it is the “whys”. It’s full of personal stories from everyday runners who have overcome the seemingly insurmountable challenge of running an ultramarathon. I’m actually only about halfway through this book so far, but I’ve enjoyed it immensely, and have found a lot of inspiration in reading stories from “regular” runners such as myself. It makes me realize that running 50 – or even 100 – miles isn’t the impossible feat that it seems like at first.

I’m still going back-and-forth about following a traditional training plan. As I’ve written about before, I’m a big fan of the “no plan” plan. But obviously, running 50 miles is a whole new ballgame for me. I’m still heavily leaning towards not officially following a plan, but at the very least, I’ll be trying to follow the general mileage laid out, most likely from the 50 mile training plan in Relentless Forward Progress. I certainly plan to take this training seriously, but at the end of the day, I run because I enjoy it. And I still feel like having an official training plan to follow would make it feel more like a job.

Thirty

by Brandon  
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Today is the day. The day I turn the big 3-0.

In my younger days, 30 always sounded so old, so adult. Now that I’m here, I don’t feel particularly old (or wise, for that matter).

Instead, I start my 30th year the healthiest I’ve ever been, having reclaimed my life and health over 2 years ago now. And I vow to make this my best year ever! I’ve got plenty of running plans lined up this year, with 2 big goals in particular:

  1. I will break 4 hours in the marathon this year. I’ve already been doing lots of speedwork at the indoor track once a week, and I will continue to do more of the same as we move towards the summer and Mayor’s Marathon in June. One other thing I’m doing to help accomplish this goal: finally lose the last bit of weight that’s been hanging around. In 2010, I lost 90 pounds, going from 290 to 200. Then, I put back on a little bit and spent most of 2011 in the 215-220 range. Ideally I think I’d like to be down around 190-195. The rule of thumb I’ve seen is that for every pound of extra weight that you’re carrying around, you lose 2 seconds per mile. That may not sound like much, but over the length of a marathon, that works out to about 20 extra minutes for me. So in theory, I could go from my current PR of 4:00 down to 3:40 just by getting to my goal weight. On January 1, I tipped the scales at 221. Today I weighed in at 212. Let’s do this!
  2. Finish my first ultramarathon (a 50 miler in July) – hopefully with a smile still on my face! I haven’t officially signed up for this race yet, but I’m mentally committed to running (and training for) this.I’m sure it won’t be easy. I’m sure there will be times that I’ll ask myself why I’m doing this. I’m also sure that it will be one hell of an adventure that I’ll never forget.

Here’s to an epic year, may 30 be my best year yet!

Fun fact: I share a birthday with Oprah, so happy 58th birthday to her! Sorry, I don’t have any cars to give away.

Dreaming the Cold Away

by Brandon  
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In my last post, I detailed my winter running gear, extolling the pleasures of running in the cold – as long as you’re well prepared. Since then, we’ve spent the past 2 weeks hovering in the -10 – -15° range, with little reprieve. Those are the kind of temperatures that keep me inside, which has meant quite a few runs on the treadmill lately. Not only is that just some dang cold weather to run in, the preparation that goes into a run like that is quite the production. When it takes me 20-30 minutes to get ready for a run, it hardly feels worth it to go out for anything less than an hour, and I really only have that kind of time on the weekend.

I did manage to get out for an 11 miler last Sunday when it briefly warmed up to 12° before dipping back down into the sub-zero range. Unfortunately, I was overly optimistic about the relatively warm temperature and dressed too lightly. Then, just as I was at the point in the run where I was furthest from my house, the wind and snow really kicked it up a notch into a mild blizzard. I was really starting to get cold at this point. I’m sure that I negative-split this run in my attempt to get home as quickly as possible. I missed getting a photo of it, but I literally had a 3″ icicle hanging off the side of my hat when I got home.

Needless to say, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of the cold at this point. In my previous life as an overweight couch potato, the cold didn’t bother me nearly as much. I just didn’t go outside. But now that I’ve become healthy and running is such an important part of my life, this kind of prolonged cold really puts a cramp in my style. I love Alaska, I really do. The wildlife, the rugged beauty, it’s an amazing place to call home. But these weeks-long cold snaps are getting to be a bit much.

January and February are usually our coldest months, and it seems like it’s always around this time of the year that we start talking about moving some place warm. I doubt it will ever happen – we both grew up here and both our families still live here – but it’s nice to dream, right?