2006 - November

[El Gordo]

Let's forget October.

[Sweder]

I took great heart from reading your post this morning.
There's more than a pleasing cold snap in the air just now; there's the delicious, tantelising whiff of optimism.

Take heed of your own wise words posted today in my diary and ease back into it.
Remember, less can be more

[stillwaddler]

Great to hear you are getting out there again Andy, your "every other day"strategy is sound, you'll soon be flying round Brighton. Sorry to hear both you and M have had family bereavements, hope things are on the up for you both now.

[El Gordo]

Thanks, SW.

Are you coming to Almeria with us at the end of Jan?

[Sweder]

My sprouts were frozen.

Ha! A familiar feeling - great isn't it?
Good luck with the lard-shedding; I reckon you'll do it.

For the record I'm currently 91.8 kilos or just over 202 lbs.
That's 14st 6 in old money. I haven't been below 14st 3 for a long, long time.

Good to have you back in the writing as well as running sense.

[Antonio247]

Andy, I´d like to show my simpathy about your and M´s recent family bereavements.

It would be great that you could also come to Almería, SW.

I´d like to lose some weight as well, Andy. Now, my weight is 87 kgs, which is 193 pounds. I´d like to be around 80 kilos at Almería half marathon. I´ll follow a healthy diet with a lot of fruit and vegetables, I´ll go for a run four or five days a week, I´ll avoid biscuits, cakes, etc. I´ll check my weight every Monday and I´ll tell all of you how it goes so that I can get more motivated to lose weight in a reasonable way and trying not to be very hungry.

Regards

Antonio

[El Gordo]

193 pounds? You need to be careful Antonio, or a gust of wind might blow you away. I'd be very happy to be that weight.

Good luck with your no-churros diet. I'm sure you'll manage to get down to 80kg by the end of January. My schedule says I should be around 200 pounds then, which is 90.9 kg.

If I can avoid too much beer, I'll be OK as I don't normally eat too many cakes and biscuits.

We'll see. I'll be interested in your weekly progress, and will let you know mine.

[Antonio247]

I wish I were as tall as you are, Andy. I´m only 1 metre 69 cm tall.

I started today eating mandarins for breakfast and in the afternoon but I also had two "mantecados" for tea, typical Spanish Christmas products. Anyway, tomorrow I´ll take it more seriously.

Best of luck and greetings to M.


Antonio

[El Gordo]

Well, here we go, Antonio.

Last week my average weight was 228.2, or 102.8 kg. This week, I need to be two pounds less than that.

I'm a bit anal about weight stats. I don't nominate a day to weigh myself. I do it every morning, make a note, and at the end of the week, I discount the highest and the lowest and divide the sum of the rest by 5. Might seem a bit convoluted but it seems the best way of getting a true picture.

Next week, I'll be reporting 226 or lower. By Almeria, 200.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

You've got that look of steely determination again Andy - the same grit that got you to sub-5 at Zurich. Sub-200 at TOM is therefore definitely achievable. Go for it cobber!

[El Gordo]

It's 200 by Almeria and 182 by TOM.

I'm confident I can get to 200 because I've got there for most marathons I've done. It's getting below that that's hard. I've got to do it this time to have any chance of even getting to the TOM, never mind getting round in 7 hours.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

It's 200 by Almeria and 182 by TOM.

Er yeah, that's what I meant to say :o

The difference this time is that whereas sub-200 for a marathon has been a target, this time (200 at Almeria) is a stepping stone, so there'll be no reason to stop after the race, so really, perhaps the 182 target is not going to be so difficult to achieve as you fear...?

[El Gordo]

I've got computer problems at the moment. I can only get online with my work laptop, and that doesn't give me FTP access, so I can't upload anything. So until normal service is resumed, here's the entry from Tuesday.
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Tuesday 7 November 2006

Some people like to run with their dogs. An interesting way of staying motivated. I'm thinking about buying a tortoise to tag along with. Help coax me out of my comfort zone.

Progress is slow, but there is progress. I was out again at 7 this morning, turning in around 4 miles. Again, no walking. I seem to have emerged from that phase. It's horribly slow; still well over 11 minutes a mile. More like 11:30 in fact. But it's 4 miles without a break, and that's a good sign that I'm slowly starting to build up some endurance again.

At the moment I'm sticking to the party line -- I'm doing the Two Oceans 35 miler, and plan to get round within the 7 hour cut-off. But somewhere at the back of my mind is the teasing knowledge that there is a Two Oceans half marathon as well. I'm not yet thinking about it as a strong possibility but I'm glad it's there as a fall-back. I'll carry on as I am, but at some point before the end of the year I have to rediscover reasonably comfortable double-digit long runs, or it will be time to sit myself down and have that tough conversation.

I need a change of long run scenery. Did running up and down the canal ever have a sparkle? I think it must have done, but it fell off on some marathon campaign somewhere. I plodded along it again for a few miles on Sunday, thinking that life must have more to offer than this. Glittering in the wintry sun, the canal was as lovely to look as ever, but the soft uneven path saps my physical strength, and the out-and-back nature of the run drains my enthusiasm. To run somewhere, then turn round and run back the way you came, seems to encapsulate the essential futility of the human condition. It becomes a simplified model of Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man.

And I know precisely what I mean by that, so just back off...

Looks like I'll need to drive somewhere to run long. Getting into the car to go running goes against the grain, but it's time to rediscover the cold thrill of going long, and the excitement of exploring a new route. When I was training for that first marathon, my weekdays were coloured by a febrile sense of fear and glee. The long run was the fulcrum of the week. I'd spend half the week being amazed at what I'd done the previous Sunday, and the second half panicking about pushing it another mile or two the following one. Let's have that again. Time to reinvent the LSD.

In a rash moment a few months ago I did suggest to Sweder of this parish that I'd go down to Brighton to join with one of his famous hillside lopes, but the more I read about those craggy monsters, the more frightening they sound. And that's just the runners, not the hills. Safer to stick to my lonely Berkshire dominion for the moment, I think, though I need to find some road less travelled.
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Stop press: And an unbroken 5 miler this lunchtime (Thursday) as I was working from home. Could be worse.

[Sweder]

Stop press: And an unbroken 5 miler this lunchtime (Thursday) as I was working from home. Could be worse.

Proper.

On the hilly lope idea, Niguel mentioned he'd like to have a go at BlackCap some day.
It's only five miles and whilst it's a bit hilly you don't need crampons or safety ropes.
I'd be happy to take a day off one weekday for a midday run anytime. I'm off to Cape Town on the 26th, back on 10th December. Before or after would be fine. the Sunday lopers are only on eight milers - cliff top up-and-downers. Kick off's at nine every Sunday morning. I've seen the new batch in action - trust me, you'll be comfortably in the main pack. Let me know.

[El Gordo]

OK Sweder, thanks. It's unlikely to be before the 26th. We can talk about it in Brighton next weekend.

I got my number through yesterday for the 10K.

[Antonio247]

I have spent one week trying to eat in a healthy way, just fruit for breakfast, usually mandarins or an apple and a glass of cocoa milk at a café at the break. I haven´t eaten any cakes, biscuits or similar products. I have eaten a lot of salad for lunch or dinner and some meat or fish. For dessert, fruit or yoghourt. I have had a little bread in some meals. In the afternoons, I had some fruit or yoghurt.

According to Andy´s method, I have lost 2 kilos in one week, which is not bad if we take into account that I haven´t been hungry. I have also been for a run four days doing 8, 6, 7 and 16 km. In all, 37 km in four hours twenty minutes. My aim for next week is to lose between one and one and a half kilos.

My friend Manuel from Barcelona told me that he is one or two days a week on fruit, mainly apples, and he finds it very good. I may try and do that one day next week. Good luck, Andy and anybody else who is trying to lose weight.

Best of luck in Brighton next Sunday, everybody!

Greetings from Almería

[El Gordo]

Well done, Antonio. I had a pretty good week too, losing 4.2 lbs (1.9 kilos) off my average weight and about 6 pounds off my absolute weight from start to finish. But the average weight is the best metric.

My plan is to aim to shed 1 kilo, or 2.2 pounds a week. I think that's a pretty good target. It's easy to exceed that when you first start a weight-loss campaign, but over a period of time, I reckon 2 pounds, or 1 kilo, is a healthy aim.

I'm eating a lot more fruit too, particularly for breakfast, but I personally don't like to be too faddish about eating only fruit on some days etc. It's not a criticism. If it works for you, that's great. I find that if I eat reasonably normally but without bread and potatoes, weight comes off.

Anyway, good luck for the week ahead. I pigged out a bit at the weekend, so I'm slightly behind schedule this week, but am confident I can make up the ground.

Figures:
Week 1, ave weight: 228.2 pounds
Week 2, ave weight: 224.0 pounds (-4.2lbs, -1.9kg)

[Antonio247]

Congratulations, Andy. Let´s go on like this!

I don´t like eating the same food all day long either. It´s very boring.


Regards

Antonio

[Sweder]

I had a pretty good week too, losing 4.2 lbs (1.9 kilos) off my average weight and about 6 pounds off my absolute weight from start to finish. But the average weight is the best metric.

Is this a comeback for Esperanto?

[El Gordo]

Is this a comeback for Esperanto?

Isn't he the Portugese goalie? Didn't realise he'd had a lay-off. But what's that got to do with the price of fish?