Second milestone: TEN MILES!

I DID IT! 10 miles down, 16.2 to go!

It was a hot hot hot day today (and no Buster Poindexter in sight). The Red Rovers decided to skip this week's seminar (and read all about it) by starting off two waves at 7 and 7:30 this morning to beat the heat. Unfortunately, alarm clocks still have this annoying defect of not being able to adjust their level of rousal insistence to your depth of sleep. As a result, I woke up this morning at 7:54 and after chowing down on leftover pasta and a Balance Bar for breakfast, I rushed out the door and ended up heading on the trail at about 8:45. I passed the first wave of Red Rovers at about mile 1.5 and the second wave at around mile 2.

I didn't have the benefit of pacing with my group. As soon as I got up to 2½ miles I realized that I was pushing my speed a little. I did five miles somewhere in the range of 54-55 minutes (10:48 to 11:00 pace) and ended up finishing in 1:51:16 (11:08 pace).

I felt great at the end, but it wasn't easy. Friday's events conspired to screw up my energy reserves. First off, I spent the day working at home so I could accept a package delivery. I spend the entire afternoon waiting for FedEx and didn't go out to get lunch. Apparently FedEx uses up all its mojo on overnight delivery, because their ground delivery really sucks! They always seem to take all day to get me my ground packages, whereas UPS typically gets them to me by noon. Anyway, after finally getting my package at around 5 o'clock I got ready to go to a wine-tasting party. On the way there, I pounded down a 12-inch Subway chicken parmesan sandwich (definitely not one of their "6 grams of fat or less" sandwiches). I was pressed to get some energy gels because I knew I'd need one during the run the way my day was going. I stopped by GNC but the only stuff they had was caffeinated Power Gel; nevertheless I was pressed for time so I bought a couple of packets. (As many of you know, because of my psoriasis I stay away from caffeine so my body isn't used to consuming it.) At the wine-tasting party I had roughly the equivalent of 2½ glasses. After the party, I knew I was still a few hundred calories behind on my eating pace so even though I really wanted to get some sleep I forced myself to stop by the Cardinal for some late-night food to make sure I had enough energy for today's run.

I had to make extra sure that I kept myself hydrated last night and this morning, what with this week's abominable heat wave, 2½ glasses of wine and caffeinated energy gels. I drank water almost constantly until bedtime and while preparing to go out this morning. I swapped all four regular-sized bottles on my hydration belt for the large 10.5-ounce size. It wasn't quite enough as I had to stop for a water refill at about mile 8. The sweltering heat plus that horrible pinch of caffeine were enough to give me a slight headache. Needless to say I spent the rest of the morning drinking like a horse.

On to next week's "recovery" run: 8 miles. It's hard to believe 8 miles was a huge milestone just four weeks ago. Next Saturday, it'll just be another walk run in the park!

Extreme make-under

Sunday I woke up at 11 AM and as a result didn't have breakfast. I had a carne asada burrito for lunch, then later that afternoon I could hardly eat and felt barely any hunger. Later that night I tried to eat as much as I could but even after devouring a Panera creamy chicken bread-bowl soup, an apple and a whole-wheat bagel with cream cheese (albeit reduced-fat), I was still nearly 1,200 calories under budget. I felt OK that night salsa dancing at Allegro.

Then Monday afternoon comes around and things start crashing. It was a hot day and running my 40 minutes was a chore. I was already out of energy about 25 minutes in and just struggled to get my entire run in, then that night I had to drive all the way down to Gilroy to teach my weekly salsa class. I did my best to teach the class but when I got home I was feeling pretty grumpy.

I spent the last two days catching up on my food intake, and now I'm only short by 300 calories - where I was when I ate only half that chocolate cake. I'm now at 192 pounds, 4 pounds ahead of pace. Tonight we start our other salsa class at Decathlon Club in Santa Clara. Jaime at D.C. was kind enough to let me use the treadmill before class so I could get my Wednesday run in. Today I need to run 50 minutes and I'll probably be downing all the Accelerade I can.

With my Wednesday class coming online, I am now either teaching or attending a class on each of my training weekdays. How did that happen?!

Breakneck speed, eating good in the neighborhood

This morning was our "recovery/maintenance" run of 7 miles. Deanna decided to challenge us, although she told me that I was the pace-setter and she was the one keeping up with me. Well, I wish I'd've known. ;) We ran the entire distance in 1:17:46 which came out to a pace of 11:06 per mile. That was insanely faster than last week's 11:30 pace. Estimating from how long it took the last of our running group to reach the finish line, we probably got separated over three quarters of a mile.

I've got to stop my extended stints at Hot Salsa Friday if I'm going to do these Saturday-morning runs with a full head of energy! Last night I went two hours, which was a half hour longer than I'd planned to go. Plus I didn't eat as many carbs this morning as I'd hoped to get. I was running a little late, so instead of eating my Frosted Mini-Wheats as I'd wanted, I ate the Subway Spicy Italian sandwich I'd bought the night before (as part of their dinner-for-two deal, much cheaper that way!). All that combined with the 11:06 pace made for a tiring run. On the positive side, I felt almost zero muscle soreness at the end of the run, so my legs are definitely getting stronger. Speaking of which, this morning's seminar was on strength training.

Eating the past two days has been a breeze. I wasn't sure if I'd have the willpower to keep going on this diet, but I've been discovering a lot of great ways to keep myself full with minimum calories. Rice, pasta and noodles have helped tremendously. Chinese food is great for keeping meat intake in moderation, as long as you keep away from breaded and fried stuff like Panda Express orange-flavored chicken (a whopping 500 calories in a mere 5½-ounce serving!). In general, dieting has helped me broaden my eating variety by challenging me to think outside of the fast-food box. Not only that, but as a numbers guy, I'm actually finding it fun looking at calories and figuring out creative ways to eat them.

Watching calories has been great at helping me pick strategic times to splurge, and as any dieter will tell you, food rewards make it so much easier to stick to a diet. Today, I was able to eat so well during the afternoon (thanks to a Boca Burger for lunch) that I had space for a mile-high chocolate cake at dinnertime ... yum! Still, I only ate half of it because it was so feloniously rich. And I still ended up 300 calories under budget ... take that, Atkins and South Beach! My college weight is still a long way away (30 pounds to go!), but I can see it peeking over the horizon.

Next week on the trail will be my second milestone: the big ten-miler!

Five pounds down - 195

Boy, was it tough going this week. On Sunday I'd had a late breakfast and skipped lunch as I snacked on mangoes throughout the afternoon. That night was Shady Shakespeare's annual fundraising gala, featuring chocolate and wine tasting ... is that dieter's death or what?! My goal was to consume no more than 800 calories and my total came out to 807, not too bad. But at what cost? So many empty calories that combined with my skipped lunch, I had to fill myself with other food afterward. Not only that, but because it was on Sunday night, it cut into my regular salsa routine, which cost me 600 unburned calories.

The net effect was that I overshot my calorie budget by 900 and spent the next four days paying back my "borrowed" calories. It took a great deal of work, planning and Subway sandwiches but I finally did it. Imagine my joy this morning when I stepped on the bathroom scale and saw 194.8! Granted, it's probably water weight and the rate of loss will probably diminish in the coming weeks. I would hope so, actually, or else I'd be a little worried that I was losing weight too fast; I'm about a week and a half ahead of schedule on my weight loss goal (30 more pounds by Race Day). It does feel good, though, to see my hard work translating to ticks on the scale.

Nine miles - my best run so far!

Today was the end of a busy week. Friday night I came home, opened my mailbox and found a beautiful package of Amphipod gear waiting for me. In the shipping box was my wonderful RunLite 4 hydration belt and extra SnapFlask bottles. This is a great runner's fluid carrier which holds your water and sports drinks around your waist without bouncing, in the same vain as Fuel Belt. I'd looked at both and liked Amphipod's offering much better as it allows you to customize the bottle configuration on your hydration belt. That way I can take just the amount of fluid I need with me depending on the length of my run. It also has a pouch where I can stuff my car key (so I don't have to tie it to my shoe anymore and have it interfere with my stretching exercises!) and a travel bottle of Purell - great because none of the bathrooms on the trail have soap!

This was undoubtedly the best run I've had so far! I did just about everything right this week to get through today's nine-mile run. This week's training newsletter included tips from each of the trainers on hydration and nutrition just before run day or race day. The overriding theme was plenty of water and lots of carbs! Just what I love to hear - I get to eat lots of pasta and rice before race day! On the morning before the run, it's good to get 0.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight into your system for breakfast. That's as easy as a big bowl of cereal.

Of course, everything in moderation! One of the great things about having a calorie counter is that I can figure out how to get all my carbs in while still keeping my calorie intake on track. So I was able to load up on carbs all day Friday and Saturday morning while keeping my calories in check. The only thing is that I did eat a little bit too much for dinner on Friday - one Sbarro chicken parmesan dinner, which was a whopping 926 calories! But I figured it was worth it after being so good the entire week. Still, the Tony of 2005 would've been able to finish the whole thing comfortably in one sitting, while this time around I got completely stuffed and probably should've saved half of it for the next day. I overshot my calorie budget by more than 400 but managed to erase the overage today by carefully monitoring everything I consumed (including sports drinks and energy gels) and eating in moderation. (Naturally, it helped that today's run lavished me with an extra 1,083 calories to play with!)

On another front, I tossed out the knee brace I'd been using for salsa dancing. I was using this second knee brace on the dance floor because it was more compact than my running brace, plus it was a slip-on that slid easily under my pants. Anyway, I figured out this week after months of using the dancing version that it was a little too compact and was doing more harm than good: It was actually pressing my patella into my knee joint and exacerbating my patellofemoral syndrome! So now I've ditched it and am now using my adjustable brace for both dancing and running. (It still does fit under my pants, though I have to put in on in the bathroom!) My knee is thanking me with each and every mile.

Today's seminar featured Jayne Williams, a.k.a., Slow Fat Triathlete. This woman decided seven years ago to take her 270-pound body and get serious about getting fit. It was just a couple of years later that she made the leap to triathlons. She's lost 50+ pounds since she started and yes, she can whip my soon-to-be-skinny butt running 1o½-minute miles. She's great inspiration and motivation - plus she's insanely funny! I bought her book, Slow Fat Triathlete: Live Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now, and it's a great, entertaining read. She signed our books and wrote good luck with Run for Autism in mine. One of her messages is to embrace the body you're in and do whatever exercise it'll let you do (even if triathlon isn't your thing); her most important advice: whenever you run put a smile on your face and have fun!

So my front-loading of carbs over the last two days, my massive 86-grams-of-carbs cereal bowl and half-dozen strawberries this morning, the rescue of my knee from patella compression and Jayne's inspiring story made my run today almost effortless! "Nine miles? Pfft! No problem!" Our pace was 11:30 per mile - not bad considering two months ago my pace was 15 minutes. Our group leader Deanna gave us energy gels to plow down during the run but I don't think I actually needed mine. I took my Crank Sports e-Gel at around mile 7 just to try it out even though we only had about 20 minutes and change to go. This little handful of super-sweet goo has 150 calories and a stratospheric glycemic index. (Translation: It pumps up your blood sugar like a fire hose.) I probably should've tried taking it earlier because I had an intense sugar rush during my post-run cool-down stretch. I'll keep some energy gels in tow from now on to test them out on various distances, although I'm guessing I won't need them until around mile 10.

As far as general well-being, my only big problem is how intensely sore my hip flexors get after each run (otherwise I'd be out dancing right now!). I plan to work in some stretching exercises I learned today to get these important muscles in form. Other than that, all the elements came together perfectly today. What a difference a week makes! Next week, we stagger down to 7 miles, then the big 10-miler.

More and more, I'm starting to truly believe I can do this!

Further musings on diet and exercise

More reasons why losing weight takes dedication:

• One Polish sausage (without the bun) is about 330 calories.
• A 200-pound man running one mile consumes about 120 calories. Therefore to erase just one such sausage from your waistline requires running for 2¾ miles!
• To lose an entire pound requires burning or refraining from eating 3,500 calories.
• Losing one pound just through exercise alone thus takes 29 miles of running!
• On the other hand, losing one pound in a week through diet alone requires cutting out 500 calories a day - the equivalent of skipping an entire meal!

These last two bullets illustrate why effective weight loss requires both diet and exercise. Now think of how many miles you'd have to run to burn off each of these foods:

Food Item	"Burn-off" Distance
Slice of cheddar cheese	¾ mile
Can of soda	1¼ miles
Polish sausage, no bun	2¾ miles
Pizza My Heart slice of pepperoni-mushroom	4½ miles
6 Buffalo wings	5¼ miles
Half rotisserie chicken	5½ miles
Slice of lasagna	5¾ miles
McDonald's Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese	6 miles
California Pizza Kitchen BBQ chicken pizza	7 miles
Carl's Jr. Six-Dollar Burger	8 miles
Wendy's Classic Triple with Cheese	8 miles
In-N-Out Burger #1 meal with Diet Coke	9 miles
Outback Steakhouse Melbourne Porterhouse (20 oz.)	10 miles
IHOP country-fried steak and eggs	13 miles
72-oz. T-bone: Texas steakhouse challenge (one hour and it's free)	52 miles

So scarfing down that 72-ounce T-bone in an hour or less is free. Un-scarfing it of course is definitely not free!

The other half of "diet and exercise"

Last Saturday's six-miler was a little bit disconcerting in that I started "hitting the wall" around 4.5 miles. My eating habits were really screwed up the prior two days which was probably the root cause. I'd been on a fast-and-binge cycle, especially on Friday. Saturday morning before the run I ate too big a breakfast hoping to "catch up" on my food and instead it caught up to me.

So here we are a month and a half into my training program and my weight has only shown a modest decrease of a couple of pounds. Sure, my tummy felt a little bit trimmer but mainly due to a tighter stomach muscle. In fact, I'd gained a couple of pounds last week likely because of my Friday binges. I threw out my old analog bathroom scale (which I never trusted because the dial never returned to zero reliably) and got a gleaming new digital scale accurate to fifths of a pound. When I stepped on it, I discovered I was a whopping 200 pounds! It was surely high time to start working on the other half of the "diet and exercise" equation. Incidentally, last week's pre-run seminar was on nutrition and we got some helpful hints on eating right. They gave us some information on USA Eat Fit which offers a basic subscription with a calorie-tracking journal, and for a higher premium adds personal dietary advice for a higher premium. I opted to go for the basic subscription.

To start, the calorie-tracking journal asks for my current weight and weight goal, and suggests several time horizons for achieving that goal. Then it calculates how many net calories I need to limit myself to each day to reach that goal in the given time frame. It becomes apparent just from crunching the numbers why it's so difficult to lose weight. For my personal analysis (slimming down to my college weight of 165 pounds), here's what the calculator came up with:

• Losing one pound requires burning 3,500 calories.
• Therefore, to lose my goal of 35 pounds requires burning 35×3,500 = 122,500 calories more than I consume.
• My body burns 2,581 calories in one day. This is how much I'd be allowed to eat to maintain my current weight.
• Losing 35 pounds in 21 weeks (146 days) means eating 122,500/146 = 839 calories per day less than this amount.
• This means I would have to consume no more than 2,581–839 = 1,742 calories per day to reach my target weight.

You've got to be kidding! Only 1,742 calories?! Good lord, you can order a #1 meal at In-N-Out Burger and you're already talking 1,070 calories (and that's with the Diet Coke)! Go to Costco and munch on a few food samplers and you've consumed 150 calories right there. Plus consider I'd regularly eat more than the baseline 2,581 and it's easy to see, even with lots of dancing and lots of running, why the bathroom scale wasn't behaving the way I wanted it to.

Now it's glaringly clear in hard numbers why exercise is so important to weight loss – only rabbits and supermodels could limit themselves to 1,700 calories a day! Each mile of running burns about 125 calories and at my pace this comes out to about 10 calories per minute. This means that my 40-minute run today will burn about 400 calories, good enough for an extra Polish sausage or, more practically speaking, an extra Healthy Choice entrée. Those 400 calories come in handy when you're craving munchies or are used to eating a lot of food.

So now I'm using the calorie tracker at USA Eat Fit to figure out where to cut my bingeing and it's been pretty useful so far. It divides the total calories between breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. It adds to your daily allowance whenever you exercise. I've been able to see how cheeseburgers, French fries and pizza slices upset the overall calorie total in my daily diet. It has a database of common foods, plus you can add custom ones. Something I wish it could do is automatically roll over your "calorie bank" (the difference between your budget and what you actually consume) from day to day – then I could easily save up for that 16-ounce T-bone! (I'm sure there are other calorie counters that can do this.) Right now I work around this by adding a "fake" custom food called "POSITIVE calorie balance" to my personal list. Thankfully it allows you to input either positive or negative values into the calorie field. Of course, just in case, I've also added "NEGATIVE calorie balance" to my custom list.

A few other things I've learned so far:

• If you must have breakfast meat, opt for ham or bacon, not sausage.
• You can easily ingest 200 calories just munching on food samples at Costco!
• Hurray! Vietnamese food is great for feeling full with minimum calories ... but it's loaded with sodium.
• Actually, just about every pre-packaged food product out there is loaded with sodium. Will I have to give up convenience to reduce my sodium intake? On the other hand, I've lived this long without watching my sodium intake and my blood pressure is still 112/68, so maybe I don't have to worry too much.
• Eating at Subway really is a good way to lose weight!

So here I go ... my first truly analytical venture at what it will take for me to lose real weight and keep it off. Look for blog entries on both my weight-loss and my distance progress in the coming months. Onward and ... um, downward!