Am I an athlete?
This is the week where I have finally accomplished enough that I may be comfortable with starting to call myself an “athlete”. That is a big milestone for me when you consider that it was just a year ago I had only lost 20 pounds and was still firmly in the 300s. So I am pretty happy with how far I have come.
This week I made continued progress with my journey including running my second organized 5k. So read on for more and thank you for continuing to follow my journey. I see from the site statistics that you are there and that is a big motivator for me to continue!
Another 5k in the books!
On Saturday of this week, I ran my second organized 5k in 3 weeks. I participated in the Run on the Lake at Indian Lake. A race that benefits the Indian Lake High School Cross Country program and provides a Scholarship for an Indian Lake Senior.
After several weeks of sweltering hot weather, this weekend was nice and cool in the mornings and the highs were only 80. That made for the perfect weather for a run on country roads with 100 other people. Plus I was kind of in the zone and my music was perfect so I was loose and relaxed when I ran which is always when I am at my best.
I ran the race with other family members from my wife’s family… we started calling in the “significant others run” while we were getting warmed up. We are all significant others to a family member from my wife’s family, so it is great that we all get along! Here is us in our “before selfie” as we waited for the run to kick off.
The race went along a few country roads in Lakeview Ohio. On one road, both sides were corn fields, so that is a little different. The course was also completely flat which is different than my normal long runs through slightly more hilly routes in the city.
Because I was running relaxed an was feeling good, I kept accelerating. In my first mile, I was sticking to an average pace of between 10:24 and 10:49 (minutes: seconds) per mile. In my second mile, I was averaging a pace of about 10 minutes even. In the third mile I decided to really push myself hard and was averaging under 10 minutes and the last quarter mile or so as I was approaching the finish line, I sped up to under 9 minutes per mile.
When I crossed the finish line, my official average pace for the race was 10:00. This is a new personal record for me! My average pace at my OperationMelt First Time 5k was 10:34, so I was significantly faster this time.
I was 4th place in my age group (there were only 8, so top half for me!). Plus the finish line provided watermelon, oranges and bananas, so score!
I am looking forward to my next race. The next one I am registered for isn’t until September (Columbus Oktoberfest 4-miler) and that isn’t going to do at all. I need to find another race to sign up for in July or August at the least. I really enjoy running them!
Plus I have now finished 2 organized 5k races and both with respectable times. This is on top of significantly improving my fitness, losing 125 pounds and seeing lots of progress with building and shaping muscles. Plus, my second 5k showed improvements and I was even competitive. So I think it might just be official now….
I am an athlete!
I am not sure the rules on when I can call myself that “officially” but I think I am there!
Oh no, another plateau
While the 5k was a great experience this week, something else wasn’t as good. I have hit another weight plateau. After briefly flirting with the 125 pounds lost mark (200 pound weight), I had a weight fluctuation back up into the 202s. All week I have weighed in at 202.6, 202.8, 202.4 and such and haven’t budged.
If you have followed my journey for a while, you know this isn’t the first plateau I have hit by any means. Every few months I seem to go through a plateau cycle and it is pretty common for me now. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating!
Why don’t our bodies just follow the rules? I consume x calories, I burn y calories, if y is greater than x, I lose a predictable amount of weight. That just isn’t how the human body works. It is good as a guide but our bodies are more complex than that.
This time is a particularly frustrating plateau because I am so close to my goal weight of being under 200 pounds. I know I am going to get there logically, but the emotional side isn’t satisfied with that logical thinking!
So I am going to mix things up a bit and see what impact that has. I had a VERY high calorie day after the 5k and only had a 900 calorie difference between what I consumed and burned for the day.
I had a rest day the Friday before the 5k and will likely have a rest day today, the Sunday after the 5k. Between the rest and the increased calories we will see if my body reacts accordingly.
Let the coaching begin
I have mentioned before that I am working on building up a coaching business. I want to work with people to help them achieve all kinds of goals whether they be fitness or non-fitness. I want to equip people with the tools they need to manage their own fitness projects the same way I used project management. It is part of my strategy for sustaining this new me and for following my passions.
Before I can really go “all in” on coaching, I need to get some practice with both the process and the mechanics.
Well I am happy to say that I have taken on my first client to help build this experience. I am doing it for free because it is such an investment in learning to be great at coaching. My client is somebody I have known for years so we definitely have mutual trust and respect for each other right at the outset. So it is kind of the best possible scenario. I get to help him and at the same time he is helping me, a complete win-win!
Tracking my comps
Now that I am several weeks into the second year of my journey, I have a fun new addition to my weekly progress update: comps. Comps (short for comparables) give more context to data by comparing this year’s results with the same time period last year, or LY. This is a very important measure in the retail space because it give perspective on whether your sales this year have grown or if you are shrinking as a business – the goal is to always grow.
Now in my weekly stats I have included a comparison to the same stats for the same date range as last year. This isn’t exactly apples-to-apples because dates move to different days of the week year-over-year so I am not comparing a Monday through Sunday to a Monday through Sunday from the prior year. But it is still a good comparison for the sake of context.
Right away, I see that the week of 6/25 this year saw less of a calorie burn (as it should now that I am 125 pounds smaller and my body doesn’t have to work as hard) and more calories consumed. This is a good depiction of why my weight dropped so fast at the beginning, I was under-eating a bit too much. I would expect to see that level out in the comparison data in the weeks to come.
Check back next week for more!
Last week’s stats (6/25-7/1):
Distance walked/run: 41.08 miles (+4.44 vs. LY)
Total calories burnt: 24,517 (-4,371 vs. LY)
Total calories consumed: 14,828 (+1,842 vs. LY)
Weight change: 3.9 pounds lost (-3.5 vs LY)
