Days 7 and 8: Easter Weekend April 8, 2007

Both days involved successful runs.  On Day 7 my run was a bit shorter than average so I tried to compensate by throwing in the two biggest hills in the area.  Both are approximately 75 yards long and very steep.  Basically, the run was pavement hell…

On day 8 I ran with my father and did a slightly longer than average run but had no issues.  I felt good the whole time.  While I was breathing hard nearly the entire run, I never started ‘panting’ which has been common occurrence in past runs.

Overall I can feel my body adjusting to the daily runs.  I usually not sore now, having less trouble with asthma after the run, and I have found the runs to become much easier to complete.  In the next several days I will start toying with the idea of longer runs.

As a side bonus, I find my mood is much better after I run.  I guess the released endorphins (endomorphines) do have a significant affect on mood changes.  This is n added bonus to the daily runs that I did not expect or even think of as a possible side effect.

No weight or Senor Jack Rabbit news yet…stay tuned.

Daily Running – Day 6 April 6, 2007

Day  6: Cold, Dark, and snowing…

Once again I was left to run alone.  Without the motivation of a companion, I waited until near 11pm before I headed out the door.  Realizing that I might miss today’s run if I waited any longer, I put on my shoes and rushed out the door…in shorts and a t-shirt.  Who knew it was 25 degrees and snowing?

I ran the same course as yesterday but with slightly different gear.  Today I forgot my warm hat and vest, but I managed to grab my dad’s mp3 player on the way out the door.  Skipping past the plethora of Madonna songs, I found motivation in the Rocky theme song, Eye of the Tiger, the Mission Impossible theme song, and Crazy Train.

I completed the run much quicker than yesterday.  Whether that should be attributed to the extra coldness or the inspirational music we may never know.  However, the run felt good and once again I was not sore before or after.  I have taken this to be a sign that my legs are now accustomed to the distance every day so I do not fear injury like I was several days ago.  Going farther or faster may still be a few days away however because my respiratory  system does not seem to be keeping pace with my legs.  I still am getting out of breath easily, especially on hills or when I try to pick up the running tempo.

No word from Senor Jack Rabbit yet.  If all else fails we will get an update on Monday when we are both back in town.

No morning weights for today either…I could use my parents’ scale, but as I’m sure it’s calibrated differently I am not sure what it would prove.

I am excited that this experiment is going well so far.  It has made me all the more motivated to continue this running streak at least until the end of April.

Day 5 – Cold but refreshing April 6, 2007

The temperature dropped to freezing by the time I ran tonight. Currently, I’m staying with my parents for a long weekend so JR and I could not run together. Consequently, I do not have the news on his run. But mine went well. I did about the normal distance and felt great nearly the entire time. My legs felt lighter than they have been and there was little if any soreness during or after the run. If running always felt like this, everyone would do it!

Morning Weight:

Me: 205 lbs.
Jack Rabbit: 153 lbs.

Hopefully this ‘good feeling’ running keeps up as my body gets used to the daily routine.

Day 4 – Getting Easier April 5, 2007

Its about time to embark on my day 5 run and I realized that I missed yesterday’s post! So here is a quick overview before I head out the door. We chose another different course. This one seemed easy. Maybe it was too short or maybe because it had fewer hills, but our legs weren’t as tired afterwards. Ultimately however, I think it is because our bodies are adjusting to the daily runs. It was colder and windy so we were still out of breath, but leg soreness was not as much of a factor.

In fact, last night I realized that my legs weren’t sore at all. That is the first occurrence since March!

Weight in the morning:

JR: 151 lbs.
Me: 104 lbs.

Expect the next post within several hours.  I’m off to put on my running shoes!

Day 3 Completed April 3, 2007

Day 3 was a success as Jack and I both completed another run today. Other than his shin splints he said he was sore on the upper thighs. While I woke up with soreness on the rear thighs, but now I’m only sore on my lower calves. While we were both sore at the beginning of the day, both of us can barely walk tonight. I’ve been stretching every time I think of it to try to stay loose.

We took another new course today that involved a loop through a local park area. Again, we’re not entire sure of the distance but we believe it to be about 2 miles based on the time and the routes of the town buses. Somehow the course still ended up having a fair number of steep hills. I guess we should plan ahead more…

Weight in the morning:
Jack Rabbit: 152 lbs.
Me: 206 lbs.

Not really excited about tomorrow’s run due to the soreness. However, it is still an exciting adventure and experiment. So…looking forward to the challenge–just not tomorrow’s run!

Daily Running – Day 2 April 2, 2007

My legs were sore today, but not as bad as I had thought. However, Diabetes Jack has a mild case of shin splints. After stretching and searching for Jack Rabbit’s other shoe insole we took off on another 2 mile jaunt. We chose a different coarse since Day 1’s was so hilly, but this one wasn’t a flat run either. It consisted of a steady low grade the entire way out and then a slight downhill the whole way back.

The first mile was painstakingly slow. I trudged along and had to stop once. We did make it to the turn around alive, but out of breath and energy. I suppose I should have eaten more early in the day because all I had eaten was a small portion of rice for lunch. Senor jack rabbit decided to eat some glucose tablets at the turn around so his levels wouldn’t drop as low as they did yesterday. It seemed to work out well.

After the run, we were both so weak and exhausted that we had a competition to see who could get up off of the couch first.  There was no determined winner, but we were both grasping for hand holds to keep our balance.  Another day completed!

Morning Weight:

Me: 205 lbs.
Senor Jack Rabbit: 154 lbs.

Moral of today’s story is to eat a hearty breakfast and lunch so that I have energy when I run. Alternatively, we may try running before work/school at some point down the road. Also we need to start paying more attention to stretching before the runs.

Monthly Challenge Topics of the Future April 2, 2007

 Random thoughts have been passing through my head since I started this blog, so I decided to organize them in a post of topics.  I tried to categorize the potential monthly topics into logical sections.  You’ll see below sections on religion, nutrition, exercise, and personal.  Personal is just a category that I through all of the ‘no category’ topics into.

My most recent idea is that I can potentially try out more than one topic per month.  Maybe even one topic from each category per month.  However, while thinking this through I decided that I could run into trouble detailing where specific feelings and behaviors are deriving from.  My life seems hectic enough without being a guinea pig to religions, health, and exercise all at the same time.  I think I would be taking too much on my plate if I tried multiple ideas at the same time.  Who knows though maybe I’ll decide it could be a good idea.

Enough blabbering, here is the list!

Religions – Of course not an exhaustive list of religions by any means, but I do have listed most major religions and those of particular interest to me.  You will notice one major religion absent and I probably don’t even have to mention it because it is so glaringly obvious…Christianity.  I will not be exploring Christianity in a monthly challenge (at least in the near future) because this is the religion that I was raised on and also the religion that I know the most about.  Here is the list as it stands now, but of course I may change it due to my life’s needs and requirements.

• Buddhism – I don’t know much about it but I have always wanted to learn.  As with most religions, I’m sure that movie portrayals of Buddhist monks are either inaccurate, exaggerated, or only a small percentage of the Buddhist religion as a whole.
• Islam – I know it is the second largest religion in the world, but that is about it.  Kind of strange that so many of the world’s people can believe in something and yet I, western culture born and bred, have little if any idea of what Islam involves.
• Hindu – Please correct me if I’m wrong as I have yet to do research on these religions, but I believe Hinduism is the largest Polytheistic religion in the world.  That is if you can swallow that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one entity argument…
• Wicca – Probably the least understood religion on this list, although I’m sure Scientology is not far behind.  Perhaps also the most stereotyped, I would like to research, understand, and follow this religion for a month just to see what it is about.  My limited knowledge comes from a TV program several weeks ago that followed a Wiccan family through their everyday lives.  It seemed believable enough as a ‘real’ religion, but was foreign to me in the way that they practiced it.  It didn’t seem to involve any broomsticks that I could tell.
• Scientology – This one seems to be the ‘hip’ religion if you are in the entertainment business at the moment.  I know nothing about it, which is precisely why I want to try it .

Nutrition – As I mentioned earlier, I am already a vegetarian so nutritional and diet experiments involving meat are off of the table, but that still leaves a few more topics of interest.  Of course the simplest to think of was becoming a vegan.  Once could call it an extension of [vegetarianism] just more limiting.  Logically, this also lead me down the path of thinking about becoming a [raw foodist].  Other than these total diet changes, I thought of several smaller diet changes that most would consider to be healthier.  Take a look.

• Vegan – A vegetarian diet that does not include any animal products whatsoever.  I am undecided whether to follow the lifestyle changes that come with becoming a vegan.  This would mean no leather products, which would mean I need to buy a new belt and new shoes!
• Raw Food Diet – An extension of a vegan diet in which foods cannot be processed over a certain temperature.  This diet is considered healthier by its followers because of the belief that cooking foods reduces their nutritional content.  Becoming a Raw Foodist would be quite a change from my current diet.
• 5 Fruits/Vegetables per day – A smaller change than the previous topics listed.  All I would have to do is track my fruit and vegetable consumption each day to ensure that I have eaten the necessary allotment.  Not sure whether this would mean 5 servings or 5 different types of fruits and/or vegetables per day.  A subtle but meaningful difference.
• No Soda/Sweets – Something I have attempted to do before but I always fall off the wagon eventually.  Reducing my depency on sugar and soda may have an interesting effect on my sleeping patterns…
• Drink only water – By this I mean I could still eat whatever selection of foods I choose, just the only liquids I could consume would be water.  It would be tough to pass on Silk with my cereal though.
• Fad Diets? – This topic is up in the air.  Generally I don’t believe fad diets to be heathy and plus they may not coincide well with being a vegetarian.  However, I’ve always been interested in the effects of changing to such a diet so that is why this is listed here.

Exercise – Of course, this is the category that I started with in my monthly challenge of [daily running].  My main concerns in this category are overtraining since I will be taking on new activites that my body isn’t used to and doing them repeatedly for some time.  I’ll have to be very careful.

• [Daily Running] – This is the monthly challenge that I took on yesterday for April 2007.  I did not set a firm amount to run each day so that I can listen to my body’s reaction and exercise accordingly.  Hopefully each daily amount will be over two miles and increasing by the end of the month.
• Daily Pushup/Situp Amounts – Not a monumentous task to undertake, but potentially challenging regardless.
• Yoga or Pilates – I don’t know much about either one but they seem to be all the rage lately.  Not sure I’d feel comfortable taking an actual class so if I go through with one of these it will likely be following instructional DVDs.

Personal – The category for topics that don’t fit in other categories.

• Journaling – Keeping a daily journal is something that I have never attempted.  I’ve always wondered if it would help me organize my thoughts or think my way through problems.  Could be an interesting experience.
• Dream Diary – I did this once for several weeks in high school for a psychology class.  It had interesting results for me and I’d like to see if I can repeat them.  Supposedly, the more you document your dreams, the easier it should be to remember them.  For me it was the opposite though.  I remembered far less dreams at the end of the journal than at the beginning.
• Document Time Spent on activities – I envision this as a pie chart detailing where I am spending most of my time each day.  I figure that right now I waste about 15 out of my 16 daily waking hours on frivilous crap.  If I complete this challenge, I should be able to determine how to better manage my life.
• No TV – Television seems to basically be a waste of time.  You don’t really gain anything from watching it and your mind barely functions unless you are watching Jeopardy.  This would be tough for the first week because I’m not sure what I would do with all that extra time.
• Reading time amount daily – Another item I’ve always thought about doing.  I’ll set an amount of time that I must read everyday.  As long as this doesn’t interfere with my studies or keep me up all night, it could be quite fun.
• Polyphasic Sleep – I read about [Steve Pavlina's journey through polyphasic sleep] and it really interested me.  Maybe enough so that I’ll give it a try.
• Fasting/Cleansing – Obviously I would not start out with a 1 month fast or cleanse.  These things probably need to be worked up to, but still something that I am interested in trying.

Well, there you have it.  My ideas all down on ‘paper’.  I’m sure some people have feedback about this list, especially the religion section.  Before you hound me with flames, please realize I was only sharing my preliminary knowledge of the subjects which may or may not be correct.  That is why I will research and practice the religions for a month…to become better informed and more worldly.

Daily Running – Day 1 April 1, 2007

Today I undertook the personal development challenge of running every day for a month. Generally this is referred to as a running ’streak’ by running regulars. While I used to be a dedicated and avid runner, I have moved away from it in recent years. I have not consistently tried running for over 6 months, but years before I was on the high school cross country team in my high school and running many miles every week. Ah…those were the days…

My last stint of running ended when I injured my IT band. A serious and potentially chronic injury. If you are interested in reading about it, the best online resource seems to be [here].  Even though it hasn’t been updated in years. The only new development that the site is missing is the IT band strap, which relieves symptoms and puts you on the road to recovery. I have been stretching and strengthening my IT band using the guidelines found [here]. Although still not in perfect condition, it was okay during today’s inaugural run, using the strap, and I believe it will hold up.

I managed to pick up a companion for this first personal development challenge, which I now officially nickname Señor Jack Rabbit. He has not been a runner recently either and is hoping to exercise and get in shape as well. Recently diagnosed with Type I Diabetes, he has to pay more attention to the process and his food consumption. Regardless, it will be good to have someone to share this new month of pain with.

Day 1 Results: We decided to run outside, since we have no other choice. God must have frowned upon our new decision as it was raining and cold. We must be idiots because we chose the hilliest route we could think of. So with an IT band injury, Asthma, Diabetes, Rain, Cold, Hills, and two bouts of being out of shape we embarked on our new personal development journey. The course was probably about 2 miles long, and while we wore a watch we were so ‘out of it’ upon return that we forgot to check the time. We estimate that it took us over 20 minutes. We had to make several ‘breather’ stops to gather ourselves and catch our breath, including intersections and the turn around point. At this point I consider it a success, but we’ll see tomorrow when we’re both sore and have to run again.

Weight in the morning:
Brad: 205 lbs.
Señor Jack Rabbit: 153 lbs.

Goals for this task: First and always is to further my quest for personal development to make myself and the world better. Alternatively, I’d like to get back into running and develop it into a routine and habit. Also, a return to being in shape and weight loss is never too far from the mind. I will update these goals in my posts throughout the month with progress and any changes that I feel I need to make.

I realize that this first post is on April Fool’s Day, which is ironic, but it was not planned. The realization only came now as I am writing this and looked at the date.

If you are looking for more information on running, the best resource in my opinion is [Runner's World] online. There is a substantial number of articles in all categories, especially beginning and training. As with anything, it is a good idea to take a good look at yourself and decide if the task is a good decision for you.