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Running 5 km Is Easy Now! February 15, 2007

Since doing that 10 km run last week, I’m now finding 5 km runs fairly comfortable.

In the past week I managed to complete a 5 km course I’ve struggled with in the past. The course goes up and over several coastal headlands, with a particularly hard hill leading up and around the lighthouse at the half-way point. I’ve never been able to run all the way up that hill; I have to walk for a minute or two and catch my breath.

This week, though, I ran right up and over the hill without a problem. I completed the 5 km in 29:45, which I was pretty happy with. I felt great afterwards, coming home and telling my wife what I’d been able to achieve.

Last night, I ran the same course again and did it in 26:45! I knocked a whole 3 minutes off my time! As I mentioned in Breaking Barriers, it seems that once you get it into your head that you can break a barrier, you really smash it. (Note that the 5 km run I mentioned in that post was mostly flat - I’m now running a very hilly course in close to the same time!)

I Ran 10 KM! February 7, 2007

In my Power Of Focus article, I stated my two health goals for the next 3 to 6 months. One is to get my weight down to 80 kg, and the other is to run 10 km in 1 hour.

Last night, I achieved the 10 km one! I never would have guessed I’d be able to do that so soon!

We’d had my parents and my in-laws over for dinner, and after they left I decided to go for a short 3 km run.

I ran a little bit slower than normal, but when I got to the 3 km mark I decided to continue on to 4.2 km, getting ready for Thursday’s run with a workmate.

At the 4.2 km mark, I was feeling pretty good so I continued on to 5 km (the longest non-stop run I’d done to date).

Still feeling like I had some energy left, I figured I’d push out for 6 km. That came and went, then 7 km, then 8km and 9 km. I felt like I could just keep running continuously!

I finally reached the 10 km mark, and the time was just about exactly an hour. I couldn’t believe it!

The strange thing was, I felt great afterwards. Not tired at all. This must be what it’s like to be fit :-).

People Focusing On Health January 29, 2007

After my previous article on The Power Of Focus, I’ve discovered a few other Steve Pavlina readers who have chosen ‘health’ as their primary area of fitness:

There were also a few interesting thoughts posted in Steve’s Forum regarding his blog post. Worth checking out if you’re interested.

I’ll post more on this topic in a month or so, and see how things are progressing. Feel free to comment below - make your own public commitment to a single area of focus, or post something to your blog and leave a link.

The Power Of Focus

Rather than setting New Years’ Resolutions and setting myself up for failure from the start, I’m going to try a variation on Steve Pavlina’s suggestion of Setting Your Primary Focus.

Steve’s idea is basically to set a primary focus for the year ahead, and to make everything else secondary to that. For example, last year his primary focus was to improve his financial situation. He fixed up his business structure, improved his financial education, explored new revenue sources, and developed lots of great content for his web site to increase its traffic. As a result, his earnings went from $2-3K/month at the start of the year to $30-40K/month by the end of the year!

I’m focusing on health

For me, the one area of my life that trails all the others is my health. Although I made great improvements last year, I’m still overweight and I’d like to be fitter. No other area of my life nags at me the way this does, so it’s a no-brainer what I need to work on.

I’m going to go a bit shorter-term, though, and make this a quarterly focus rather than a yearly one. I think it’s quite possible for me to reach my goal weight (about 80 kg) and achieve my desired level of fitness (running 10 km without stopping) within 3-6 months. By that time, the monkey will be off my back and I’ll be ready to switch focus to something else (likely something like developing passive income sources).

How does this help?

I’ve had this ‘primary area of focus’ attitude for a week or so now, and I’ve found that it definitely helps me.

I no longer feel guilty about going for a jog when I have work to do on my web sites, family photos to organise and print, or a TV show I want to watch. The jogging always comes first, and I still have plenty of time left to do some other stuff before bedtime. As long as I’ve done something to move forward in my primary area of focus today, I can do other things guilt-free until bedtime.

Desserts, snacks and large greasy meals no longer entice me like they used to. My primary focus is health, and a big part of that is losing weight. It feels wrong at a very basic level to be doing something that goes against your primary focus.

I’ve made the mental decision that nothing else is more important right now than fixing my health. Not money, not relaxing, not surfing the web, not watching TV. A switch has been flipped in my head, and nothing will stop me from reaching my goal.

If there was a way to pay $5,000 to magically be at my target weight and fitness, I’d pay it. Happily. So if I need to spend some extra money on gym membership, running shoes, or healthy food, I’m happy to. If spending time exercising means that I earn less money from my other web sites, miss a few of my favourite TV shows, and read a few less web sites this quarter, that’s just fine by me. At the end of the quarter, I’ll be at my weight and fitness goals. That other stuff just isn’t as important to me right now.

Part of what makes this work is tricking yourself into thinking that the change you’re making is only temporary. It’s similar to what makes the 30 Day Technique work. I don’t really feel deprived of all those other things because I’m only putting them off for a quarter, not permanently removing them from my life. I’ll soon be able to catch up on my TV shows and web sites, enjoy a greasy meal (with a chocolate dessert!), and curl up with a good book.

Soon, but just not today :-).

2006 - A Year Of Weight Loss December 21, 2006

This post is part of the Problogger group writing project Reviews and Predictions.

It’s hard to believe it was just over a year ago that I started exercising regularly. I managed to keep up the exercise for most of the year, except for a few interruptions like winter, injuries, etc. Each time I’ve been able to get back into the habit, though, which is good. I’ve never been able to maintain an exercise routine for this long before! I don’t think it’ll be a problem to keep going through Christmas like I did last year.

I think the single most important piece of exercise equipment I have is my iPod. Exercise has always been incredibly boring for me in the past, but listening to audio books and podcasts has been fantastic. I actually look forward to getting out and listening to the latest stuff! Being a gadget geek, my Polar heart monitor and Garmin GPS have also given me good motivation and a sense of progress as my fitness improved.

The 30 Day Technique has been a great way to introduce changes to my lifestyle. It allows me to make just one or two changes at a time, without feeling the pressure of thinking of them as permanent changes.

My overall fitness has increased immensely this year. I’ve gone from being puffed climbing a single set of stairs, to running a mile, running 3 km, and even running 5 km in under 27 minutes.

In terms of weight loss, I managed to get down from 108 kg at the start of the year to 89 kg today. Most of the weight loss occurred in the first half of the year (I guess that’s when I made the most drastic lifestyle changes!), but I’m very pleased that it hasn’t crept up since then. A great free tool for tracking your weight is PhysicsDiet.com, where you can see my public profile.

2006 Weight Loss Chart

The most motivational story I read/watched this year, by far, was that of The World’s Strongest Dad. Having a disabled daughter myself, that video brings a tear to my eye every time I watch it. Check it out if you haven’t already!

Looking ahead, my main goals for this year are:

I’d love to hear from other people either just starting out on the path to fitness, or having overcome some obstacles and making good progress. We can definitely all benefit from sharing, learning from each other, and providing encouragement. Leave your URL in the comments below!

Breaking Barriers June 28, 2006

Have you ever noticed that when you have a perceived performance barrier you’re working at, you keep coming close to it day after day, week after week, and you start to wonder if you’ll ever beat it? Then one day you break through it, then you beat it again during the next couple of attempts, and pretty soon you’re beating it every time. You then wonder what it was that was stopping you from reaching that limit all that time.

This morning I ran 5 km (3 miles) in 26 minutes 22 seconds, beating my previous personal best (from 2 days ago) by 23 seconds. My previous best before that was around 27 minutes 45 seconds.

I’d been running the 5 km in around 27:40 to 28:00 every time. My times haven’t been improving for weeks, and I was wondering how I was ever going to beat the 27:30 barrier. This time corresponds to 5:30 per km, so I’d been using my GPS to keep an eye on my pace and try to keep it under that level. I did pretty well for the first 3 km or so, but every time I’d run out of energy towards the end and my time would come in at just over 27:30.

Two days ago everything seemed to go right. The temperature was nice, the hills didn’t seem quite as hard, I was breathing and stepping comfortably, and my pace was good. I realised towards the end of the run that I was making very good time, so I put in as much extra effort as I could muster and really ran in the last 300 m or so. My final time was 26:45, a whole minute faster than what I was previously doing!

This morning I did the run again, and this time I came in at 26:22!

It seems that once a barrier is broken, it’s shattered. A switch is flipped in your mind that suddenly removes whatever thoughts were holding you back. You know you can beat it and so you do, again and again and again.

The hard part is beating that barrier for the first time.

Whatever it is you’re doing, if things seem to be going really well it’s a sign that this might be the day. Dig deep, put in as much extra effort as you can, and make the most of whatever is going right for you today. Tell yourself that this is the day you smash the barrier. Think about what you’re doing, strive to keep up your pace, and focus on the end result you’re hoping for. If you truly believe you can do it, chances are good that you will.

If it doesn’t come together this time, think about what went wrong. Did you have energy left at the end that you could have used earlier? Did you do anything differently? Did it work or hold you back? What part of your performance could you improve? What’s the one thing that’s holding you back the most? Work on these things, and eventually they’ll all come together on the same day.

Once you’ve broken that barrier, think about what it was that allowed you to achieve a new personal best. Did you do anything differently? Did you use any new techniques? Did you prepare differently beforehand? Did you pace yourself differently throughout the activity? Did you go hard towards the end? Did you start out hard, or save your energy for the end when you really needed it? What did you focus on or think about? How did you feel during the activity? How did you feel afterwards?

Next time out for that activity, remember all these details. Go over them in your mind before starting. Think of them during the activity, and try to repeat the same thoughts and actions throughout. You know you can do it, and you know how you did it last time, so chances are good that you’ll do it again this time. Once you’ve beaten the barrier a few more times, it’ll seem easy and you’ll be enjoying operating at your higher performance level.

And pretty soon you’ll encounter a new performance barrier, and you’ll get to repeat the whole process again!

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I Ran 5 km In Under 27 Minutes! June 26, 2006

This morning the front light wasn’t on at A’s house (our signal to each other when one of us is not running this morning), so I ran alone.

This was not a bad thing, as I had a few podcasts I wanted to listen to (Tips From The Top Floor (photography), Up To The Top Floor (digital media business), and Part II of a great interview by Yaro Starak with an Australian eBook writer named Daryl Grant).

Maybe it’s because I was distracted by the great podcasts, or maybe it was because I’d had a couple of days of no running and was rested up, but I felt great running this morning and broke my old personal best for 5 km (3 miles) by about a minute! I ran it in 26:45, which is an average pace of around 5:21 per km. I had a lot of energy left towards the end, and was able to really push hard for the last few hundred metres, shaving valuable seconds off my time.

I need to start increasing my distance a bit now, especially if I’m going to run in the 14 km Sydney City To Surf race in mid-August. I don’t expect to be able to run the whole thing non-stop, but I figure if I approach it in stages of 2 to 3 km each, with a walking rest in between each stage, I should be able to put in a respectable time.

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The Power Of Commitment June 22, 2006

Wow, who would have guessed what a difference a “kick in the pants” would make?

On Sunday I resolved to get tough on my diet and try to get my weekly weight loss moving again. I stated that I wanted to lose 0.5 kg this week, and 1 kg next week. As it turns out, I’ve already met this week’s target, and it’s only Thursday!

My daily weight measurements for the past three days have been 91.5, 91.0 and 91.0 kg (previously they had been for a while around 92.5 or 93.0 kg), so the moving average weight loss still has some room to drop before it catches up. This should give me the momentum to reach my target next week as well, and potentially far exceed it if I keep doing what I’m doing. Fantastic!

So what have I been doing? Not a lot, really. I think what was preventing me from losing much weight over the last few weeks was that I was straying from the ‘default’ eating habits I’ve installed over the last 6 months. I’ve been bringing leftover meals to work for lunch, instead of eating my normal healthier lunch. I’ve been having slightly larger meals at night than normal. My wife has baked a few cakes and muffins in recent weeks, and I’ve been bringing them to work as snacks. I also bought lunch at work (mmm, Chinese!) a few times instead of bringing my own.

All I’ve done this week is to go back to my normal habits. I’ve been bringing my normal lower-calorie lunches to work every day again, I’ve reduced the size of my evening meals, and I bring healthy snacks to work instead of cake and muffins. It really wasn’t much effort at all, but it seems to have made a huge impact.

I don’t have much further to go before my BMI reaches 25 (it’s currently 27.6), at which point I’ll officially no longer be overweight. My medium term goal is to try to reach that point before my birthday, August 15. Time will tell!

Tightening The Belt February 3, 2006

I noticed a cool thing this morning - I need to tighten my belt up to the next hole! That means I’ve lost about an inch from my waist, which feels great. I can see by the wear marks on the belt that the two holes above the one I’m now on are quite well-worn, whereas the one I’m on now probably hasn’t been used before.

As I said a few days ago, these little things are great to keep track of, and really help you notice the progress you’re making.

There are only two tighter holes left on my belt, so I’ve now set myself the goal of needing to buy a new belt in April. That’s about an inch off my waist per month, which is probably fairly achievable.

30 Days January 11, 2006

Today marks 30 days since December 12, the day I started getting up early to exercise. I made a deal with myself then that I was going to stick with this for 30 days, and then I could make a decision to either continue for another 30 days or quit.

I’m going to continue.

30 days is a good time frame to judge this kind of change in your habits. A week or two is too short - the routine hasn’t had a chance to take hold yet, and you can’t really judge what effect it’ll have on your life. Longer than 30 days seems like an eternity, and it’s harder to commit yourself.

I think that’s why so many New Years Resolutions fail - people ‘commit’ to making a change with no timeframe in mind, so it doesn’t feel like they’re working towards an achievable goal. Within a week or two, the change starts to feel like a drag, with no end in sight, and they don’t seem to be getting any benefit from it. They miss a day or two, and then never seem to really get back on the horse. Within a month, the resolution is broken and they’ve reverted back to their old ways.

I know I’ve done that!

If you commit to a change for 30 days, it’s going to feel achievable. It’s only a month out of your life, so if it doesn’t bring you the benefits you want you haven’t really lost anything. You can put other stuff on hold for 30 days while you work on this one change, without feeling like your whole life is being turned upside down. If the change is uncomfortable, you have an end in sight so you’re more likely to be able to stick it out instead of just quitting.

Steve Pavlina has written a great article on this idea of committing to change for just 30 days at a time: 30 Days To Success.

Now seems like a good time to review what’s happened over the last 30 days for me.

Weight

My weight this morning was 106 kg (234 lbs), so I’ve lost about 3 kg (6.6 lbs) since starting to walk in the mornings. It’s a little bit noticeable - I’ve gone down to the next hole on my belt, and someone at work asked if I was losing weight because my face looked thinner - but not huge. I think maybe part of the weight loss has been offset by muscles putting on weight and getting into shape. So this month has probably been more one of weight redistrubtion, rather than one of weight loss. If that’s true, hopefully I’ll lose even more weight next month.

Still, 3 kg lost over the Christmas gorging period is not bad! Many more people put weight on than lose weight during this time of year.

Fitness

This is the area I’m most pleased with over the past 30 days. I used to sometimes be slightly out of breath just climbing the stairs at work or walking up my driveway, but now those things are no problem at all. For the first 2 or 3 weeks of walking, I’d come home with quite sore and tired legs. Now my muscles seem to be accustomed to the exercise, and they can handle it fine. I can run much further than I could at the start of all this, and I have more energy during the rest of the day as well.

Sleep

Despite getting up half an hour earlier than I used to, I feel more alert during the day. I sleep better during the night, too.