Bringin Home the Hardware

I know what you're thinking. "Is he really gonna start bragging about some participant ribbon from a 5k," right. Well not exactly. I took home an age group winner award today, and damnit, I'm proud of myself even if I was the only Male 25 to 29 years old. Check the picture out below, it's actually a pretty cool little trophy.

My Bad Ass Trophy

So I've finished the first race of the 2012 spring season. The Blarney Stone 5k in South Sioux City, IA.

My unofficial finish time was a solid 34:13. That turns out to be just over an 11 minute mile split, which is faster than what I've been training at. So I guess that means I should train harder right. I will try.

Peace Out

Race Calendar

This will just be a quick update, but here is a list of races for the spring that I'm planning to run.

• Sunday March 11th, @ 9:00 A.M. is the Blarney Stone 5k in South Sioux City, NE.
• Saturday April 28th, @ 8:00 A.M. is the Drake Relays 8k in Des Moines, IA.
• Saturday May 19th, @ 10:20 A.M. is the Gladiator Assault Challenge in Boone, IA.
• Saturday June 2nd @ 7:00 A.M. is the Dam to Dam 20k in Des Moines, IA.

I think I will try and keep this list updated and perhaps even post my results as the races happen.

Well that's it for now. See I told you it'd be quick. Now back to training.

Tough Mudder anyone?

Yet another health oriented undertaking started recently. The Live Healthy Iowa 100 Day Challenge. Me and several co-workers will be competing against teams across Iowa to increase our fitness levels. Go Team!

I've decided to amend my race goals to include a Tough Mudder, which is a 10-12 mile race that includes a bunch of different obstacles. The races were developed by British special forces guys and they look pretty intense. There is going to be a new tough mudder race in Omaha starting some time in 2013. I've already pre-registered and I'm now recruiting teammates. So if you're interested let me know.

On the list of races for this year already are some of my classics. There is the Drake Relays 8k in April. the Dam to Dam 20k is the 1st week of June. Hopefully the Sioux City Marathon and Half-Marathon will return in October this year. Then there is also the Corporate Cup 10k in Omaha.

Dam to Dam team 2010

As far as training goes, I've taken advantage of this unusually dry and warm winter and have put in a couple 5k's outside. Kosama is still going, however getting out of bed for a 5 A.M. workout has been getting a little more difficult. I don't know if that is like Seasonal Affective Disorder or what, but I need to get back to going every day, instead of just 3 days a week.

Happy Birthday to ME!

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for all the happy birthday wishes, both on facebook and in person. It's great to know that all these people want to wish me a good day. And just so you all know, it was a damn good day, even for a Monday.

I will say that I definitely broke my eat healthy resolution on Monday January 9th. My mom took me out to Mexican food at La Fiesta Chara here in the SUX. It was delicious, but I ate appetizers, I cleaned my entire plate, and I finished my Mom's dinner when she couldn't finish it. Sorry Wubbus.

Despite all of that, I did go to Kosama that morning and show some noobs what was up. We have an absolutely enormous class joining us Alumni this session at 5 A.M. It's pretty crazy, but it was still an amazing workout.

Now, we move in to the plan for the rest of the week and next month or so.  Since the weather around here has been ridiculously amazing, I am planning to run 6 miles this weekend her in SUX. It might be colder finally but the snow is still going to hold off, i believe. In addition to that there will be the usual Kosama workouts at 5 A.M. Monday thru Friday.

In other news, It will be Kipper's birthday tomorrow the 12th of January. For those that don't know Kipper is my little brown Dachshund, a.k.a. Wiener dog, a.k.a Honey Badger Killer. So for this event we will be going to PetCo on Hamilton Boulevard at approximately 5:15 P.M. tomorrow (Thursday). If you're around, join us, it will be epic.

I promise to have lots of pictures in the next post, so I can make up for the lack of pictures this time around.

Happy New Year!

I had my 8 week KOSAMA post assessment today and there were some very interesting results. I'll start with the good ones. My waist measured 3 inches smaller and my chest was 1/2 an inch smaller. I'm pretty happy with that and I can't wait to see how much more progress I'll have in 8 more weeks. Next my bicep measurement stayed the same un-flexed and increased by 3/4 of inch flexed, so the guns are starting to look pretty ripped. The number of push-ups I did went from 14 to 24 and the number of sit-ups in 60 seconds went from 19 to 44. So I'm definitely seeing big gains in strength too.

Now on to the slightly disappointing results. The big one was my weight didn't come down at all. Still about 311 pounds. My chin-ups were still 0, and I was only able to hang with my elbows at 90 degrees for 2 seconds. What can I say, I'm a big guy, chin-ups are hard, I'll keep working. My wall sit time went down for some odd reason. I think maybe I just didn't quite have my feet positioned correctly so my quads fatigued too quickly. Who knows, try again in 8 weeks.

Now, since it is New Year's Eve, I'm going to list some goals and resolutions for the next eight weeks and for the entire year.

Next 8 week assessment:
1. Weight = under 300 lbs.
2. Waist = lose another 3 inches.
3. Push-ups = do 30 without stopping
4. Sit-ups = do 54 in 60 seconds
5. Chin-ups = hang for 5 seconds. I would like to say 1 chin-up, but I don't think that's quite within range yet.
6. Wall sit = 2 minutes

2012 goals
1. Eat Healthier
2. Drink just a little bit less beer.
3. I'll leave this one open for reader comments, so post your suggestions below and I'll determine from those what to put in the 3rd goal slot.

The Plan

Okay, so my ultimate goal is to lose a whole bunch of weight. How am I going to do it you may be asking, well please read on to find out. Also, keep in mind that this whole weight loss plan is sort of flexible. I'm not (at least not yet) restricting myself to a super strict diet program. My hope is to get into a groove where I can consistently lose weight til I get to a point where I feel good and then I can maintain that weight with the same dietary and exercise program that I've been doing previously.

So without further ado, the current plan that I have to lose weight. My plan involves a lot of exercise, since that seems to be easier for me to do than watching what I eat. Although, I WILL TRY to watch what I eat from time to time.

I joined KOSAMA as a way of keeping my activity level very high for an extended period of time. I believe that KOSAMA is a better way to get me to exercise daily, because it is a group class and people will notice when I don't make it to class, so that is a great motivator. Also, they offer a class every week day at 5 A.M. which allows meet to get my exercise in for the day, while keeping my afternoons completely open. So I am able to run errands right after work, or meet up with friends or do anything social really after work, and I've already worked out. It's great.

So how is that KOSAMA going, you might ask. Well I've been doing the class for 6 weeks now. I've only missed 4 classes during that time period, so I'm sticking with it pretty well in my mind. And just as a side note, 3 of those missed classes were due to being out of town for the Whiley-Riley wedding, which was great. I haven't lost a whole lot of weight so far, but I can tell that there are differences in the way my pants fit, and in the way that my arms look, and several other indicators that I'm in better shape than I was.

I'm confident that I will see some drastic increases in weight loss when the holidays settle down. I know that the holiday eating from Thanksgiving and the buildup to Christmas have kept a few more pounds on than I would've liked, but if I hadn't been doing all that exercise, I could have gained weight instead of being down.

The ultimate plan going forward here is to continue to push the exercise envelope. I haven't done any straight up running in the last six weeks, but I'm thinking I can add the running exercise to the routine a few days a week while I continue to do KOSAMA daily. That way I'll burn even more calories and I'll also be training for that 26.2 mile run I want to do.

I'd like to take this opportunity to ask anyone out there reading this to suggest a good 1st time marathon. Please make any suggestions in the comments section.

Goals

Okay, so I'm probably not the largest marathoner ever. As a matter of fact, I have yet to complete an actual marathon, but it's a goal of mine.

I am a runner though. I could probably be classified as a recreational clydesdale. I've been running since October 2008, which is about six years after I graduated high school, where I was a football player for 4 years among numerous other activities that kept me in pretty good shape. October 2008 is also a mere 10 months after I graduated from Iowa State University, where I had some of the greatest times of my life and met some of the best people in the world, but I also exercised very rarely and my weight ballooned to well over 300 lbs. That's another goal to lose a whole bunch of weight.

So back to October 2008 when I started running. I started because of my uncle Dave Poe, who is a very athletic man. He has run a large number of long distance runs, which includes at least 2 attempts at 100 mile runs. I'll have to do more research on that and inform you later as to the exact history of my uncles running career. But in October 2008, Uncle Dave came to Sioux City, IA for a visit and to run in the Siouxland Marathon/1/2 Marathon. I was recruited to be a motivational pace setter for the last 1.5 miles, which was much to my surprise, having never run more than 1 mile in my entire life before that. Needless to say, I don't often back down when proposed with a challenge like that, so I did it. And when I crossed that finish line with my Uncle, I...was...Hooked!

I decided to start running right there. I wanted to lose weight and run marathons and compete with all the other runners. It's been a little over 3 years now, and I still haven't completed the marathon goal, but I have completed a 1/2 marathon, three 20k's, three 10k's, two 8k's, six 5k's, and one 7 miler known as the Living History Farms Cross Country Race (that was a hell of time). During all of that, I didn't lose much weight, but I have learned a lot about healthy eating, and I think I'm close to pulling it all together and making my lifestyle totally healthy. I've also recently joined KOSAMA, which I love, and I believe will help a great deal with the goal of eventually running a marathon.

Me and some friends after finishing our 20k at Dam to Dam

So, that is a brief history of my quest to becoming fitter and healthier and happier. I plan to continue write about my continued progress toward the marathon goal and other goals and my life in general, so stay tuned, this could get interesting.