Jl'm Marathon Training #8

-
I have been dieting really hard, sticking to my no-sweets, no-beer, no-junk food diet with the fervor of a religious fanatic who, very (very) occasionally sneaks a peanut butter sandwich.

I have not been training as hard as I should. On average, I do my 10.3km run twice a week, instead of my planned three-times a week. But I am improving. In fact, I completely slashed my time tonight, as you will read in the remainder of this post, which I call:

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

Monday, 14 December 2009

The Good
I completed my 10.3km run in a record 58:34. This puts me right on track to complete the Jerusalem marathon 10km event before the organizers finish packing up.

I felt absolutely fantastic the whole way (save for a stitch or two, which I worked through and overcame). I ran solidly, and I took on the tough uphills with gusto and determination (I would have taken on the uphills with zeal, as well, but he was too busy flirting with passion and spirit.)

How did I manage to finish the 10.3km in only 58:34?
  • I discovered that registration for the Jerusalem half-marathon and 10km even has opened, and the details of the event are posted on the Internet: http://hmarathon.jerusalem.muni.il/
  • I used an actual stopwatch, courtesy of my son, Zvi, who patiently showed me how to use the thing. The only problem is that I don't wear my glasses when I run, and so I can't see the time on the watch. I only know my result when I finish and have no idea of how I'm doing during the run.
  • I worked really hard on not eating donuts, latkes and other oily foods (only 1 donut and 2 latkes, despite the heavy temptation) - "carrot sticks are yum, carrot sticks are yum"
  • I have been drinking plenty of water (mixed with coffee, milk and sugar, but sometimes just by itself)
  • I am a self-motivated, goal-oriented, success-driven, fanatical-fitness-freak (it helps)
Now I have a new record to beat. Bring it on, baby!

The Bad
My MP3 player stopped working. How is that possible? It's almost brand new. But it might not be so bad.

Perhaps the music was holding me back. Maybe the earphones were slowing me down? Could the beat of the songs have limited my stride?

The bad might not be so bad after all, although I still have no MP3 player.

The Ugly
My Brooks Adrenaline GT9s - comfy as heck, but as ugly as an inside-out monkey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Playing With My Mind

-
G-d is playing with my mind. A few months ago my wife and I decided to buy a lottery ticket. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. What irked me was knowing, not so very deep in my heart, that I was flushing money down the drain. I mean, what are the odds? According to this site on Lottery Math, The odds of a "Lotto" style lottery can be found with the formula: n! / (n - r)! r! where n is the highest numbered ball and r is the number of balls chosen. This is called in math a combination . An easier way to think about it is if there are 40 balls and 6 are chosen, there are 40 possible numbers that can come up first, leaving 39 that can come up second, then 38, 37, 36, and finally 35 on the final number. To find out how many numbers that is you multiply 40 ×39 ×38 ×37 ×36 × 35 = 2,763,633,600 making the odds 2 and a half billion to one. Two and a half billion to one?! The money spent on the ticket could easily have gone to purchasing at least one bottle of beer with a 100% cha...
Read more

Act Your Age, Not Your Shoe Size

-
Image
The other day I was traveling to work and the conversation on the bus was more animated than usual, which means that there was conversation on the bus. One of my colleagues joked that although he is 40, he has a mental age of 17. In other words, he still thinks he's Superboy when he's actually more like the father from the Wonder Years. This got me thinking about what my mental age is. I also sometimes feel like I'm still a teenager. In fact, I cracked a joke the other day and my daughter's friend remarked that my jokes are just as good as Eitan's. Who'se Eitan? Her nearly-thirteen-year-old brother. The phrase "act your age, not your shoe size" would not really apply in this situation because using the  Australian shoe size chart , my joke was almost spot on, give or take 2.5 years. There are a number of ways I can measure my mental age: Self assessment Friend Psychologist I decided that none of these options would be accurate enough. For st...
Read more

Lessons from a Couch

-
Image
I was looking around at the electronic devices we use everyday. None of them are single-function, for example: My mobile phone is also my camera, diary, MP3 player, GPS device and multimedia device My camera is also a YouTube uploader, GPS tracker and a photo-editing device My desk phone at work is also an address book My MP3 player is also a radio and a storage device My e-book reader also surfs the web Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that HTC has developed a number of smart phones with Facebook deeply embedded into the interface and that there are dozens more planned for release in the near future. I recall the good old days when a phone was used to make phone calls. Now, every device we have needs to be able to do more than one thing. In fact, one of the hallmarks of a modern smart-phone is that it is "multitasking" - that it has the ability to run two or more applications simultaneously with the ability to switch between them. Older smart-phone operating syste...
Read more