Waldo's Running Through the Crowd Challenge

[Waldo]

I wasn't going to join this challenge but 'eh, what the heck.

Am I a Scout? An Assassin? A Ranger? An Adventurer? I dunno. I fit with all the groups I guess. Philosophically with the Rangers, to a point. I gravitate toward the Assassins, yet I see myself as a runner first; when it comes to exercise that I love, running tops the list. I am, therefore, a Scout.

Name: Waldo

Class: Scout

Race: Corellian

Beginning Stats:

Ht: 6'1"

Wt: 192 lb

BF%: 10%

Age: 33

Strength (STR): 3

Dexterity (DEX): - 2

Stamina (STA): - 3

Constitution (CON): - 1

Wisdom (WIS): - 3

Charisma (CHA): - 3

Challenge Goals:

The overarching goal for me this challenge is to get healthy. I'm coming off a foot (broken toe) and shoulder injury (tendonitis, impingement, + ?) and have been nursing other ailments including knee tendonitis, extremely tight hip flexors, an injured ligament in my back, and a strained pec minor. The foot and shoulder, neither of which are fully healed, have had me doing zero exercise for the last week and a half. But I'm ready to begin easing back in to it.

First Goal: Shave 2 minutes off my outside 5k time. A few weeks ago I started to migrate most of my running off the treadmill to outside. I've run outside for a while, but have figured out several more ourdoor courses including one that is 3.13 miles, pretty much 5K on the nose, and one that is 5.00 miles exactly. Both of these courses have significant hills, my times are much slower than they are on a treadmill. Time to change that. 2 minute time savings is a pretty aggressive goal, but I have confidence, I haven't really pushed myself outside in a bit.

My outdoor course has 168 ft of gross elevation change over the 3.13 miles.

My current best time is: 28:46.79 (6.5 mph avg).

Splits for my best time run are as follows:

Split 1 (@ 0.93 mi) - 8:52.43 (6.3 mph avg)

Split 2 (@ 1.85 mi) - 8:12.17 (6.7 mph avg)

Split 3 (@ 2.73 mi) - 8:00.32 (6.6 mph avg)

Split 4 (@ 3.13 mi) - 3:41.85 (6.5 mph avg)

I plan on running this course once a week for the duration of the challenge. I just leveled up my gear and am eager to hit the roads. Part of the challenge for me is learning how to push myself outside. It is so much easier to set the treadmill to an aggressive speed and not give up. My personal best 5K on a treadmill is 26:45.

Points awarded for achieving this goal: Dex +2, Sta +1, Wis + 1

Second Goal: Complete 50 chin-ups, 100 push-ups, and 150 prisoner squats in 20 minutes. A bit of strength and endurance, this circuit style workout that I have been working on for nearly a month has become something I really enjoy doing. I started out going to failure every set, then switched to doing it Crossfit Cindy-style, lately I've been doing double sets the first few sets before easing back the reps. For this challenge I'm not going to set a particular rep scheme or set scheme, just your basic X volume in Y time.

My current personal best doing this circuit is 26:34. 6:34 is a lot of time to shave off, but I'm still making pretty rapid improvment, my strength endurance was pretty deficient when I started doing this circuit.

Points awarded for achieving this goal: Str +2, Sta +2

Third Goal: To be more accomadating toward injuries, and focus more on rehab than pushing my limits with those injuries. To that end rehab and prehab is is vital. To set a benchmark, my goal will be doing some stretching and prehab/rehab exercises 7 days a week. I'll probably miss a couple days at the end of May due to a wedding, but aside from those days, every single day, every single week, no excuses.

Focuses will include shoulder mobility and lower leg flexibility.

Points awarded for achieving this goal: Dex +1, Con +2

Fourth Goal: I have planned for this moment for a long time, it is the dream of every dieter. End my cut. I've already begun enacting my plan to move toward maintenence calories so this isn't really an aggressive goal, I'm pretty much there, but I'm going to come out of the cut smart, and not just add 1000 calories to my diet overnight. Lacking exercise, being sick, and adding calories, my weight has bounced all over the place the last few days. I figure though the upward bounce is just a temporary spike and my current weight is really in the 190 area (middle of last week I was at 189.8). By every measure my body fat is 10% or below right now.

My plan going forward is to add 250 calories every other week. Today is the first day I'm at a deficit of 500 calories. I've noted (and others at work with who are also nearing the end of cuts) a momentum phenomenon where it takes the body a few weeks to react to changes in calorie deficits. Thus I should lose at minimum 3 more pounds, though it could be as high as 5 more. That means at a low point I should be about 8% BF, but could dip as low as 7%. I plan on maintaining exact maintenence for a while until things settle down, at least a month afterwards.

My target is 187 lbs and 8% BF at the end, which will bring my totals to 75.5 lbs lost in just over 8 months.

Points awarded for achieving this goal: Con +1, Wis +1, Cha +1

Life Goal: I've begun a major project with my wife to fully refinish our deck. Included in this project is the long and tedius process of replacing every nail, most of them old and rusty, with deck screws, a task that is basically elbow grease with a crowbar. She'll do the finishing work on it, but all the carpentry, also including sanding, is on my shoulders. I'm about halfway done with the carpentry, and have a few more weeks of work on it to go.

Points awarded for achieving this goal: Wis +1

Final Thoughts:

I plan on sticking with the same basic workout schedule I designed for my last training cycle, which got cut short due to injury. The basics of it, with little tweaks, are:

Running Workouts:

Tue - Hill Sprints + Legs

Thur - 5K/5K (Outdoor/Indoor)

Sat - 5M/6M (Outdoor/Indoor)

Strength/Skill/Endurance Workouts:

Mon - Front Lever/Back Lever/Frog Stand + Endurance Circuit

Wed - Planche/Dragon Flag + Endurance Circuit

Fri - Front Lever/Back Lever/Frog Stand + Endurance Circuit

Recovery Workouts:

Sun - Yoga

I will be easing into things for the next few weeks. I'll continue to post workout logs to the blog. I just walked (for exercise) for the first time in a while earlier today, things seem to be good to keep going forward.

[KillerGriller]

great detailed plan! Good luck with it!

[Waldo]

Thanks.

I decided a couple weeks ago to reward myself with some new running shoes (Kivara 2's) at the end of my cut. Sales are popping up on them as the 3's come out this week so I ordered a pair yesterday. Looking forward to breaking them in later this week. Traveling for business later this week, hopefully the new shoes get here first so I can bring them with.

Walking today at lunch was a positive, there was a little feeling in the background, telling me not to move the wrong way, but for the most part my broken toe held up fine and didn't hurt at all. So I feel like I have the green light to give it a go running, though not barefoot yet.

[Waldo]

Finished my first workout in a while last night. Good to be going again.

....however I tested my toe with some light running during my warmup and it got sore fast. Running is a no-go for the time being unfortuately. It might be another week before I return to action on the running front.

Tonight is supposed to be a running day. I'm going to have to walk instead, and not too fast either. I guess I'll have to make use of the incline feature on the treadmill. I wish I had a bike though.

[Waldo]

Woo hoo, running again.

I gave my New Balance shoes a go instead of my Saucony shoes. They fit a little different. The issue wasn't putting weight on my foot, it was my little toe rubbing against the inside of my shoes that was the issue. At first I tried my Saucony shoes, things were aching right away so I decided to switch my shoes to see if it made a difference. And it made a huge difference. I actually stopped not because I was done for, but because I couldn't feel anything at all and I was worried that I was hurting it but not feeling it (more mental than anything). So far so good, things seem fine.

I only ran 2 miles, gradually increasing the pace. Enough to get a workout after a hiatus at least. But I'm thrilled to be running again.

[Sundae]

Thats great news your back running.

[aj_rock]

Piiiiics. Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiics!

Really though, awesome challenge, can't wait to see you shave them two minutes

[Waldo]

I actually took some pics day 1 of the challenge. Haven't gotten around to adding to the montage I've got going. Not much has changed since my last progress pic.

I'm actually in an I feel fat phase, if you can wrap your head around that. My expectations right now is zero visible fat, period, and I feel there is a little bit right under the belly button that is pissing me off. Be gone.

As much as I want to dismiss the loose skin thing or believe it to be a cop out, at the same time I can't really deny the fat that it is a bit of an issue. I mean, it isn't terrible, but part of me thinks the whole feeling fat thing I'm going through right now wouldn't be an issue at all if I wouldn't have just lost >70 lbs rather rapidly.

[Shukar]

Congrats on being back running again and reaching your recent target weight. I wouldn't stress out so much about the last remnants of visible fat, most people won't notice it and you're almost certainly looking way better than you did when you started if you've dropped that much weight. Besides, you can't be too awesome all at once or the universe might collapse on itself. That circuit routine you're shooting for is insane, it'll be a long time before I could even dream of something like that. Good luck this round.

[Waldo]

ZOMG, I love my new running shoes after a little trial running today. I was planning on a longer run tomorrow, but it is worth it to kick the treadmill speed up and earn a point for running a fast mile. I'll be happy if I can do it under 8 minutes.

Though I'm concerned about my left knee. My outer knee has been sore the last two days while running, not unlike the tendonitis I had on the other side of my knee, that was crippling when I first started running. Hopefully it is nothing, or just due to overcompensating for having a broken toe.

[Waldo]

Wow, going through my workout logs trying to get my PR's for the 5K and 10K (for the leaderboard), I realize that what I thought was my 5K PR actually wasn't. I've run 3 miles @ 7.0 mph multiple times, but I've never tacked that extra 0.11 mile on. The fastest I've actually gone 3.11 miles is @ 6.6 mph.

My running PR's:

~175m Hill Sprint - 30.09 sec (4/17/2012)

1M (Indoor) - 7:39.25 (7.8 mph avg, 5/5/2012)

2.6M (Outdoor) - 23:25.00 (6.7 mph avg, 3/29/2012)

3M (Indoor) - 25:42.84 (7.0 mph avg, 3/13/2012)

5K (Indoor) - 28:12.00 (6.6 mph, 2/28/2012)

5K (Outdoor) - 28:46.79 (6.5 mph avg, 4/5/2012)

5M (Outdoor) - 54:00.37 (5.6 mph avg, 4/14/2012)

10K (Indoor) - 1:02:12.00 (6.0 mph, 3/24/2012)

[aj_rock]

Waldo, sounds like you're suffering from FFB (former fat boy) syndrome.

All us lads who used to be chunky get it. It takes some mental ballet to really wrap your head around the fact that you have less of a paunch than the guy next to you.

[Waldo]

Week 1 Challenge Update:

Goal 1 - Shave 2 minutes off my outdoor 5K time

- I didn't test myself on this this week. At the start of the challenge I hadn't run in a couple weeks due to a broken toe. Instead of trying to set PR's, week 1 I instead did some easy runs to get my legs used to running distances again. I also tried to limit outdoor running since if my toe gave me issues I'd have to hobble home, potentially a mile or more. I think that I had a good week ramping things up, pushed myself for the mile run at the end of it, and am ready to hit the roads this week and starting working that time down.

Goal 2 - Do 50 chins, 100 pushups, and 150 BW squats in 20 minutes

- Again, at the start I had taken time off to heal up, week 1 back was not a time to be setting PR's. My first try on Monday ended pretty bad, I only got about halfway through the reps before I was done. I did it again on Friday and managed to do every rep, but I was about 5 minutes off my PR. I understand the strategy needed to get my times down, shave sets off, reaching my goal is a matter of consistency and perseverance. Doing a bit of forecasting, I think when I get into the groove in the middle of the training cycle I'll have this one in the bag.

Goal 3 - Stretch and do rehab/prehab every day

- I stretched every day this week, including doing shoulder mobility work on 2 of those days and yoga one of the days. I also did not push too aggressively this week taking it easy on my preexisting injuries, each of which showed improvment this week.

Goal 4 - End my cut and return to maintenence calories

- This week I bumped up my deficit to 500 calories, and will maintain that next week as well. While traveling I big time overate however I ate under my calorie target the rest of the week and ended up a net 97 calories under my goal for the week.

Goal 5 - Complete rebuilding and refinishing my deck

- I spent about 4 hours each on Saturday and Sunday working on it. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the decking carpentry, then have to move on to the handrail. I managed to also run some hose under it and make a nice connection point on the backside for watering the garden and spraying down the deck.

Other Thoughts:

- My running schedule is still altered a little bit, I'm not yet ready to do hill sprints, I'd like to give my toe another week to heal before subjecting it to the pounding of sprinting. I may instead try to beat my 1M time on Tuesday instead of the hill sprints.

- Between time off exercise and traveling, my weight has been a roller coaster. Hopefully things calm down now that I'm back in my usual groove. After returning from my trip my weight has been really high which has had me down a bit until I did my measurements on Sunday. After about a month of sliding sideways or even shrinking, I saw gains on every measurement but my belly. This has me a bit ecstatic. I take full body measurements once a week to compare to the Willoughby ideal and have since early Feb. In all that time my arms haven't grown at all, except for 1/8" gained on my wrist, my biceps even shrunk. Not this week though, 1/8" gained across the board, wrist, forearm, and biceps. My chest gained 3/8" in the last week, my thigh gained 1/4", and my calf gained 1/8". My waist hasn't budged in a week and my weight has gone up, which means lean mass gain. Just like fat loss seems to go in steps more than a smooth line, muscle gain appears to go in steps as well. Every single muscle measurement showed gains in the last week (unprecedented for me) and my LBM via formula has gone up 2 lbs.

[BarefootDawsy]

Great considering the toe situation...how's it feeling? Any idea when you'll be back to 100%?

[Waldo]

Great considering the toe situation...how's it feeling? Any idea when you'll be back to 100%?

I'm not sure. These last few days it hasn't bothered me at all, barely even getting that little reminder ache. Saturday I was able to run with my normal gait, but it was a bit of a mental battle to do so, to tell myself that my toe doesn't hurt and to not run on the inside of my foot, which was making my knee sore.

I've mentally cleared myself for all distance running and most non-running exercise. The only things I'm going to continue to put on hold are sprinting and any jumping exercises, both of which have much higher forces in the feet and thus a higher risk of reinjury.

While not 100%, it is pretty close. Its been about 2 1/2 weeks now since I broke it.

.................................................................................

Wildcard Point:

I'm going to add my wildcard point from the week 1 challenge to wisdom. Being the first time I ran that specific distance, running the mile taught me how to attack that distance in the future in order to achieve a better time. I found I was unaggressive at the start which hurt my time overall.

Wis +1

[KillerGriller]

sounds good, you're almost there

[Waldo]

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

The bad - The soreness on my outer left knee is really lingering. I've been able to manage it but it doesn't seem to be clearing up at all. Going to hit it with the roller tonight.

The ugly - I redid the mile tonight trying to better my time with what I learned last time I ran it. I was definitely going to set a PR, somewhere in the 7:20-7:30 area. Past the last corner into the final straightaway, I was flying @ 9.3 mph. And my treadmill's breaker tripped, it died, at 0.98 miles. I just stood there with my stopwatch in my hand, unable to make sense of what just happened for a bit. Dammit. Treadmill was fine though after a minute.

The good - I ran two more easy miles afterwards, going into the final lap, a live version of "Run Like Hell" by Pink Floyd came started playing in my headphones and runners high kicked in. Yeah baby. Not quite as strong as the first time I got it, but stronger than the 2nd time. Lasted about half a lap (a minute or so). Runners high is definitely better than an orgasm.

Edit - The other good: Between each mile I stopped to do a set of pistols. I alternate between legs as I go, my first set I did 14 reps, 7 with each leg, a PR for me (prev was 12, 6 each). I haven't PR'ed on pistols since March I believe.

[Sundae]

I love runner's high, I always just get a smile on my face even though everything hurts. It hurts so good!

[Waldo]

Well I ran my 5K for the weekly challenge. First time running outside (at home) since I broke my toe. I tried to PR on my outdoor 5K course and got close, but didn't quite beat it.

My outdoor course has 168 ft of gross elevation change over the 3.13 miles.

Total Time: 29:04.70 (6.5 mph avg) (best time is: 28:46.79, +17.91 sec)

Splits are as follows (PR run comparison):

Split 1 (@ 0.93 mi) - 8:50.4 (6.3 mph avg) (-2.0 sec)

Split 2 (@ 1.85 mi) - 8:41.3 (6.4 mph avg) (+29.1 sec)

Split 3 (@ 2.73 mi) - 8:04.2 (6.5 mph avg) (+3.9 sec)

Split 4 (@ 3.13 mi) - 3:28.8 (6.9 mph avg) (-13.0 sec)

I finished stronger, but was weaker in mile 2. My left knee was sore from IT band tightness, but it shouldn't have slowed me down that much. I should have pushed harder through the midsection.

[Waldo]

I wasn't happy with my 5K time that I ran on Thursday, so I gave it a go today. Smashed my PR.

My outdoor course has 168 ft of gross elevation change over the 3.13 miles.

Total Time: 27:09.85 (6.9 mph avg) (previous best time is: 28:46.79, -1:36.94)

Splits are as follows (prev PR run comparison):

Split 1 (@ 0.93 mi) - 8:20.8 (6.7 mph avg) (-31.6 sec)

Split 2 (@ 1.85 mi) - 8:15.3 (6.7 mph avg) (+3.1 sec)

Split 3 (@ 2.73 mi) - 7:14.3 (7.3 mph avg) (-46.0 sec)

Split 4 (@ 3.13 mi) - 3:19.5 (7.2 mph avg) (-22.3 sec)

That's more like it. Started stronger and just kept going faster. Spit 1 and split 4 each have a large hill to climb. Split 3 is mostly downhill. Split 2 has some uphill but is relatively flat.

To meet my first goal this challenge, I have to beat this run by 23.06 seconds.

[Waldo]

Week 2 Challenge Update:

Goal 1 - Shave 2 minutes off my outdoor 5K time

- Given that this week's challenge was to run a 5K, I got out there and did it. Twice in fact, I was unhappy with my first time and reran it. Set a big time PR too. I beat my outdoor 5K PR by 1:36.94, 23.06 seconds from my goal time for this challenge. Awesome progress, but if it is typical for me I'll probably plateau here for a bit in this area. Notably I've gotten much better at running downhill, actually letting gravity work for me. When I first started running outdoors, running downhill was much harder than running uphill.

Goal 2 - Do 50 chins, 100 pushups, and 150 BW squats in 20 minutes

- I only did this circuit once this week. Wednesdays are a play it by ear day, I was pretty sore and tired so took it easy to recover. Friday my abs had very signficant DOMS which pretyt much sabotaged my attempt at strength training. However in my one attempt this week I did do the circuit in a PR time of 25:25. Significant gains are still needed, but I think a little is going to go a long way. The big time gains are going to come as the number of sets needed declines.

Goal 3 - Stretch and do rehab/prehab every day

- I missed after workout stretching one day this week, but I did shoulder mobility and strentching work that day. Still I don't want it to become a habit. But I was mindful of my recovery, took an easy day on Wed, have been agressively rehabbing my IT band. I also had to take Friday as an unplanned recovery day due to DOMS in the abs. Overall I'm feeling as good physically right now as I have in a long time.

Goal 4 - End my cut and return to maintenence calories

- My weight has been unsettled so I'm going to add an extra week of a 500 cal/day deficit to see if things settle down at all. I was planning on increasing to a 250 cal/day deficit this upcoming week, but I'll delay that a week. I was 37 calories over my weekly goal last week.

Goal 5 - Complete rebuilding and refinishing my deck

- It rained all weekend and I didn't get a chance to work on it. I might have to spend some time working on it after work this week. I need to start progressing again.

Other Thoughts:

- My toe has become a non-issue, it is almost fully recovered. I'm going to begin sprinting again this week (hopefully), so on Tuesday I'll head over to the hill, weather permitting.

- I feel like I am getting into the high performance meat of the training cycle. I love this part, it is when real progress is made.

Ran the weekly challenge 5K this week, so I'm adding STA +1.

[Waldo]

I'm finally back to sprinting. Woohoo. I got in some solid hill sprinting work last night.

I updated my progress photo as well, including one taken on day 1 of this challenge (never posted it yet). I posted it in my blog last night, but I figure I should post it here as well.

[Waldo]

Booyah

Ran 5K today. Ran hard, pushed hard. I knew that I probably needed to start faster to beat the PR I set last Saturday.

Done. I beat the time set for myself in goal #1 for this challenge too.

Total Time: 26:31.98 (7.1 mph avg) (previous best time is: 27:09.85, -0:37.87)

Splits are as follows (prev PR run comparison):

Split 1 (@ 0.93 mi) - 8:00.9 (7.0 mph avg) (-19.9 sec)

Split 2 (@ 1.85 mi) - 7:46.7 (7.1 mph avg) (-28.6 sec)

Split 3 (@ 2.73 mi) - 7:24.3 (7.1 mph avg) (+10.0 sec)

Split 4 (@ 3.13 mi) - 3:20.0 (7.2 mph avg) (+0.5 sec)

The faster start left me a little slower in the last mile and a half, but it was more than offset by how much better the start was. To me this was darn near perfect pacing. The splits don't show my finish well, the course ends with a huge hill, followed by about a 200m slow downhill into a 100m rise done at full sprint.

All of my training is really showing in this run. The mile runs I've done really show on the straightaways, which I run faster than ever. The endurance circuit training I do shows up about halfway up tough hills, I'm able to keep the throttle up much higher to power through than previously, the sets of 30 squats are surely helping. The sprinting is showing up in my finishes. The longer runs have my endurance to the point where it isn't an issue at all when running 5K. And running this course specifically fast has trained me much better to handle downhills, which was by far the weak point of my running outside until recently, I was simply wasting way too much energy going down hill, and not taking advantage of the "free" speed.

[BarefootDawsy]

Awesome work Waldo!

[Waldo]

Week 3 Challenge Update:

Goal 1 - Shave 2 minutes off my outdoor 5K time - Accomplished 5/19/2012

- I was a little too sore to run 5K on Thursday, I didn't want to run slow, but on Saturday I was ready to dominate. I ran a 5K in 26:31.98, beating my PR by 37:87 and beating my challenge goal by 14 seconds.

Goal 2 - Do 50 chins, 100 pushups, and 150 BW squats in 20 minutes

- I did the circuit 2 times last week. 24:57 on Monday and 23:28 on Friday. Making solid improvement. Did a reverse pyramid rep scheme both days.

Goal 3 - Stretch and do rehab/prehab every day

- I stretched after every workout but Yoga, and did shoulder mobility work each strength training day.

Goal 4 - End my cut and return to maintenence calories

- I think that my metabolism has slowed a bit. Raising my calories 250/wk should take me to maintenence or a little above. We'll see. My calorie goals are going to be raised this upcoming week.

Goal 5 - Complete rebuilding and refinishing my deck

- I got a little bit of work on it. Next week I've got a wedding to attend so will have little time to work on it.

Other Thoughts:

- I'm relaly looking forward to exercising at maintenence calories.

Did the weekly challenge to record splits this week, so I'm adding WIS +1.