Jan 26, 2009

running again


After 3 months of very little running, Kattie went 12 miles! She flaked out a bit on the last big hill, and clearly isn't in anywhere near the shape she used to be, but seemed to really enjoy it. I went with her.

(For the sake of the dignity of one of my running partners, please don't pay any attention to the fact that I'm wearing THE tights that I'm not allowed to wear around her friends because they didn't come from the *men's* section of Target and they match hers. They have zippered legs, and at $25 I thought they were a great deal!)

I figure my knee bursa feels 95% of normal. After 3 months, if it wasn't healed yet then it wasn't going to ever. What can't be cured must be endured--or else must be precisely injected with 40mg of triamcinalone. That near miracle was about 10 days ago, and now the main things that kept me from yesterday were a) laziness, 2) foul weather, and iii)fear of the return of pain, which is almost worse than pain.

There's a personal trainer in our ward who's partially come out of her motherhood leave-of-abscence. She's taken on about 15 couples for a 10 week fitness challenge. It's been enlightening to see how much I've been eating. I'm calorie monitoring, not counting per-se. She has us using www.sparkpeople.com. If you want to improve something, monitor it. I've been eating 1000 calories for breakfast each day.

Here's the initial measurements:

Measurement Type

Measurement

Category

Weight

156.6

Healthy weight range for height*:

125-168

BMI

23.1

Normal

Body Fat

13% **

upper end of "Athlete" range

Sit & Reach (flexibility)

20 1/2"

85th percentile, well above average

Push-ups

40

>90th percentile, off the charts for a skinny old guy

Abdominal Strength

50

60th percentile, above average- these were a new variation of the standard tortuous sit-ups.

*Healthy weight range determined by the weight range that would put you into a healthy BMI category, and at a low risk for disease and highest quality of life.
**Body fat callipers, which we used have a +/- 3% error possibilty, but are the best inexpensive body fat indicator.

She's made it a competition with a points system. I found out about it when my young men's counselors wouldn't have desert at the planning meeting we had last week.