Back in September 2012, I decided I was going to run the Goofy Challenge in January 2013 – it would be my 3rd go at the challenge but I hadn’t trained properly for the first couple. I finished both but I didn’t lose weight during the training and I knew I could do better as long as I focused. So I decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. I would try and fix my diet, lose weight and train hard and with focus.
I came up with a training plan, made some decisions about my diet and started training. I also decided to track how I was doing to keep myself accountable and that tracking eventually turned into this blog a few months later.
The first run I did was 3.14 miles done in 30 minutes (not bad for being near 260 pounds) – a couple weeks ago I did 5 miles in 33:20…so my speed has improved a bit.
I started at right around the 260 pound mark and I am now hovering around 220 pounds – I lost 25 pounds in the first 4 months of my plan. I hit 220 about a year ago now and I have maintained at that level for most of the year. This loss was driven by a few things – being dedicated to the running and some significant diet changes. On the diet specifically the biggest change was limiting white carbs (flower and sugar) especially in the morning. Lots of protein for breakfast certainly helped me lose a lot of weight right off the hop.
Looking back at my spreadsheet mileage tracker, I am at 3172.86 miles in those 2 years. I am pretty happy with that!
In those 2 years I have done 4 full marathons and 7 half marathons. Two of each of those were part of Goofy Challenges (2013 and 2014). I am happy with that as well. Especially since I managed to set new half and full PR’s (1:46:00 and 4:09:44 respectively) this spring, breaking times that were set while I was in my 30’s (43 now).
So what is coming up then? Well I have a half marathon in about 2 weeks time (Fort Garry Rotary Club Half Marathon) and another 4 weeks after that (Winnipeg Fire and Paramedics Services Half Marathon) – I am hoping to set another new half marathon PR in one of those races. I then keep the training going to do my Goofy Challenge #5 as part of my first Dopey Challenge in January. The next 4 months are going to be tough but they are going to be worth it. I currently am in better running shape than I have ever been for a Goofy Challenge and I still have 4 more months to train!
The one thing I am not really happy about from the last couple years is that I haven’t lost more weight. My weight has stayed pretty steady for a year now but I could stand to lose another 10-15 pounds while still maintaining my muscle mass. So my goal for September is to lose 5 pounds – to help with this goal I have decided to cut Coke / soda pop / cola completely out of my diet – 3 days in so far and surprisingly it is going ok. Ideally I would like to be under 210 going into the Dopey Challenge (at 6’2″ with a fair bit of weight lifting in the past I have some decent muscle in there as well) in January.
I have created some highlight pages for each of the years I have been running since I started this journey:
- 2012 annual running highlight page (Sept to Dec)
- 2013 annual running highlight page
- 2014 annual running highlight page (up to end of August so far)
I am looking forward to pushing myself further!
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