This week has definitely been all about numbers. On Monday I thought I’d be super excited to be writing this post on a hot, but gorgeous, Sunday afternoon in Knoxville and I am. I’m happy, excited, and feeling more accomplished than I’ve felt in quite some time but other feelings I’m encountering at present: fatigue, soreness, astonishment that I’m still alive.
50 & 77
I guess I’ll tackle the numbers in question starting with 50 and 77. I’m not one to be super sharing with the numerical specifics of my health but this time I figure it’s cool. These numbers represent my total readings for my Liver Enzymes count and my Triglycerides count as of my follow-up last week, improving from 89 and 354 respectfully. Those are huge improvements among other pretty big improvements in my overall health in the last year. When I visited my doctor last year my physical flagged me for abnormal readings on my weight, blood pressure, ALT(SGPT), AST(SGOT), Alkaline Phosphates, Glucose, Total Cholesterol, HDL, LDL and Triglycerides. The numbers that were returned to me earlier this week from my follow-up visit the week before showed that I improved on all of these, most of them drastically, and am in normal levels in them all! What a difference a year makes!
Some of you know that as a result of my being flagged (mostly because of blood pressure) I have to, in agreement with my health insurance policy, receive health coaching calls every 2-3 months or so. I hate them and I hate them with a passion. I informed the coach on my last call that my ultimate goal at this point was to not be flagged on anything this year so I don’t have to talk to them again. They laughed and agreed that was a great goal to have. They don’t know that I’m pretty sure I’ve achieved it. I think I have one more call scheduled with them before my actual physical takes place next month. Bring it on, I say!
T-75
If you’ve followed my blog for the last few months you may remember when I celebrated losing 40lbs by doing a 5k on a Sunday morning followed by a T-75 class at the boxing gym. While that wasn’t the best decision for my tired body, leave it up to me to decide it’s a good idea to do again as I celebrated my health this week in a similar fashion. My favorite place to go and my addiction that also happens to be my gym, Title Boxing Club, hosted another T-75 class but this time on Saturday morning. This is a lot like your typical class like I attend three days a week only instead of 8 3-minute rounds on the heavy bags you partake in the championship distance of 12 rounds! That’s 36 minutes of heavy bag together with 60s of active recovery between rounds, an intense 15 minute warm-up at the head of the class and an equally intense 15 minute core session at the tail. This time I hadn’t ran a 5k in the morning but I was still TOAST by the end. You won’t find a bigger fan of Title Boxing Club than I am and I HIGHLY recommend giving them a shot and showing up for the next T-75 if you think you have what it takes!
Every pore on my body was gushing sweat when I left and I was unbelievably tired and hateful because of the hot sun but we were fortunate enough to be invited to our friend’s house for a pool party that afternoon. I relaxed at the house for a few hours and then spent the late afternoon and evening relaxing by the pool, in the pool, or in the hot tub with a cheeseburger and some Red Stripe. I’d call that a great way to end the day!
6.23
Most of you know I’ve been training for a 10K and if you know what a 10K is you may also know that 6.2 miles is the total distance that makes one up. Including this headline may indicate that I got the distance in for the first time and in this instance it certainly does! I slept later this morning than I intended but still rolled out of bed, sore from head to toe from T-75 the day before, strapped my running shoes on and hit the road going for 6.2. It was very hot this morning, no shade where I was running, and I was tired from the day before, but I was able to run the first half before I started suffering. My body ached, I was slimy, and I was now 3.1 miles away from my car and its lovely air conditioner. I was too beaten up to run back, even at a slow pace, so I decided to interval it back to the car. 2-4 minute runs intervalled with 60-90s walks. My app said I was to do a 5 minute warm-up walk, a 60 minute run, and finish with another 5 minute walk, at the end of which I hadn’t reached my goal, but app be damned – I was determined to hit distance today so when the app said I was finished, I fired up a free-run session and continued to interval it out until I got back to my car – 6.23 miles total! Did I hate my life up until the last few steps – yes. Was I basically in pain for the last quarter of my run? Yes. Did I make distance in the time allotted by the app? No. Did I let any of this prevent me from hitting the 6.2 miles goal? Hell no! A 10k is a race and you obviously want to win races but at this point in my running career I’m just looking to finish, looking to continue improving, only in competition with myself, really, and so my training reflects that. So what if I had to finish my first 10k distance run with intervals – less than a year ago I was confident I’d never be able to run a single mile!
With the confidence building throughout the week I broke down and signed up for a 10k. I’m not too proud to interval out a race but if I’m going to sign up for one I’d like to be able to do it without intervals so the June/July races were out of the question. The Man Run in Knoxville coming up in August is scheduled for what I’m hoping is the perfect time – giving me about two more months to slowly build until I can do 6.2 miles with a steady pace – and so I’ve registered and am looking forward to it. I didn’t intend for it to be like this but it’s pretty symbolic how this race is scheduled within just a couple of weeks of the one year anniversary of my decision to start running. Which reminds me:
|
Running, Year 1 Totals |
|
| Time Period | Total Distance |
| Couch-to-5k (8/14-10/14) | 64.59 Miles |
| Runtastic Runs (10/14-4/15) | 115.04 Miles |
| 5k-to-10k to-date (4/15-present) | 79.98 Miles |
|
Total Miles Ran To-Date: 259.61 Miles |
|
|
Miles Left Until 300: 40.39 |
|
Holy cow, I’m close to 300! I’ve come much too far to quit now!
(5 x ~6)
This one has absolutely nothing at all to do with my health unless you consider music an essential element for a healthy mind and soul. I do, though some (read: “my wife”) may consider my choice in music unhealthy for the mind and soul. Those people are dorks and we do not listen to them (except the aforementioned wife; I listen to her always!).
One of my favorite metal music news sites MetalSucks informed me earlier this week that Amazon has about 10,000 hard rock and heavy metal albums on sale from $5-$6.99. I check out Amazon’s $5 mp3 albums all the time and am a pretty big fan of digital music (which reminds me that I never finished a post re: digital vs. physical music collections) so I treated myself this afternoon to some digital music as a reward for this week’s hard work!
I’ll include some samples where I can here but my purchases this weekend include:
- Fiddle Witch and the Demons of Doom by Fiddle Witch and the Demons of Doom
- Relentless by Pentagram
- Melissa by Mercyful Fate
- Witchcult Today by Electric Wizard
- Surtur Rising by Amon Amarth
Thanks for having a read and especially thanks to the folks that have cheered me on in the last year – it’s been a killer year and I only expect it to get better. Going to close with this fun #transformationTuesday I shared earlier this week on Instagram
Beard Hair In My Coffee 5.0 