Happy Holidays!

This Holiday season came so fast. I did the Portland Jingle Bell Run last Sunday and was able to get my buddy, Scott, to join me too. It was a nasty, rainy day but the route was pretty nice (flat). I felt pretty good that day. When we hit the turnaround point, I couldn't keep up with my buddy. I'm still feeling pretty good about my progress. My weight is sloooowly dropping. I think the fast loss in the beginning was a lot of water weight. I'm down to 172 lbs. now. I've had a couple of mishaps but I kind of expected it with the Holidays.

My buddies and I are planning to do another longer run this weekend. I'm getting a lot of good advice from friends. Slowly but surely...I'll get there.

We're having our Work party this Friday and I'll probably have a beverage that night. I think the nice thing with exercise, is the guilt disappears. It also motivates you to exercise harder when you know / plan to cheat a little with the diet. Nothing too bad though.

Thanksgiving has come and gone!

We had a great Thanksgiving with the family (both my side and my wife's side). I started the day with a nice 5 1/2 miler w/ 3 other buddies. I was hurting after mile 1 (it must have been the pizza and wine I had the night before - over at the in-laws). Its very humbling running with these guys (who have all had at least 1 marathon under their belts) but I know if I keep doing these with them, I'll get pushed. I remember just over a month ago I ran 5 miles on my own in preparation of eating out and eating cake for my daughter's birthday party. I did that in just under 50 minutes so that made it just about 10 minute milers. This last Thursday I ran 5.55 miles in 47 minutes. Thanks to Dave, Ty and Daniel for pushing me.

So back to Thanksgiving; we got to my sister's house around noon and just relaxed until dinner time. We were the early birds in the family so I thought I'd help them out a little. I was also in charge of the "Green Bean casserole"....one of my Thanksgiving favs. I used a reduced fat cream of mushroom soup to keep it somewhat healthy (still had onion straws in it...so I don't know how much healthier it was). You can see pics of Thanksgiving here ~~> http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisdurano/sets/72157603271788103/ . Anyway, long story short, I ate everything I wanted and just tried to watch my portions and refused 2nds. Dinner was pretty early too so I had plenty of time to digest it all. We were planning on going to the in-laws because my wife's family was in town as well. We got out a lot later so she dropped me and my son home and went there after with our daughter. It was nice having that time with just my son to play for 1/2 an hour and put him to bed.

The next day was Black Friday and I didn't want any part of that so I stayed home most of the day. My wife decided to try going with her family..."have fun" I said. I was really tired that morning because my son woke up earlier than expected (5:30am!). That night I took my wife's brothers to the Blazer game because I got some tickets from a Company we work a lot with and they were really sweet seats. It came with a parking permit and the tickets were also our meal tickets. I think I ate worse than on Thanksgiving but I wasn't too concerned. Top everything off, the Blazers won too!

I weighed myself this morning and no weight gain...woohoo! I'm still at 175 lbs and Sunday I'll resume my running. I had a great indoor soccer game Saturday and I got some good exercise in there. I think sprinting really helps my endurance. Sunday should be a real challenge. We're starting at The Old Spaghetti factory near the Portland Waterfront and it's a straight 4 mile uphill run up Terwilliger and then a 4 mile sprint back down. This will really test me but its going to feel real good when we're done. Great way to start another week of health!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is already here! I was able to persuade a couple of friends and family to do a nice run the morning of Thanksgiving. My buddy Ty is going to head over w/ his daughter Thanksgiving morning and she is going to play w/ Morgan while we hit the pavement. That way we won't feel so guilty when we chow down. My nephew Justin said he's up for it too and same w/ my other buddy Dave.

This past week was another good one. We had an awesome run Sunday morning on the waterfront downtown. We ran a little further than we anticipated and ran at a pretty good pace too. I did two days of weights this week and cardio too. I think mixing it up has really helped me stay motivated. We had our first indoor soccer game today as well. We actually did pretty good out there against a team that has played for quite a while. Amy played too and I have to say she did awesome out there. I'm loving the fact Amy and I are really trying to make these positive changes in our life. I got her to go with me to the last spin class too! I'm down to 175 now so that's about 16lbs. lost in 5 weeks! Goal is drop to about 165 by end of year. Then the real marathon training begins.

I'll let you know how Thanksgiving goes. I'm not too worried. I think the positive changes has really changed my eating habits.

Awesome week of fitness for me. Did another 10k last Sunday and worked out everyday this week. Really no feelings of burning out. I do it on my lunch and I really get bored if I don't do anything...so works out well. I took a spin class Thursday w/ a co-worker and that kicked my butt...literally! I plan to take it EZ Saturday and go on a 7 miler w/ 3 buddies downtown on Sunday morning. Diet has been great. Ate really good this week. I don't think any significant weight change, but I haven't checked this week.

Been a great week. Halloween came and went and I was good. I had one "dumb dumb" lollipop and that was it! Morgan got plenty of candy and I'm having a hard time thinking she's going to eat all of that! I'll probably toss some of them in the trash everyday...she won't notice! :-)
Anyway, diet and exercise is going great. Went on a long run w/ my buddy Dave last Sunday and he kicked my azz! Going again Sunday w/ Dave and Ty and plan on doing same 10k loop. Need to build my endurance. I played around w/ some speed work this week and felt really good. Weight is getting better every week too. I've lost about 13 lbs and I'm down to 178. My goal is to be at 165 by January 1st and I'm confident that's realistic. I think combination of cardio, excellent diet and weights has really made the biggest impact. I forgot how nice it is to have old clothes fit again.
Talk to you next week!

Tough week exercise wise. I got a nasty cold early this week and wasn't able to exercise as much as I wanted too. I really tried to watch my diet though because I knew I wasn't going to burn much calories. Kids got sick too and I stayed home Thursday for a few hours with them. Was able to get a good run in Friday though. I plan to go on a 5 miler this weekend. Really just focusing on getting my weight down for the new year...and then do some serious training. I'm down to 182 now and I think I've gauged my weekly calorie intake pretty good to know I'll be losing weight consistently and at a good rate.

So far everything's been great. I've been mixing cardio w/ weights 6 days a week and I've cut about 6-7 lbs. already. Last weekend I went on a 5 miler and I felt really good. I've been doing about 9:45 miles so lots of work still. January is when I plan to really start my endurance and speed training. For now, I'm just really working on getting my weight down and watching my diet. No real regrets w/ my diet. My daughter had her 4th birthday last week and I made a chocolate cake. I just had one slice (that's why I ran 5 miles that day...because I knew I was going to eat it!) and we had about 1/2 a cake left still...but I threw it away. We didn't need it! I'm trying to eat a ton more fiber during the day and having salad at least once a day. I've also been eating dinner and that's it for the night....I wake up a lot happier too this way. I'm going to sign up w/ this athletic center for a year in December so I have access to an indoor track for my speed work training. My buddy Scott is also doing a marathon in May, so I hope to get some good runs in with him too.

It's official! I'm going to be doing the Portland Marathon in '08. I've decided I'm going to start training for it now too. My official start day is Monday, October 8th and I have about a year to reach my big-azz goal of not just finishing it, but doing it in a time of 3:30minutes!
My training will be tough. Strict...very strict diet for the year (and hopefully keep it up after too :-), lots of running and weights. My plan to do it w/ 8 minute miles will require me to loses about 40 pounds. I'm going to do weekly blog entries to track my success and hold me accountable. Stay tuned and wish me luck!