Scott Gibson's Ironman Journey

I decided to go from 5 workouts to 4 this week and do a couple longer sessions. My left foot and ankle were getting a bit fatigued during my runs so I wanted to see if an extra day of rest helped.

Got in a great 5 mile run today, although, it almost ended up being another 3 miler. Around 25 mins in, I really started to hit a wall. Luckily, prior to my workout, I used a vanilla Hammer gel pack and it kicked in at just the right time. My foot bothered me a bit for the first two miles but I felt fine as I kept running.

Looks like it’s going be another successful week.

Legs and feet a bit sore so I just did basic calisthenics tonight.  Going to have to start working in more stuff than running/biking…looks like it’s about time for some P90X to make it into the rotation.  Fun!

Not sure what the nature of the slight upturn in weight was today…but still happy with the overall weight-loss progress.  I enjoyed a couple of beers last night, but I doubt that was the cause!  During my first journey for an Ironman, I ended up only doing weekly weigh-ins because the day to day fluctuations got a little demotivating when I saw an upturn in weight from a previous day.  Losing weight every single day obviously not a very realistic expectation.

Another great workout today consisting of a quick 2 mile warm-up run then 10 miles on the bike.

Today, I signed up for the Georgia Half-Marathon (event used to be sponsored by ING) happening on March 20th. For several months, I have been looking for an event to participate in sometime around March and this is perfect!

I am incredibly happy with my progress this week, even with being out of town for my grandfather’s funeral.

The week consisted of 5 great workouts and I really did a good job of eating right every single day. My weight-loss is right on track, but I won’t have the official total until tomorrow because I am only weighing in during the morning and I want to stick with my Withings scale readings. Best guess is about 5 lbs. for the week.

Here’s to another good week next week!

Just a quick two mile run tonight, but did manage to make it outside. It seemed a but colder that the first time outside, but interestingly I wasn’t really bothered by it that much.

Off to Pittsburgh tomorrow so we will see how well I do away from home. Going to make a big effort to eat right and get at least one workout in.

It’s too bad that the weather didn’t cooperate tonight because I was really looking forward to getting an outdoor run with RunKeeper again. Damn you rainy weather!

Had to knock out the run on the treadmill which is better than not doing the workout of course.

The next few days will be challenging to stay on track. Heading out of town for my grandfather’s funeral so eating right and working out are going to be a test.

My legs were pretty sore after last night’s run, so I decided to do some time on the stationary bike to work out some of the soreness.

I didn’t add too much resistance and maintained a high RPM for about 35 mins. Hopefully that will do the trick so I can get back outside tomorrow!

I was excited to get outside for a run tonight to try out my new RunKeeper Pro iPhone app, even though it was a chilly 39F! After getting on all of my cold weather running gear, I fired up the app. Overall, I am pretty impressed with RunKeeper.com and the app and I think it will be a great tool for tracking runs and rides.

RunKeeper Pro can be configured with either a distance goal (very customizable in that area), as well as a target pace. I decided to set it up for a 3 mile run and just see how that worked out. I had no expectations of having a fast run, I just wanted to get three miles in the books. Once I setup my music playlist, I commenced my workout.

Every 5 minutes, a nice female voice lets you know how far you have run and your current min per mile pace. The one thing I didn’t like is at the 3 mile point, it just says ‘workout complete’. A countdown in tenths of miles for the last 2 or 3 tenths would be nice.

My run pace was pretty damn slow, but I really don’t care…the run felt great and I was happy that I braved the cold weather for a nice 3 mile jog.

So the holidays are finally over and the time for serious training begins.  I am so incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin right now and can’t wait to get some of this weight off as soon as possible.

In an effort to be totally open with my progress, I am providing links to track all of my activities (via RunKeeper) and monitor my weight loss thanks to a really neat scale from Withings. I decided to use the RunKeeper Pro app for iPhone because it is free through January and it actually has a lot of neat features.  Look for the links on the right navigation bar under “Follow My Progress”.  This is going to be great motivation for me over the coming months knowing that all of my workouts and weight-loss are out for the world to see.

Starting tomorrow, I am going to go back to daily updates since it really helps keep me focused and disciplined on training.

Finally feeling better this week and it was nice to get back to working out. Finished up the week with a couple of great workouts and ready to keep the momentum going into next week.

Going to purchase a Withings Wifi Scale to start tracking body stats. It will be interesting to track everything as I get into a serious training regimen in January. It looks pretty cool and automatically syncs with an iPhone app I have. Love my tech!