This week we turned it up a notch during the Saturday morning workout. We had to because two of our BL7 participants, Shawn and Jennifer, were in Champaign running the 1st ever Illinois Marathon & Half-Marathon. Since they were there, running 13.1 miles, I felt we owed it to them to pick it up a little bit back here at home.
I was supposed to be running the marathon with them, but 3 weeks ago during the last long training run, my old right knee flared up again. Then last week, the dreaded flu and sinusitis combo reared its ugly head and knocked me out for a couple days. Working out over two hours tends to suppress the immune system, so the smart thing to do was take it easy so my system would recover.
I’m not the only one who had to pass on the run. My friend Susan made it all the way through the long run on the marathon training, when her shin splints started kicking in. They got bad enough that hardly any running at all made it worse, to the point where there could be long-term consequences. Though she was smart for not tempting fate, she says she still felt like a loser.
It’s funny how that works. Even though we’ve trained for 16 weeks, and ran around 500 miles to prepare, and we even did the long runs up to 18 miles, we still feel that way, even though we know it’s not true. We need to remember the real benefit is gained from what we’ve done and learned along the way. It would have been nice to be there, though.
But we did have some others go from the center. Josh and Stacey were doing their first half-marathon. Jane was doing her first one in over twenty years. Paul & Penny were doing just another of many races and half-marathons, and Josh Rigdon, who you might remember won BL4, was doing his first ever full marathon.
With all that going on, I pushed the BL7 group pretty hard this morning. After walking at the center for a warm-up, we did an interesting interval workout. We met outside the building and ran or walked down Wood St. to the park at 5-Points (High St).
Once there, we all did 25 jumping-jacks, 15 pushups, 15 sit-ups, and 15 body squats. Then they ran or walked north on High St to the park at Edgar & High St. Once everyone arrived, we did 25 more jumping-jacks, and 15 pushups, sit-ups and body squats.
After that, we took off toward the football field. Once there, we did another set of each of the exercises. Finally, we ran or walked up the big hill and headed back to Wood St and then back to the fitness center where we did the final set of exercises back in the mat room.
The first week, they did 5 sets of 10 each of the pushups, sit-ups, and body squats. This time, they did 60 of each, along with 100 jumping jacks, not to mention the running from point to point in-between.
If I’d have told them what they were going to do before they did it, most of them wouldn’t have believed they could do it. Once they were into it, though, they learned that they could do it. What’s more, their bodies will come back stronger next time and be able to do even more.
It got me thinking, though. The Sarah Bush Lincoln “Races for all Paces” is on Saturday, May 9th. They have a 5K walk/run, 10K relay, and Half-Marathon. I ran it last year after my knee kept me out of the St. Louis Marathon.
I was planning on doing it again this year, since I just had to skip the Illinois Marathon this weekend. While we were working out, it occurred to me that it would be a good challenge for the group in Biggest Losers “7”.
So, we’re going to all meet there that Saturday morning, and instead of our regular workout, they have to do the 5K walk/run, and I’ll do the 13.1 mile run. Some of them will run most or all of it while others will take lots of walk breaks. Some will walk the whole thing. A 5K is 3.1 miles and they’ve all done at least two miles, so the 5K would be only one more mile, and take at the most around one hour.
We’ll spend the next four weeks building up to it. If you’d like to do it with us, you can get information about it by Googling “Races for all Paces.”
This week’s winner was John Crow who lost 2.3% of his body weight and 6.4 lbs. I’m not surprised, because every time I came in the fitness center, there he was, working out. John won a $20 Wal-Mart gift card from Terry Elston and State Farm Insurance.
Second place went to Brittany Cline who lost 1.8% of her body weight and 3.4 lbs. Stacey Reed came in third, with 1.6% of her body weight and 3.2 lbs. Here are the rest of the top 10 for this week.
1. John Crow 2.3% 6.4
2. Brittany Cline 1.8% 3.4
3. Stacey Reed 1.6 3.2
4. Mike Elledge 1.5 4.5
5. Stephanie Crampton 1.4 2.4
6. Daniel Pearson 1.4 4.6
7. Heather Sutton 1.4 3.2
8. Shirley Fiscus 1.3 2.6
9. Jerryca Pearson 1.3 3.0
10. Doug Sutton 1.2 3.0
The group also got a homework assignment—a calorie log to start recording what they eat each day. Research shows that people who write down what they eat lost more weight than those who don’t write it down.
It will also let us know if they’re hitting their “minimum” each day—their basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the minimum calories they need to live. Most women don’t hit their minimum, and most guys overeat. This will tell us where everyone is, so we can go from there. Next week, we’ll look at the quality of their foods. See you then!
No comments:
Post a Comment