January 11th, 2010

I just got a new dog for $15. It is a pretty dog--I'll post a picture of him. I got him from the Brunswick County animal shelter. I have yet to give him a name. He will go with me on my daily runs. I think he will make a good companion because he is a medium sized dog and seems very strong and reliable. I plan to run another 8 miles today with him. I think I will run to the park at Great Creek because it is frozen over.

January 10th, 2010

I ran about 8.5 miles and burned 1000 calories. My average speed was a little above 5 miles per hour. I also did not eat as much as before during the day, so I lost more weight.

January 9th, 2010

Today, I ran 7.95 miles and burned 1000 calories. My average speed was 4.6 mph. I also went to see a Chinese medical doctor. I have no particular health problems, but I did want to see how a Chinese medical doctor would diagnose me. It turns out that I do have low energy, which is related to having weak kidneys. In Chinese medicine, the kidney is not the same organ as in Western medicine. It involves this organ as well as the overall vitality associated with this organ. The Chinese medical doctor suggested that I practice more taiji in order to develop more internal energy. I will practice more taiji and make some more videos. As for my weight, I still weigh around 180. My goal is to weigh around 169 pounds. That would mean that I have to lose 38,500 calories because each pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories. That's assuming if I weren't eating anything on a daily basis. That means I would have to burn more than 38.5 times what I ran today to weigh 169 pounds. Now, you see how hard it is to lose weight.

I have several ideas about how to lose weight more effectively: 1) decrease calorie intake by limiting the amount I eat to the size of my fist with each meal (unless I am eating salad, which has less calories); 2) eat more salads; 3) drink more water; 4) go to bed earlier; 5) burn 1000 calories per day by jogging; 6) increase the speed of my jogging to 5 mph pace (right now, I am doing a fast walk/slow jog); 7) practice meditation and taiji; and 8) listen to my Chinese medical doctor's advice and take the medicine he gave me.

January 7th, 2010

I burned 300 calories tonight. I did increase my speed, but I would have liked to have run more. I need to organize my time better.

January 6th, 2010

My New Year's resolution is to get more fit. Today, I burned 500 calories and maintained about a 112 bpm heart rate. Right now, I weigh around 180 pounds; my goal is to weigh less than 169 pounds before summer rolls around. I feel like I have reached a barrier, and I don't feel like it is easy to shed the 11 pounds I would need in order to be average weight for my height. I will have to try harder.

Tomorrow, I will try to burn 550 calories. Each day, I will turn to burn a few more calories. I think one of my main problems is that I have not tried to make little steps forward to achieve large goals. Instead, I've tried to imagine I can accomplish everything, but I end up accomplishing very little because I have set the bar too high. Another goal of mine is to decrease the amount of carbohydrates I consume on a daily basis.

This is my marathon performance calculated over the past two years. As you can see, I have improved with each successive marathon performance. The time is calculated in minutes: 300 minutes= 5 hours, 240 minutes= 4 hours, 195 minutes=3 hours, 15 minutes, which is the qualifying time for my age group for the most famous marathon, the Boston Marathon. You can notice that I broke the 4 hour barrier with a time of 3 hours and 57 minutes, averaging a pace 9 minutes per mile for 26.2 miles total. My goal for 2009 is to beat my previous time and perhaps qualify for the Boston Marathon. It is possible because I have cut more than 45 minutes off my finishing time since my first marathon, but I will have to decrease the pace of my runs and increase the frequency of my training runs in order to meet that goal.

Update:

I don't think I will achieve my goal this year because I've had so much work to do. I imagine that I might match my previous time in the Richmond marathon if I am lucky. I didn't train enough long runs (more than the half-marathon distance), which will prevent me from maintaining a good speed throughout the race.

My marathon time: 4:36 minutes

I predicted that I wouldn't do as well. I finished half of the marathon under 2 hours, but I couldn't maintain the pace because I didn't do enough long runs. This was a lesson for me. I should increase my mileage base and my long runs.