Tuesday, February 21, 2012

February 20: back on some hills

Kendo: did some good suburi at home this evening. I was a bit pressed for time--busy day, as Mondays for me usually are--but worked on extending my footwork, and smoothing out my form in my men strikes.

Running: 6 miles. Got in my hills for the week, with 2 of my 6 miles on the Wellness Center treadmill's hills routine, level 5 at 6.5 mph. Not much, but a start at regaining some hills work.

Weekly Plan, February 20-26


Kendo: only three weeks until the tournament and rank exam in Kentucky, so I definitely want to get my head primarily into my kendo. Both Mudokwan classes should happen this week, and I want to do some good home suburi, as well.

Running: much better week after the debacle two weeks ago. I'll not try anything overly ambitious this week--I want my head in kendo--but I'll aim for 40 miles with a 10 mile distance run, and at least one hills/stairs run.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

February 19: back outdoors

A passable day for an outdoor run

Kendo: a nice, thorough home suburi session this morning. Worked on basic men, of course, and keeping my kensaki at the proper level. I also worked on extending my footwork--"throwing the body forward," as Hiro likes to put it.

Running: 10 miles. Finally, an outdoor run. I wouldn't say the weather was perfect; heck, it wasn't even very good, with a temp just above freezing and 15-20 mph winds that put the wind chill in the low twenties. But for mid-February Indiana, it was downright balmy.

February 18: off day with my sweetie

Off day today, as my sweetie and I had a very rare day with no kids. We enjoyed ourselves, topping things out with a fine dinner at the Cheesecake Factory--where I was actually able to eat relativey healthy. They have a very good veggie burger.

February 17: "beautiful when you lose"

Kendo: pretty good class at Mudokwan this evening. I did my kata work with Josh, and we worked on our usual drills, with a bit of jigeiko at the end. I did far too much blocking in jigeiko; I need to stop thinking about getting hit, and simply concentrate on solid basics. In the rank exam, it won't much matter whether I get hit or not; the important thing is form. I also need to forgo moving backwards--at least, moving backwards without some sort of hiki technique.

Hiro has stressed that our mental approach must be different in testing, in the dojo, or in competition. In competition we need to avoid being struck, of course. But otherwise we need to think only in terms of executing proper form, even, as he puts t, "looking beautiful when you lose." I have a difficult time with this; my instinct is always to block or dodge my opponent's strikes.

Running: 5 miles. Did a shorter run in the Wellness Center, but with a bit faster pace. I'm think I might institutionalize this approach, doing shorter but harder runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (when I'm pressed for time because of my teaching schedule), and reserving Tuesdays and Thursdays for more distance-oriented work.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

February 16: bit of home suburi

Practically the only place I seem to run these days.

Kendo: finally managed to do some good suburi at home. Focused (as always) on not dropping my kensaki and right hand in my men strikes. Making some headway in correcting this particular little quirk, I believe.

Running: 7.5 miles. Decent enough run in the Wellness Center, which seems to be almost my sole option for running these days, for better or worse.

February 15: kendo at the Y

Waiting with Rachel to pick up Evan after his basketball practice this afternoon--one of those busy family days 

Kendo: managed to make the kendo class at the Fishers Y tonight. This likely won't happen too many more times, since I've canceled my Y membership, effective next month (I just don't use that facility enough to justify the monthly expense, particularly given my access to the AU Wellness Center). The focus was on basics, of course, which is always a good thing.

Running: 4 miles. Got back on the stairs again, running the stairs/track at the Wellness Center. I've neglected this aspect of my workouts lately, so I wasn't able to manage much distance, or a good pace. But I'll build on this, and hopefully do a better job next week.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

February 14: Valentine's Day

Kendo: no class at Mudokwan for me this evening. Not very happy about this, but seemed like the right thing to do, family-wise (not just my wife, but my son as well; I promised him I would do the driving for him to spend some time with his girlfriend on Valentine's Day). In other words, the sort of ongoing battle I always have with my kendo (and to much lesser extent my running). I'm hoping I can make it up a bit tomorrow by working with the folks at the Fishers YMCA.

Running: 8.5 miles. Another good, strong run in the Wellness Center. I thought more in terms of just getting in a god run than anything like a fast pace, so I was a bit slow. Still, it's good to just do a nice, solid mid-sized run.

February 13: getting back on track.

Kendo: nothing today, other than watching a bit of film on youtube. I am just having no good results with my home suburi, lately. I need to find some way to integrate kendo into my daily life, along the same lines as my running, but I've not yet figured out how to do this.

Running: 6 miles. Had a god run in the Wellness Center; short, but strong. I think my four day layoff last week might have done me some good in terms of rest, because I felt more "up" on my feet, and had a better, smoother stride. Good way to begin getting myself back on track.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Weekly Plan, February 13-19


Kendo: another week in February, and another week of problems and obstacles to overcome in merely trying to practice and attend class. This week's culprit is Valentine's Day (which will also likely make my attendance at the annual Detroit kendo tournament forever an impossibility). I'll not be able to attend Tuesday's Mudokwan class, though I might be able to make this up somewhat by working out with the kendo class at the Fishers Y on Wednesday. We'll see. Friday's Mudokwan class shouldn't be a problem, at least. And suburi at home, as always, will likely remain a bit of a piecemeal project.

Running: time to move on from last weeks flu-induced train wreck. I'll try to get back to 40 this week, with a 10 miler on Thursday for distance. I'm not going to do much else; I just want to regain my stamina and my running mojo.

More generally, I want to work on solutions to those four problems I identified over the weekend. This week my number one priority: designing a do-able, definitive approach to nutrition.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

February 11-12: evaluation

  I'm spending the second weekend of February on a bit of a forced hiatus where my fitness life is concerned. A recent bout with the flu has left me so lacking in stamina and energy that I'm compelled to take a few days off from both running and kendo to rest and recharge. My nutrition practices--such as they are; and I'll fully admit I've not done very well here since the new year--are likewise rather up in the air. I literally did not eat anything for nearly three days this week (my bug was of the stomach variety, which tends to discourage such things as eating), and I'm trying this weekend to just get my appetite back.

   Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. I think if this had been, say, ten years ago, a day or so off from a fitness program (whatever diet or exercise du jour I was trying at that moment) would have surely spelled the end of said program. But I've been fit for a while now, and I've woven running, kendo and nutrition concerns so deeply into the fabric of my everyday life that I'm not at all worried about taking a couple of days off. I'll be right back at it on Monday.

   But what exactly is "it"? That's the value of this little weekend hiatus: I can use the time to not only rest, but evaluate. As I've written on this blog before, the key secret to my being able to both lose weight and keep it off for (now going on eight) years is a carefully cultivated ability to constantly re-evaluate myself, take stock of where I'm at and what I'm doing.*

*If anyone who reads this blog finds any value in what they see, it is I hope this: my blog is a daily record of what it takes to not only lose weight (hard) but keep it off (much, much harder). If anyone wonders why I keep blogging like this, day in and day out for years on end (other than the fact that I'm a professional writer, so writing is to me an act akin to breathing), it is to both keep myself accountable to something outside myself (absolutely essential to a fitness program) and maybe, just maybe help someone who runs across my quiet, musty little corner of the Internet who, like me, has struggled with his/her weight and is trying to find solutions. I've lost 100 pounds and kept it off for nearly eight years. How? No diet plans, gimmicks, or anything like that. Rather, I've done it with the sort of daily, incessant banging away that you'll read about in this blog. It's not glamorous, nor maybe particularly inspiring...but whatever it is, it seems to work.

So where do things stand, as of the second week of February 2012?

   Winter is always the most challenging time for my running program. Cold weather, lack of options, a busy professional and family schedule all tend to plant roadblocks in my path and generally reduce my miles and the quality of my running. This is a pretty consistent pattern; looking back over the winters represented on this blog, I find my mileage always decreases, despite my best efforts. This is one reason why I've never been able to run a spring marathon; the wintertime training leading up to that point is just too difficult.

   This winter so far is no exception. I'm averaging somewhere between 35-40 miles a week, with my best distance runs never exceeding the 10 mile range. I'm not very happy at all about this, but it really isn't anything new. And I'd say that this winter I've done better quality runs, at least in terms of getting in some decent hills/stairs training.

   Where kendo is concerned, I'd say I'm slowly progressing towards my goal of improving my kendo to the point of possibly passing my shodan exam, either at the Kentucky tournament March 10, or the Cleveland tournament at the end of March. My plan now is to compete in both tournaments and to register for the rank exams a both: if I fail in Kentucky, I'll test again in Cleveland. And I think I'm getting better, albeit slowly and in small, sometimes undetectable ways. I have a long, long ways to go, of course, but on the whole I'd say the arrow is pointing up here.

  And nutrition? Not so much. I don't do horribly here; I generally eat healthy, I'm still a vegetarian, and I tend to keep my worst impulses under control. But despite my best efforts, I'm entirely unable to follow a real, serious plan here. I tend to indulge my sweet tooth far too often, and I go through stretches during which I eat just junk. All too often I eat the wrong things, counting on my running to forestall the consequences--which it generally does, since my weight is still more-or-less steady (in the 170 range) and I'm pretty well able to keep up with my running and my kendo. But I definitely think I'm experiencing what I've seen referred to as "middle age creep"--a very slow decline in my fitness level, and a bit too soft around the middle, more than I'd like--and I suspect that my ragged nutrition habits are the chief cause.

   So on the whole, there are good things here, but there are also problems. The problems aren't serious, but they could become so if I do not exercise due diligence.

Specifically, I need to address the following problems/issues (and I'm thinking broadly here; not the myriad details I need to address in my kendo, for example):
  1. Find a consistent, practical daily nutritional plan that fits my needs
  2. Strength training. I can tell with my longer runs that I'm slowly and very gradually losing muscle mass, as is normal with age. I can't stop the process entirely, of course, but I need to ameliorate its worst effects, especially if I'm going to do serious distance running in the future. I'm not sure exactly how to proceed here: weightlifting, or better hills/stairs training. But I need a viable approach, better than the spotty and inconsistent strength training that has been my norm.
  3. Flexibility. This applies pretty much equally to my running and my kendo. In running, my stiffness--which seems to be something of a natural, built-in problem--tends to facilitate some of the little nagging owies I've experienced off and on. In kendo it is a more serious matter, robbing my form of smoothness and fluidity. Again, I'm unsure what exactly to do about this: possibly some pliometrics, certainly better stretching techniques. But as with strength training, I need to work out a good plan before spring.
  4. Integration. This is more of a philosophical, really almost an existential matter. I need to find ways to make the seemingly disparate jigsaw puzzle pieces of my fitness life fit together better as a whole. All too often my running seems to operate in a separate compartment from my kendo, and vice versa, and both often seem separated from my nutrition. The pieces don't all seem to fit together into a cohesive enough whole--in fact, I worry sometimes that some of the practices I follow in one area are actually a detriment to my activities in other areas. The impetus here is my kendo, more than anything else. Hiro has often spoken of integrating kendo into the fabric of our everyday lives (and I've read similar remarks from runners, as well). He has a point, and its something I'd like to address.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

February 10: stamina issues

Kendo: I think I'm at the tale end of this stomach flu thing. Felt horrible this morning, but managed to get about three hours sleep this afternoon (all I seem to want to do lately is sleep; exactly how my sweetie felt when she had this flu), and I felt good enough to attend class at Mudokwan this evening. Things went reasonably well at first, but my stamina really fell apart during jigeiko, and my kendo overall became really weak. I think I'm no longer carrying the flu bug itself, but I definitely don't have my normal level of endurance.

Running: nothing here today.