Bill's 20/20 Lifestyle Program

Well, last Thursday was my last real training day of the 20/20 maintenance phase. Today I get some measurements taken, then it's all over. Since February 7th, 2006, I've:

• Gone from 221.5 lbs to 179 lbs (42 lbs loss)
• Gone from not getting any exercise to running a half marathon
• Increased my strength a lot (from almost zero to something more than that!)
• Gone from a 38" to a 32" waist
• Run 344 miles
• Gone from a BMI of 30.0 to 23.6
• Increase my stamina dramatically
• Learned how to eat healthy
• Learned how NOT to get hungry
• Kept from getting injured

I'll get final measurements today. I am hopeful that I've started putting on some muscle my last measurements. We'll see...

This Friday I will be running in the Seafair Torchlight run. This is an 8K that runs in front of the Seafair Torchlight Parade through downtown Seattle. It will probably be pretty hot this day, so my goal is just to survive!

On August 6th I will be running in the Foot Zone 5K. This is a perfectly flat course that should be an opportunity for me to set a new PR. I'll be shooting for under 27 minutes.

Team RCPG finished the Night and Day Challenge under 3 hours (about 2:48:00) and visited 13 locations. My ForeRunner said we went about 8.68 miles. I'd say we ran about 40 to 50% of the time.

We did a pretty good job finding the locations and covered a fair amount of territory during the race. Where we did not do so good was planning what sites to visit. Each location had a point value ranging from 10 points to over 100. We probably should have concentrated on higher point locations and not visited so many. As it was, we got 430 points. The winners got over 600...

It was very tiring and very hot, but still was a lot of fun. I definitely think I will do this again next year.

One good note, we did finish on top of the women's division! The results are here: http://www.nightanddaychallenge.com/results.asp.

I will be participating in the Seattle Night & Day Challenge this weekend. A colleague and I will be doing the 3 hour version of the race where you orienteer around downtown Seattle visiting various points as marked on a map. You can find more information at http://www.nightanddaychallenge.com.

I think going to conferences may be one of the worst things for staying on a weight control plan. You're out of town, you're often in a new time zone and messed up schedule-wise, the food they give you is generally not super healthy, and you are eating out.

I'm at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference this week, and my diet has not been going so well. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I don't have a way to find out what I weigh.

I don't think that I've been too terribly bad this week, but I could have done better. I'll have to get back on track when I get home tomorrow.

Just thought I'd fill everyone in on my first half marathon that I ran last Sunday. I completed the run (13.1 miles) in 2:20:52. This was good for 83rd out of 88 runners in my age group. The way I see it, I have plenty of room for improvement. I ran all but about 2 minutes of that time. I think this was the most physically challenging thing I've done in my life.

Sunday night was spent staggering around the house trying not to aggravate the areas that suffered from chafing. The dumb part was that I put Body Glide on my feet to help prevent blisters, but I thought chafing like that was reserved for the marathoners! Things kept getting worse until by bedtime it was pretty painful getting up the stairs. I never knew my knees could make so much noise...

The really humbling part is that when I was finishing nearly collapsing after 13.1 miles, the full marathoners were hitting the halfway point. I have a whole new level of respect for these people (and I always had plenty of respect for them).

One last tidbit: my heart rate monitor estimated that I burned 2200 calories during my run. That's a full days worth of eating. Ouch!!!