As mentioned in my last post, the half-marathon running clinic started this week. I also started a diet and fitness regime, with the help of SparkPeople.
The first night of the clinic was... interesting. I had planned to leave a full 30 minutes before, so I could drive downtown (alas, I can't attend the Bank St. clinic, due to conflicting schedules), find a place to park, get into the store and rest easy.
But as many plans go, this one went wrong from the moment I sat down in my car, because the car wouldn't start. I had left the ceiling light on, and drained the battery to nadir. :P Fortunately, my friend in the building was home, and was able to boost me. So useful to know someone in my apartment building!
I got downtown about 15 minutes later than I had wanted, and finding parking was a lot easier than I'd feared it to be. When I got in, the room was packed! Yes, there's going to be a lot of people in this half-marathon group. The problem will be hearing the group leader at all.
The first run was 3k, and it was strange running the other direction. Turns out, 3k from either Running Room store winds up at the Pretoria Bridge. It was an interesting run... It was cold out there, but there were still a lot of people walking, or coming back from skating, or even running like us. I felt a bit wobbly this run, and my knees felt a bit weak, as if my body was saying, "What? We're running this speed why?" Perhaps I've been too genteel to it recently.
The next day, my right knee ached, so I decided not to use the university treadmills. I could have used a cycling machine, but decided to rest the knee completely and apply ice when I got home, which is what I should have done right after the clinic. Lesson hopefully learned.
In the topic of other exercise, I have joined, as I mentioned above, SparkPeople, a fitness and nutrition tracking website. There are a lot of these websites around, like FitDay, but I found SparkPeople to be shinier and prettier colours. Also, when I used FitDay, they just tracked what I ate. SP also suggests meal plans, organizes the foods into shopping lists, and compiles the day's tracked foods into daily reports and tells you what you're doing right, what you need more of, and what you need less of.
On the fitness side, it advises work-outs according to your goals, provides demo videos of exercises, tracks your cardio and how many calories you've burned, and tracks your weight and measurements.
There's also a lot of community groups on SP. I just joined one for '20-somethings looking to lose 25-49lbs' and a group for half-marathoners.
Having followed SP for a week, I have lost 3lbs, which is encouraging, but there's so much more to go!
My inspiration for this sudden goal (which has been nesting at the back of my mind) is my sister: in a year and a half, she trimmed down from 200+ to 144lbs, and though I really don't think I'll follow her methods (some of the things boxers do to cut weight is a bit too extreme for me), the results are amazing. I decided that with time and dedication, I can do that too.
Also, the exercises are kinda fun.
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