Thursday, July 8, 2021

Century Club] July 8, 2021 - Have you lost or need to lose 100 lbs or more? Here’s a thread just for you!

I have often welcomed those who have lost 100+ lbs (~ 50 kg , ~7 stone) to “the club” and joked that club meetings were on Thursdays. I recently suggested that we try out having a regular weekly thread to talk about issues that are particular to those who have lost 100+ lbs, those who are well on their way and those who are just at the beginning of a journey this big.

Welcome back to the Century Club! Each week I will provide a topic of the day that has been on my mind or inspired by previous posts. However you are free to talk about any topics you think might be relevant to current and prospective club members.

Previous Topics: Celebrations - Water Weight - Comments - Travel - Disconnects - Activity - Years! - Fun! - Rhythms - How strict? - Relationships - Loose Skin Redux - Multiple Centuries - April Fools! - What didn't work? - Milestones - Seasonal changes - Is it worth it? - Surprising Food Facts - Mistakes were made - Time to Vent - Relief Valves - Seeing Objectively - Tips you hate - Fear and Self-Loathing - Starting - 2020 recap


(Half-)Marathon Training

I survived my birthday celebrations and the long holiday weekend managed to have cake and eat it too. My partner and I went to a neighboring state to a Gluten Free bakery (she has celiac disease) to try their donuts we have been salivating over all during the pandemic only to find out that they were shutting down the business and weren't making donuts that day. We still got a birthday cake of sorts, more of a coffee cake, cut it in 4 pieces and froze each section of cake for future use. We also bought 10 assorted gluten free cupcakes which were awesome even if they are probably 400-500 kcal each.

Now that I ran my virtual 10K and my birthday is done, my next fitness/weight loss goal is a virtual half marathon in mid-September. I have 10 weeks left to train for it, and haven't been going for many runs much longer than 10K since I last ran a half at the end of 2020. My stretch goal is to achieve a < 2 hour pace. Last year I came in at a few minutes over 2h, so It doesn't seem absolutely crazy. So I started looking at various training plans. https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/half-marathon/a776305/how-to-run-a-sub-2-hour-half-marathon/

What's fascinating to me about this plan is that it doesn't look all that daunting. I'm right on the edge of the suggested prerequisites. I usually run 18-24 miles per week, completed my last 10K at 54 minutes and previously ran at least one half marathon. Yeah, it will require sustained effort, but none of it looks crazy. There's a lot of Rest/XT days and also lots of Easy miles. It's really all about the Two "quality runs" on Thursday/Sunday mixed in with usually 8-10 miles of Easy runs per week and 3-4 Rest/XT days. The Easy runs and cross-training are the day to day grind.

However it's still 10 weeks long. If I wasn't a regular 10K runner already there's no way I could even think about doing this. None of it would be possible without having done C25K in 11 weeks too and learned to go from 5K to 10K gradually over time but without a plan except for "just slow down and keep going".

I was also reminded by Facebook memories that I ran my first 5K Parkrun two years ago, and am also looking forward to my local Parkrun starting back up at the end of August. I've already volunteered to act as "tailwalker" for the event, walking behind all the participants making sure everyone is safe and makes it back to the beginning of the course.

So what does any of this have to do with the Century Club?

Well it comes down to the common saying here that weight loss and weight management is a marathon not a sprint. While both sports require training to get good at, it's far easier to run full out for short bursts than it is to train for a distance/endurance run. If you can run for a minute you can call yourself a sprinter. If that's all you ever do it probably won't make much difference to your calorie burn or overall fitness levels.

Building endurance requires training. The more you do it and more regularly, the more you will manage to keep doing it. It doesn't have to be maximum effort or perfect every single day, but you do have to keep moving forward.

I've been training for this half-marathon since I started C25k when I was ~230 lbs back in September 2018.

How about you Centurion? How's your grind going? Anything you're training for right now? Fitness/weight loss or other? Does any of this random rant resonate with you? Anything else on your mind today?

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