On January 1st of this year, I had barely begun an official swimbikerun training plan. I had been running regularly for less than two weeks at that point.

Today, February 13th, six weeks later, I’m running 3 or 4 days a week for longer distances than I ever thought I could. Sure, I’m slow, but I’m getting the mileage in with consistency. Plus, I’m losing weight. I’m 13 pounds lighter today than I was on January 1st. From that same Runner’s World table, that alone would net me over one minute of time on the 5K.

What am I leading up to?

Today, I ran the Virginia is for Lovers 14K. That’s my longest distance ever: 14 kilometers, 8.699 miles, 2.8997 leagues. But, “what about the half-marathon personal best,” you might ask? With a time like 3:03, it’s obvious that there was quite a bit of walking involved. Today’s race was the first time that I ran (or, more simply, moved faster than a walk) farther than about 5 miles. That was accomplishment number one.

Accomplishment number two was running that distance within the goal time I had set for myself: 1:30:00. That equates to a pace of about 10:20.7/mile. I beat my goal time by about 1 minute and 17 seconds running the 14 kilometers in 1:28:43. I am very happy with that result.

The race was held at and around the Virginia Beach Amphitheater and Virginia Beach Sportsplex. Aside from the Amphitheater grounds itself, the course was fairly flat, which was nice. The problem was that in the last 0.699 miles, the organizers decided to take the race up over the hill in the Amphitheater and after over 8 miles of running, that was just a mean thing to do! They should have started the race with that hill… it would have been the nice, sportsmanlike thing to do.

The only other issue I had, aside from that hill, was the cold, windy weather. I think that the organizers should not have ordered the extra snow for this weekend. We had already seen too much the previous two weekends, today’s extra snow was just spiteful. I mean, really, with the wind blowing into our faces from miles 6.5 to 7.5 bringing the snow with it, that was just uncalled for.

Overall, I had a great time and am very excited about my results. I am even more excited for my next 5K in about a month. I’m looking forward to see what kind of improvements I’ve made at that distance. I ran the first 5K of today’s race slightly faster than my race pace at the January 1st race. Bodes well for my next race.

View the entry for this race on my dailymile profile.

The Hair of the Dog 5k is a New Year’s Day race. To allow for the previous night’s festivities, the start wasn’t until 10 AM. That was mighty nice of the organizers.

I went into this 5K with a goal of 30 minutes or better. The big problem with that goal was the 9:39 miles that go along with it. A few weeks before this race, I had run a mile as fast as I could and ended up running about a 9:30. So asking for 3.1 miles at 9:39/mile was going to be pushing it.

Well, to make a long boring story short and, well, still quite boring, I ran a 29:40 (29:39.89 official chip time) which, at the time, I thought was a PR (more on that in a few). I kept the splits on my trusty Timex Race Trainer: 9:26, 9:39, 9:50 and a 0:46 tenth (7:40).

OK, so is it a PR or not?

No, not technically. I ran a 29:16 on a 5K in Cary, NC back in April of 2006, the Cary Road Race. The thing, though, is that back in ’06 I was probably 40 pounds lighter than I was on 1/1/10. I’ve got to figure that 40 pounds makes more than a 24 second difference on 5K times… right?

Overall, I’m happy with my performance and quite excited to see how the rest of the year progresses. At this point, I’m debating whether or not to run a 14K next month, the Virginia is for Lovers 14K. I also have a sprint triathlon scheduled for my birthday, 7/10/10: the Triangle Triathlon.

View the entry for this race on my dailymile profile.

The wife and I are in Mount Airy, North Carolina with our three kids visiting my wife’s grandparents. Normally, for me, it’s a time to vegetate and eat. This year, though, I decided to change things up and run a 5K turkey trot. So that’s what I did this morning down in Winston-Salem, NC.

I didn’t get many photos… I completely forgot once I had gotten started on the run. Oh well. I don’t have too much to say about the race except it was up and down and up and down and… well, you get the idea. As usual, I ran in my Vibram FiveFingers KSOs. Also as usual, I got quite a few glances, comments, and questions… all of them positive. Even with my Injinji toe socks, my feet were still cold waiting around for an hour before the start. But once we got moving, all was well.

This was my fastest 5K yet with a time of 31:34 (10:11/mile)… an improvement of over 1 minute over my last 5K in October. Still slower than I want to go, but I am very happy with improvement.

My next race, wherever and whenever it might be, I’ll take photos. I promise.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Time to eat!!!

Almost four weeks ago, I ran in the inaugural All Access 5K and posted a race report. I ran that race in 35 minutes and 40 seconds… about 2 minutes faster than my previous race. Not only that, but this time I actually ran the entire time. That meant more to me than the time it took.

Well, today, I ran the 2009 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure as a member of Team Lyon. This time I crossed the line in 32 minutes and 45 seconds… another three minutes shaved off! I’m about five pounds lighter today than I was four weeks ago. When I first wrote that, I thought to myself “what! Only 5 pounds!?” But, then I realized that while my weight hasn’t come down a whole lot, I have had to tighten my belt once or twice just to keep my pants up and that makes me feel great. I know that my workout program is working. I’m happy with my results and look forward to lowering my time even more on my next 5K. And, for reference, I ran this race again in my black Vibram FiveFingers KSOs.

Now, about today’s race… It was wet and chilly! I will not go so far as to say that it was “cold”… my friends in Boston, Fort Collins, and other more northern locations would definitely take issue with me saying that 50°F is cold… though, in my defense, it was windy and wind coming off the ocean can be damn cold no matter what the air temperature is!

Where was I… oh, so aside from the wind, rain, and chill, it was an absolutely beautiful day for a race at the beach. For those of you that know the Virginia Beach strip, the race started and ended at 31st Street–the start was on Atlantic heading south towards Rudee Inlet, at 8th Street the course turned onto the Boardwalk and headed north back to the finish. The first leg down Atlantic wasn’t too bad… the buildings were able to shield us from at least some of the wind. The return over on the Boardwalk was not quite so much fun. It was on this leg of the race that I was passed by another runner wearing black VFF KSOs… woot! No, not the being passed part, but the VFF KSO part. It is nice to see the movement continue to grow.

I was a little disappointed in the lack of a finisher’s “medal.” Yeah, I like shiny things… but I think that’s a geek thing. On the plus side, they had water, donuts (don’t worry, I didn’t eat any), pomegranate apple sauce, and a few flavors of yogurt for the finishers.

In short, I had a great time and it was another well run race at the oceanfront.

As a wrap up, some bad news… my iPhone battery had died on me, so I don’t have any pictures… nothing from the start, nothing from the finish, no photos of my VFFs! Oh well, next time I’ll take two of each photo and post them.

In fact, I’ve run a handleful of 5Ks over the past three or four years and I’ve never been able to find and hold a pace that let me run an entire race from start to finish. For a few of those races, I was considerably lighter than I am now. And in one of those races, I even finished in the top three of my age group and won a gift card to a local running store!

Well, today I ran the inaugural All Access 5K at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater. I finished today’s race with a (chip) time of 36:02 (my watch showed a time of around 35:40 from line to line). I am definitely pleased to see an improvement in my finishing time, but what I am thrilled about is the fact that I was able to run from start to finish with no walk breaks… aside for a few seconds at the midpoint water station. Admittedly, I was running at a very slow pace of 11:28 per mile, but I’m still happy with it.

As for the race itself, things were very well run before and after and I had a great time.The course was mostly flat with less than a mile worth of climbing… the mostly flat parts–out in the parking lots–were my favorite parts. Before and after the race, there was plenty of water, bagels and bananas available. After the race they brought out the good stuff in the form of free beer… or, 32 ounces of it, at least. I liked that part too.

Almost forgot! I did the whole 5K in my Vibram FiveFingers KSOs. I had a couple of people stop me to talk about them–one of whom was very interested–but, mostly people just stared… at a 275 pound dude running a race in what amounts to unpadded foot gloves. I just smiled at those folks. I had briefly toyed with the idea of going full barefoot, but after getting started I’m glad that I did not… too much gravel out in the parking lot… my feet are tougher these days, but not quite ready for gravel.

How about some pictures. These are from my iPhone, but they turned out better than most of my iPhone photos…

Here we are before the start, just chilling in the empty amphitheater.

Here we are after the race with the rewards of finishing.

The first was one of the old school IRONMAN watches. I don’t remember when I got it or how long I wore it, but it was on my arm until the battery died. For some reason, instead of just replacing the battery I decided to get a new watch. More money than sense, I suppose.

Old School Badass

The second IRONMAN was one of the Sleek 50-lap designs. I really liked the sleek design of this watch. It was a great watch that I just wore slam out…

I wore the Start/Split button out.

Even though the wear on the “Start/Split” button made it hard to use, I kept on using it. I had to wiggle my finger around a bit on the button before it would register the start. But, alas, nothing lasts forever…

Hard to see, but the band is hanging on by a thread.

When the first “link” in the band broke, I planned to find some superglue to see if I could make it last. Unfortunately, the middle “link” broke first.

Well, with the bum button and the broken strap, I thought maybe it was time to give up and just get a new watch…

Thanks to Mr. UPS, I am pleased to be sporting a shiny new IRONMAN Race Trainer with Data Xchanger. And I have to say, the Data Xchanger is cool. I can set heart rate zones, various display formats, interval timer splits, time, and alarms. Yeah, yeah, I can set that stuff on the watch, but how tedious is it to press this button and that button over and over and over again? Much easier to just do it on my computer. How cool is that?

Timex IRONMAN Triathlon Race Trainer Kit (T5K263)

I like it.

I fell off the wagon almost three years ago. Over those three years, I regained much of the weight that I had lost while living the paleo lifestyle. I’d like to blame this failure on the stresses of moving from North Carolina to Virginia, or perhaps on the birth of our third child, or, or, or…

Oh, who am I kidding, I failed for three specific reasons:

First, I allowed myself small “rewards” for having done so well over the previous year. The problem, though, was those rewards began to come more frequently and in larger portions. It did not take long to completely undo all the hard work.

Speaking of hard work, the second reason for my failure was the lack of a fitness program to go with the change in diet. Oh yeah, I ran once in a while and tried to make it into the gym on occasion, but that just did not cut it.

Finally, I failed because I was not prepared to deal with failure. During the first year, I was fanatical about eating right and staying away from “harmful” foods. When I realized that my reward meals were, in fact, failures, I did not have the strength of will to recover my wits and get back on the program.

Enough! I’m tired of being fat! Again!!!

As of August 18th, 2009, I am recommitting myself to a paleo-esque lifestyle, but with a quality fitness program this time. I have signed up at DailyBurn, a website that offers body, nutrition, workout tracking, and more. But, it also has a section for challenges. One of these challenges is the DailyBurn Fitness Challenge, a 90 day challenge “to eat right, workout hard, and get fit.” My DailyBurn public profile is here: dandavis.

Here are the ways that I will meet the goals of the challenge:

• Eat Right I’m currently back on a (mostly) paleo way of eating. I have made minor changes to “pure paleo.” I’m eating small amounts of dairy in the form of cheese. I’m allowing for small servings of corn on occasion. And, finally, I’m adding various legumes to the diet.

• Workout Hard I’m following “[t]he Eternal Beginner” program found in Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove’s New Rules of Lifting. When done correctly, the workouts in this book are short, but intense. They knock me on my ass, but I love ‘em!

• Get Fit In addition to correcting my diet and adding in the strength training, I’m spending time in the pool and on my bike. Once I get more weight off, I plan to add running into the mix. If it sounds like I’m gearing up for attempting a triathlon, yeah, that’s one of my long term goals: by September of 2010, I plan to have completed at least one sprint distance triathlon.

Well, there you have it. I may have fallen off the wagon (and gotten trampled by the horses) but I am back on and this time I’m strapped in and ready for the long haul.

-Paleo Dan

Oh, and here’s an updated “before” image: