<p>We still wear numbers- not sure why. It helps for pictures, I guess. The chips usually fasten onto your shoe laces, but the ankle strap makes it easier. However, you have to remove the chip yourself in the finish chute and hand it in instead of having a volunteer clip it off of your shoe laces. That requires a lot of effort after racing. :)</p>
<p>Perhaps the numbers are to spot cheating. In the Manchester, the course is two parallel streets separated by about three blocks. I don’t think that they have devices to track the chips outside of the start and finish lines. Looks like I get holes punched anyways.</p>
<p>I can imagine a lot of people that aren’t very flexible having to sit down to take the things off. Seems to be easier just to put it in the number sheet - only one thing to put on and take off.</p>
<p>[ImageShack®</a>; - Online Photo and Video Hosting](<a href=“http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/firecracker5k20111.jpg/]ImageShack®”>ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs)</p>
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<p>OK- Trying this again. Here are our new Brooks singlets.</p>
<p>That came out just fine.</p>
<p>I don’t think that I’m going to get anything form-fitting anytime soon; maybe in December if I lose enough weight.</p>
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<p>Yes, well seeing how tiny you are, that may well be the case. 
My former tri team was sponsored by Brooks and Garmin. (the team leader was an elite athlete and most of the rest of us were just along for the ride) I ended up with a couple of very cool Brooks items (although nothing that looks as good as your singlet) and a dud of a Garmin. I stand by my enormous Garmin (which it appears you are sporting) and my sleek, bezel model is just gathering dust. We also had a Lunachix member, who kept us in good supply with Luna swag and lots of Luna bars.</p>
<p>This Garmin (310) doesn’t seem as big as the old 301 and 305, but it still looks like I am wearing an iPad on my wrist. I love it, though.</p>
<p>MOWC, why am I not surprised? You look like a runner. :)</p>
<p>Good solid workout for me today. My second outing of three this week with NROL4A warm-ups, ipod nazi’s core, and a triset of strength exercises.</p>
<p>The core stuff is just kicking my butt, but in a good way. Very challenging, but I feel like I can at least do everything so far, at least to some degree. I did 10 of the [spiderman</a> pushups](<a href=“Pushups with Side Knee Raises - YouTube”>Pushups with Side Knee Raises - YouTube) in the first set and 8 in the second set, ending up in heap on the floor at the end. I started to get the hang of the [upright</a> birddog](<a href=“Advanced Core Exercise: Upright Bird Dog - YouTube”>Advanced Core Exercise: Upright Bird Dog - YouTube). That is one seriously tough exercise that anyone can (try to) do at home using the sofa as a bench. There’s a learning curve on how to stay upright when you let go with one hand!</p>
<p>This one is really killing me: [Stability</a> ball leg raises](<a href=“iWorkout - Cardio - Swiss Ball Prone Leg Raise - YouTube”>iWorkout - Cardio - Swiss Ball Prone Leg Raise - YouTube)</p>
<p>The pace picks up the Phase II next week, so I might be diving for the PAUSE button. We’ll see.</p>
<p>These workouts are no joke for working the abs and attacking the belly. This stuff will make you forget crunches. My abs were on fire during 60 seconds of stability ball plank.</p>
<p>OMG. Brooks is actually headquartered im my neck of the woods (I think I know where - that building in the first frames of the movie looks familliar):</p>
<p>[Brooks</a> Running Peek Inside the Brooks Headquarters](<a href=“http://talk.brooksrunning.com/2009/01/19/peek-inside-the-brooks-headquarters/]Brooks”>http://talk.brooksrunning.com/2009/01/19/peek-inside-the-brooks-headquarters/)</p>
<p>That’s why there is always some good stuff at their Bot Hell outlet ;)</p>
<p>Got stuck in traffic. Got mad, exited off the freeway, wandered around a Nordstrom. Picked up Cilantro Lime Chicken Salad for dinner (and a borderline ditzy-looking pink Northface jacket). Arrived home, ran 6.2 miles. Watered the tomato plants and the rest of the garden. Did a short garbage can run. Phew. Dinner at 9:30 pm? That’s the Bunsen way! :)</p>
<p>MOfWC, you do look like a runner! Cool Brooks singlet (my favorite color, too).</p>
<p>I just located some old “fat” pictures of me from my 5K. I did not think my body changed, but apparently 27 lb taken off a 152-lb woman is quite noticeable.</p>
<p>World food prices edged up in June to near their record highs as a sharp increase in sugar prices outweighed a slump in the grains complex, the United Nation’s food body said Thursday. </p>
<p>The main driver of the increase was a rise in the FAO’s sugar index, which increased by 14% on month to 359 points. Prices have …</p>
<p>[Food</a> Prices Near Record Highs - WSJ.com](<a href=“Food Prices Near Record Highs - WSJ”>Food Prices Near Record Highs - WSJ)</p>
<p>Amazing - sugar is up 14% in one month. I wonder if it’s a move from HFCS to sugar. At any rate, the world wants more sugar!</p>
<p>Thanks! The back of the singlets say “Run Happy”. Well- sometimes…</p>
<p>Just a reminder to those who might be new or forgot. I DID lose 27 pounds in 2008-2009. I wasn’t unfit, but the pounds had gradually piled on, since it turned out I couldn’t keep eating like I did when I was 25! I never want to let that happen again, and exercise alone is NOT enough, as I discovered. It really has to be a combination of healthy eating (not all the time, but a lot of the time) and exercise. I frequently hear “Well, you can eat anything you want because you run so much.” It does NOT work that way. I wish it did. :)</p>
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<p>That must have been a major transformation because you sure look fit now. The weight goes on so slowly over time that you don’t really realize the impact until you lose it.</p>
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<p>It’s that dang adaptation stuff. If I do nothing but ride the Airdyne, I get a little more efficient at riding the Airdyne each time I get on it as my body adapts to the exercise. Over time, I’m burning less and less energy and getting less and less benefit from “x” amount of Airdyne riding. The solution is to pour on more and more miles, but then the body adapts more and more to that.</p>
<p>I can go out and jog for two minutes and get a huge physical response to that because my body is not adapted at all to that exercise. You can go out and jog for two minutes while you are doing your nails and probably not even raise your heart rate.</p>
<p>That’s the catch-22 of endurance cardio (or any other single form of exercise).</p>
<p>You’ve all inspired me to post before and after pictures. The after is pretty cheesy; my trainer and I were goofing around. It’s also a little blurry because he took the photo with his camera. Note that I am prepping my famous grilled pizza in the before picture. Too bad the kitchen island hides my bottom half.</p>
<p>[ImageShack</a> Album - 2 images](<a href=“http://imageshack.us/g/813/summer08128before.jpg/]ImageShack”>ImageShack - kchintz's Album)</p>
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<p>That’s the thing. The weight just crept on. No one thought I was fat, and I still exercised almost every day (some years it was more yoga, some years it was swimming, most years it was running). The clothes sizes kept increasing a little, but I was in my 50s and that wasn’t that surprising. I never thought I could get back to pre-college weight, but I have! I guess that’s why I got a little impatient over on the “Weight Loss for Dummies” thread. I did it, so it CAN be done, but it takes some effort.</p>
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<p>I think part of why I haven’t run into the “adaptation” problem is that most of my runs are pretty challenging. This is not really a good thing, but a result of the terrain, time constraints etc. I usually average at or over 80% HR even when I try to take it easy. Add in races and you wind up pushing a greater percentage of the time than you should.
Except when I do the low heart rate training which involves walking a lot, I can’t average at the low end of my aerobic zone for a run. I need to figure out a way to make the easy days easier and the hard days faster.</p>
<p>Chintzy- WOW, girl!!! Way to go. Awesome “after” picture.</p>
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<p>One advantage of competitive sports like basketball, tennis, lacrosse, hockey - you get to workout different parts of your body and the person that you’re playing against can vary their strategy and tactics to make you work different parts.</p>
<p>Wow Chintzy you look great! I’m not sure I have any good before photos, and I’m not ready for afters. Though I have lost 20 pounds. :)</p>
<p>The before and after is incredible. You should post it on the other thread!</p>
<p>Chintzy, that is fantastic! Wow! What a transformation. </p>
<p>I’m having a hard time this week. Rough week at work, the holiday threw me off course, I didn’t exercise last night and don’t feel great today. Blech. </p>
<p>Today I think I’ll leave work early and head to the park by myself. I need to imagine that I’m BB or MOWC winning a race. I need a break from being the chief motivator, but H did go out and walk by himself last night. After he suggested Panera for dinner and we went to the store and read labels again. He goes back to work on Monday. That will be the true test.</p>
<p>Oh, wow, chintzy! Excellent job. I’m speechless.</p>
<p>I looked for my “pudgy” picture from the 5K 2 years ago on the server, and could not find it. I recall being disgusted with and deleting some of the photos from the Corporate Events folder. That was the year when I decided to get back in shape and run a 24-min 5K. I might have kept some of the photos on the home computer.</p>
<p>MOfWC, as a woman who’s been through pretty much the same stuff (weight slowly crept up, etc. ) I perfectly understand why you were impatient on the other thread. It takes a lot of sweat and diet tweaking to get rid of those extra pounds. My approach is the same as yours: if you want to get serious results, get busy now! I was not born with the “skinny gene”, so for me it takes effort to be able to fit into skinny jeans.</p>
<p>Wow, chintzy. That is an amazing transformation!</p>
<p>Ah, I remember the days of making homemade pizza from scratch. I have a California Pizza Kitchen cookbook and used their recipe for the dough. I’ve baked it in the oven and grilled it out on the Weber. That might have to be a special occasion cheat meal some day. All things considered though, being a (formerly) fat guy – or gal – is a lot sweeter than any pizza pie!</p>
<p>The “fitness” just jumps from the screen on your “after” photo. It’s not just the fat loss, but it’s what the fat loss makes possible.</p>