Monday, January 23, 2012

Stormy Days make great running days

Nike+ Sportband, foot pod, and Marware holder
Today did not start out as one of the best days here in the Heart of Dixie.  A terrible line of thunderstorms came through overnight and left a path of destruction from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham with the worst tornado damage in the Clay/Chalkville area NorthEast of town.  Thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by todays events, and it is with a prayerful heart that I thank our Father above for watching over everyone and ask him to continue comforting those who suffered loss.

As is often the case after a terrible storm, the weather takes a turn for the fantastic and today was no exception.  By about 2:00pm Central time the sun was shining and the trails were calling.  I decided to strap on my beat up trail shoes and head out and what a great decision it was.  I got to the trails about 3:00pm and it was right at 68 degrees.  The sun was out, but the temp could not have been any more perfect.  It was not to hot or to cold, there was a light breeze, you could breath effortlessly.  It was one of those rare events for a runner, The Perfect Day!  Again, I ran with my new Nike+ Sportband (pictured above) and truthfully, for a very simple device, I cannot express my happiness with it's performance enough.  This is a great tool for those looking for an inexpensive watch that will track distance, pace, calories burned, and total time.  It is extremely accurate right out of the box, light weight, and easy to operate.  I recommend giving it a try if you can.  Ok, back to the run: I started my run and was so stunned at the feeling I was experiencing.  I could breath with no effort, the air was perfect, running felt almost completely effortless. I pushed the pace a little at the beginning and of course at the hills had to back down a bit.  It was just one of the days when you feel like you could run forever and never get tired.  I love those days.  I only wish they came around more often, but I guess today was my one day a year for the euphoria!  Ha.  Oh well, at least I was  able to log 6.13 miles in 54 minutes (Average 8.53/mile).  Yes, I am old and slow, but just happy to be out running again.  With any luck, I will be able to run a couple more times this week.  If not, at least I have today to log in the memory banks.

On another note, for those of you looking for a little fitness/nutrition info, I thought I would try and add at least one "FitNote" for each posting.  Over the years of training, I have learned a thing or two and thought this might be a good place to share. Here we go:

FitNote #1:  Everyone, at one time or another in their life, tries to lose weight.  I don't care who you are, at some point you have tried a crazy contraption or radical diet method. I know you've heard this before, but it is still true today: Only one thing and one thing alone works when it comes to losing weight; you MUST burn more calories than you put in.  You cannot lose weight by taking a pill. You cannot lose weight by changing your eating habits alone.  You have to have some type of exercise in the mix to achieve long term sustainable weight loss.  I'm going to expand this idea a little further and say that not only do you need exercise, you need at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise, 5 days a week, to truly achieve weight loss including body fat.  You can diet all day, but if you don't reduce your overall body fat, you run the risk of watching your weight go up and down like a yo-yo! It takes getting your heart rate up for a minimum of 30 minutes for your body to enter it's "fat burning" zone.  Do that 5 days a week, along with adjusting your eating habits, and you will see true weight loss and body fat reduction that will last you a lifetime.

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