Taroko Gorge Half Marathon

I ran the Taroko Gorge marathon last weekend. There were some magnificent views to be had, but I was mainly concentrating on the race. The weather was not good; raining at the beginning. I had hoped for a 1.55 time, but I went out too quickly (54 minutes for the first 10k) and it hit me hard later on.

Running up the hills destroyed me. I was practically walking in places, but looking around, I wasn’t the only one. The steep incline was immensely tough, and it seemed like forever until I would make it to the turnaround.

I think overall my preparation was good, save for the lack of sleep the night before. But once again, my knees were in huge pain after the race, to the extent that I could barely walk. I’ll need to look into my running technique and see a doctor.

Anyway, I missed out on the 2 hour mark by a frustratingly small 30 second margin – if I hadn’t made a few of those water breaks, I certainly would have made it. I think this time means that it’s highly unlikely that I will make my 4 hour target time for the Taipei International Marathon in December. I’m sure the run through the city will be much flatter, but I’ve never run so far before!

Training Update

Running is starting to get tiring. I was sick, and didn’t keep up the training for a while. Even so, I’m up to 19.2km, and even though such a run is both exhausting and requires preparation, at least I’m still on track.

I’ll be running a half marathon in November, and then the full marathon will take place in December. While I know it will be difficult, it’s a challenge that I know I can complete. I’m looking forward to running outside in these months, as it shouldn’t be nearly as hot as it is now. So, all I’ve got to do is keep on going!

Training Update

My training has been going okay overall. I’ve increased the weights I’ve been using steadily, and have also been making good progress on the cardio front. Last Monday, I ran 14.4 km, in line with the marathon training, although I nearly killed myself doing so. My runs are getting a bit long, and as I go to the gym without having eaten, and also doing weight training beforehand, it’s going to get tougher and tougher.

At least I learned from that mistake, and I’ll definitely be eating and not weight training before my long runs from here on out. Unfortunately, Shi Da gym is only open Monday through Thursday, which is terrible for my progress. I might have to move the long run to the night time, but I really dread the humidity in Taipei.

As long as I follow the training program, I can’t see why I won’t be able to make it for the marathon. It’s important not to push too quickly on the long runs, but they are taking up a lot of time, and I get pretty bored during them. As they cross the two hour mark, I’ll have to think of a new strategy. Learning Chinese is an option, but I can’t see myself paying attention for that length of time.

My weight gaining target is not going well though. Not only have I not gained weight, I’ve lost weight. I couldn’t believe it! I eat a ton, going to the gym, pretty consistently, but I can’t seem to put on the weight. I know I’m getting stronger, because the weights are feeling less heavy, so that must mean that my muscle mass is increasing, and my fat is decreasing. Nevertheless, the clear drop of around 1-2kg is demoralising since I’m trying to move in the opposite direction. Perhaps what they say is true – that cardio training and gaining weight are at odds.

Anyway, I have to be eating much, much more. Despite being a vegetarian however, eating lots of greens doesn’t appeal to me. I’m a ‘hard gainer’ type, and I’ve heard I shouldn’t worry so much about eating ‘good’ carbohydrates – just eating will be good enough. Still, all this eating is hard work, and time consuming.

My Move to Vegetarianism

It’s been over a month since I made the switch to vegetarianism. There have been many reasons why I did this, but I guess the biggest reason for me is that I want to raise my standards for myself. I’m interested in what will happen to my personal energy levels, and hope that in another month’s time it will have been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

There are many who advocate a move to vegetarianism. Two of the biggest influences for me have been Steve Pavlina, a Personal Development blogger and a great inspiration to me over the past few years, who has since made the shift to a raw food diet (not happening for me any time soon, I’m afraid), and Tony Robbins, who’s probably the most energetic person in the entire world. In particular, Robbins continually promotes a vegetarian diet in his books and tapes, and I certainly can’t argue with the results he’s obtained!

Simply put, any doubts you might have over whether vegetables can provide enough fuel for the body must surely disappear once you see the guy in action. His energy levels are through the roof, and at six foot eight, there’s a lot of him to move!

But there’s no point in talking about the potential benefits from a health perspective, nor reading up on it, since there are so many sources on both sides. The only way I can see whether the diet works is to try it, and so I’m doing that right now. At the moment, I haven’t noticed much difference. I’m feeling more drowsy these days, but I don’t put it on the diet at all, rather my lack of sleep.

The other major reason for making the switch are the vast numbers of environmental reasons for doing so. It prompted me to make a speech about it recently. One person making the change won’t make any difference to our environment. In fact, if I care so much about the environment, I might as well just kill myself. However, I believe that a diet consisting of factory-bred farm animals is clearly damaging the environment more than Al Gore or any meat eating environmentalists would care to admit, and this change is by far the biggest shift that needs to take place if the climate crisis is going to ever be solved.

All the statistics will support the shift to a predominantly plant eating society, the standout one for me is the 100,000 litres of water that goes to produce a mere 1kg of beef. It demonstrates above all the unsustainability of the sheer amount of meat we get through. For a further reference check out this TED video from Mark Bittman. We cannot keep eating this much meat as a society. I thought that statistic alone might have made a difference with my speech, but sadly I was mistaken. For me however, that statistic was what finally persuaded me to try.

I guess that just leading by example will hopefully encourage others to try at least. That’s all you can ask of anyone. People I’ve spoken to have been pretty defeatist about the whole vegetarian thing, not that anyone seems to care anyway. But they simply say: “Nah, I couldn’t do that,” without even having given it a shot. I would probably have said the same thing in the past, seeing as I adore meat, so I can’t really blame them. But once you do try, you might find it to be easier than expected – I certainly have.

I won’t pretend that being a vegetarian is at all convenient, least of all in an apartment in which cooking is practically impossible. Vegetarianism is after all, a reduction of the available food choices you have available. But it’s been surprisingly easy to stick to it, and I know that if enough people do make the change, then it will become a lot more convenient in time. If there are enough people who are vegetarian (I’m curious to know of the current percentage of the population that are), then the same restaurants that aren’t really providing enough in the way of vegetarian choices will be forced to do so. And what they’re currently doing in the way of meat substitutes is pretty good too. It will all get better with time, I’m sure.

It’s by no means set in stone at this time, and those burger cravings will be hard to avoid, but it is looking good. I made the change slowly, first eliminating beef around two months ago, then finally making the change after Dragon Boat.

Ultimately, such a switch is a personal decision, and one I wouldn’t try to force anyone into. Yet I urge anyone reading this to consider it at least. Read up on it as much as you can, and make an informed decision about whether you’ll continue to eat meat, and not simply continuing to eat it because everyone else is.

Physical Goals

I thought I’d arrange my next physical goal, as I’ve really lost a lot of focus since Dragon Boat finished.

There are actually going to be two goals, as I want to bulk up as well as become fitter – not the same things.

I currently weigh just under 70kg, and I want to get that up to 75kg by the end of the year. That means I have to put on 1kg of muscle every month. Sounds a little unrealistic, I must say, but I have to try it out for the first month at least, to see how much of a change is realistic at all. This goal isn’t permanent – I know that these sorts of gains are possible, but I know that there are significant barriers to my achieving it.

Even though this goal might be unrealistic, I know that aiming for an unrealistic goal might give me better overall gains than to stay in my comfort zone. E.g. even if I put on only 3kg, it would be better than just aiming for 2kg and hitting it.

The second goal is to run the Taiwan International Marathon in December. This is also a six month goal. I don’t find running too boring, but running is difficult because it really requires that you keep improving week on week, as otherwise you’ll find the jump in distance difficult to make up. It reminds me in that sense of the programming, which I’m currently having trouble with. But if you take it slowly, you can make really nice encouraging progress. I know that six months is enough to prepare for the marathon, and I ran five miles earlier this week, which is a good start, along with three more runs of 30 minutes.

There’s a risk that these two goals are sort of against one another. Cardio, especially heavy cardio as it will be, soon enough, causes weight loss, my other goal is to gain weight. This is a definite problem, but since inertia is the biggest problem of all, for now, I don’t mind!

Dragon Boat Report

So the dream is over.

I’m proud of our team’s performance, but ultimately very disappointed in our result. Both the mixed team and mens team won their first races at a canter, against some pretty pathetic competition (other boats managed to collide at the very start of the race, and the mens team won by over a minute.)

It’s almost impossible for me to understand the lack of determination displayed by some of the local teams, many of which gave up on paddling well before the half way point. I suppose that they just have a different attitude to us towards the races, but I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t give your all in your only race. Some teams even decided to turn around back to the start after realising they were out of their depth. Pretty pitiful if you ask me.

Morale was high going into the next day, and the second round/quarter finals, but we knew we were in for some stiff competition. In the morning, the mixed team came last in a close race and were hence eliminated, and immediately we knew this was going to be a very different proposition from the first round.

The mens team (with two women) were drawn in a difficult heat, against last year’s champion team. Whilst we were ready for the race, it was a sluggish start from us, and being drawn in the second lane, enclosed on either side by the stronger teams in the heat was unfortunate. As the champions raced ahead, their wake disrupted our movements through the water, and paddling became difficult. While the timing was pretty good, the power in the water became increasingly hard to achieve after both teams reached in front of us. We managed to close some of the distance as the race went on, but it was always a losing battle; such at odds with our success in the first round. In third place, we were eliminated far earlier than we had hoped for, with a time of just over two and a half minutes.

The winners of our heat went on to win the competition eliminating some strong international competition on the way. Whilst I know they were undoubtedly a stronger team than us, I know that with a little luck, we could have made it to the final, so it’s rather disappointing on the whole.

What more is there to say? Dragon boat was an incredible experience and if I get another opportunity, I’d love to be involved again. The support from Shi Da was great, and the team really came together in our final week of training. In the end, we made quite a competitive team, to our surprise!

Dragon Boat Update

I thought I’d write a little about how the Dragon Boat training is going.

Unfortunately, I managed to pull an abdominal muscle last week, which put me out of training pretty much all week. It’s still no better at all, and in fact, it might even have gotten worse over the past couple of days, for no apparent reason. The doctor said I would need 2 weeks of full rest to recover, and that means I won’t be able to participate in the race, but I’m still hoping for a miracle.

As far as the rest of the team’s preparation is going, we’re lacking a little power during the race. The timing is okay, but our form tends to fall off towards the end. However, I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to make a good account of ourselves. It will be very disappointing if we don’t win a few races at least. The Shi Da team has traditionally done very well at the Dragon Boat races, especially the mixed team. However, we’re lacking a few people, and our men’s team will need to contain a few girls, and people will need to paddle twice (in both teams), which puts us at a disadvantage.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to recover in time for the racing, and I feel a little out of shape having not done much training at all. It’s a massive disappointment for me, and did affect my mood and attitude across last week. Still, it’s all been a wonderful experience, and I will miss it once the races are over. I’m definitely glad to have taken part in the training, and I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for the races themselves, which will begin on Friday.

Hillegass on Sleep

Dragon Boat training has both helped and completely destroyed my sleep pattern. It’s helped me to wake up around 6am, which is great, but it’s tired me out to the extent that after I get back home, I just want to sleep, sometimes for over two hours. That can’t be great. At night though, I still don’t have that much trouble getting to sleep, so my body really needs the rest. That’s how I justify it anyway.

It was interesting for me to read the recommendation by Aaron Hillegass in his book that while you are learning programming, he recommends getting ten hours sleep. Also, while you are in physical training, you should also get more sleep, maybe nine or ten. If that’s the case, how many hours should I get? I have a real time maintaining concentration, and it might be a direct result of muscle fatigue, but I’m also walking around a lot slower than I used to. Unfortunately, this weekend, I slept in until 10am on the Sunday, which is the second time this month that I haven’t woken up at 6am. I don’t know what this will mean for the chances of establishing the habit of waking up early after Dragon Boat. I know that waking up early is getting easier overall, although I’m crashing out later in the day.

Still, we only have three weeks before the races, so I’ll need to just push harder until then.

Thread Number Five: Physical Training

It’s about time I announced my final thread. Unsurprisingly it’s in the area of Physical Fitness.

Many consider health and fitness to be essential to success in life, and also it is supposedly linked to mental performance too. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with this. As an aspiring programmer, I can confirm that the unfortunate geek stereotype does exist, and the extra pounds these guys possess doesn’t seem to affect their ability to think at a level I can’t even imagine myself reaching. At the same time, perhaps if they did take care of their fitness, their effectiveness might grow to inconceivable levels!

Well, for me at least, I do think that taking care of your health is important. However, as I’m not really likely to be a world class athlete any time soon, I don’t consider this as important as the other threads. Most importantly for me is the role that exercise plays in maintaining energy and concentration levels throughout the day. And the most important type of exercise here is cardiovascular exercise. I want to get into the habit of exercising daily, and hopefully I’ll be able to see the results in a few months or so.

Currently I’m training for the Dragon Boat races, and following this, I’ll get into training for a marathon. After that, I hope that regular exercise will be a large part of my life, and I’ll be able to retire this thread.