Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of Leonard Lopate and not having a tremendous amount of time to read for pleasure, his show The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC has helped to educate, enlighten and intrigue me and beyond that has gotten me through any number of long multi-hour runs by listening to his podcasts. Every now and then, I come across an interview that really just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Last week’s episode entitled “The New Nutritionist: Your Grocer” was just such an episode. Leonard, I’ll chalk it up to having a bad day because there is no way you would have let your guest, The Wall Street Journal’s Timothy Martin get off of the hook so easily for any other reason. It was clear that he had no idea what he was talking about on the topic of nutrition or healthy and active lifestyles. Now having spent the past ten years directly involved in the fight against youth obesity, I feel that this is one of those public discussions that I just can’t let slide.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, the episode highlights one of a number of new nutritional ranking systems that are being put into place at grocery store chains designed to provide shoppers with simple and necessary information to make healthier choices when shopping. In this instance, this system combines all of the factors such as sugar content, fiber, sodium levels, fat , etc and runs them through an algorithm to arrive at a single score between 1 and 100 with the higher number being associated with the healthiest foods available.  I really like the concept, but I found two obvious flaws in the author’s argument that Leonard in any other situation would have not let him slide on.

The first is that this system is being funded by a grocery store chain and a hospital and led by a nutritionist at Yale. Sounds great, right? The problem is that nutritional guidance is hardly a science and the prevailing winds seem to change what the public is told to do with regard to the factors listed above. Eat high carbs for fuel, don’t eat carbs, look at net carbs. eat fiber, but not too much, take fat out of your diet, fat is good in your diet, use portion control but don’t eat too little or you’ll trigger starvation responses,only eat low glycemic, eat all protein, don’t eat protein, and on and on and on. So what does this mean with respect to my first issue of controversy? We didn’t cover any of the aspects of how the algorithm is created or the philosophy that the founders adhere to.  Personally, I’m not going to take anyone’s judgment as an authority on this subject just because they teach at Yale.

The second issue is the one that made me accelerate the pace of my run yesterday because I was just hopping mad. The statement was that this system is not designed to drive people to eating better in a way that would really make a difference. It’s not to make people stop eating potato chips or other crappy food, rather it is designed so that people can select the healthiest choice within each category. So you can choose the healthiest potato chip, or the healthiest diet soda and feel good about making those selections. This statement was reinforced throughout the interview and I couldn’t figure out why the guest and even Leonard seemed to be acting defensive about wanting to help people make real choices that can help, like helping people to make real healthy choices is a bad thing. In one example, they suggested that a shopper was observed buying one brand of breakfast sausages over another because of this scoring system. The honest truth is that he shouldn’t have bought either brand and I would just bet that this system provided support to this guy to feel like he is justified and actually doing something healthy by buying this brand of artery clogging, heart stopping, stroke creating wannabe food. Didn’t we just get past all of this with the whole fat free generation of manufactured foods where we saw obesity increase even further because people inaccurately rationalized that since it’s fat free they can eat as much of it as they want?

Leonard, your show does a service to so many and to not call out this obvious flaw in the author’s logic only reinforced bad messages to an already confused population, and unfortunately one that seems committed to data mine for any evidence they can find to continue their bad behaviors which cost our country billions of dollars each year, all of which are preventable.

I hope you invite the author back to challenge him in your traditional thoughtful and objective way, and provide your listeners with real guidance on how they can use these new technologies to make a measurable difference in their lives and the lives of those who they love.

“It’s unfortunate, that’s all I can say,” Knowles said. “It’s unfortunate for the young lady. But you’ve got to teach the kids that rules are rules.”

I learned about this issue when listening to Mike and Mike on ESPN radio last week. Here is the full SI artcle. I was surprised initially that ESPN radio was covering a SoCal High School Track Meet, and then I realized that the sport itself was just the setting for one of those lessons of sport are the lessons of life moments. I’ll preface this by reminding my readers that I loathe policy without purpose and have never been one to support the creation and enforcement of rules, favoring applying the combination of guiding principles and wisdom instead. What happened to Robin Laird of South Pasadena High School is a perfect example of why.

Mike Golic of ESPN radio repeated a radio-friendly version of the phrase “chicken shit” over and over again, and I was incredibly impressed by his declaration that if his child was on the Monrovia team, he would never let her play for Mike Knowles ever again.

The articles and media attention that has followed has attempted to balance the story on the one hand stating how important it is that High School athletes learn the importance of following rules, while cries for sportsmanship and the emptiness of winning by losing are carried by others.

I on the other hand will not be so subtle. Mike Knowles, get your head out of your ass! I’ve coached undefeated league championship teams at the High School level too so I know how important it is to win and also know that it so much more important to be a role model. Given my experiences, I feel quite confident in my ability to make that claim along with the strong suggestion that you do some serious soul searching about your priorities.

The rule is there to protect the athletes from injury. That’s it. It does not protect against an unfair performance advantage and you know it, I know it and everyone else who’d heard of this story knows it. Her bracelet had NOTHING to do with her making that excellent vault and leading her team to victory. If I had such a lapse of judgment, I would expect, no I would demand that my players, my family and my AD remind me to get my head out of my ass.

Thumbing through the numerous online reactions to this situation, I have yet to find anyone who actually provides a compelling argument supporting Mike Knowles actions. Why? Because there is no positive spin on this story. Here’s a few of my favorite recommended responses:

“Yup, it’s all about you Mr. Knowles. You’ve sure taught those kids a lesson to win at all costs. Be self absorbed and only worry about yourself.”

“And I LOVE the idea about sending him friendship bracelets!! Address below…

Monrovia High School
845 West Colorado Boulevard
Monrovia, CA 91016″

and my personal favorite:

“Rules are rules. Time for the building inspector to check out his house. Have the DMV inspect his vehicle. IRS audit the past 7 years of taxes…..After all, rules are rules.”

It’s time to take a lesson from John McEnroe. You know the one where his opponent makes an incredible play which is then overturned due to a ticky-tack bullshit rule imposed by the chair umpire or line judge? And just to show that they really have no real power, Johnny Mac would hit his next shot 20 rows into the upper deck to purposely lose the point and give his opponent his just due. It’s about doing what’s right.

You and your players should do the same. There’s nothing more that I would love to see than you and your own players either publicly or quietly giving back the championship to the team that actually won this contest. And don’t you dare give me excuses about league rules or things that can’t be overturned. You have the patches. You have the trophies. Bundle them up, pile them and your team into your van, take the South Pasadena High School team out for dinner and give them a true mea culpa. You can still do the right thing, and if you can’t, your players certainly can. And in that action, they too will be truly champions.

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I’m that guy, you know the one, the guy who always appears to be running around at one hundred miles an hour, never slowing down, never smelling the roses, never having time for those closest to him, etc etc etc. While this isn’t completely true (my close friends know I’m equally satisfied driving a large complex project or sleeping on a rock in Sequoia), I figure the least I can do is completely disconnect for one hour and that hour begins tonight at 8:30PM as I will participate in Earth Hour. What difference will it make? Globally, most assuredly my participation won’t make any difference at all, but I figure if I can sit in the dark for an hour disconnected from The Matrix, it can’t be a bad thing personally. And at a minimum, it makes a great excuse for not having to watch repeats of Real Housewives of NY. Maybe you’ll join me as well.

In every community, you’ll find its members categorized into various groups. Running communities are no exception to this rule. You’ll find the veterans, those elder statesmen or regular members who have been coming for years; the leaders, usually the founders, organizers or decision makers; the followers, a subset of the regulars that show up and simply go along with what everyone else is doing; the celebrities, the folks who show up one week are gone for the next two months and then come back regaling their club members with terrific stories of their running in exotic locations abroad; and then there is the new guy.

Regardless of gender or even of how many, the new guy arrives into a running group with energy, hopes, expectations, an agenda, and a shoe full of anxiety and apprehension. The new guy can be new to running, a thirty-year veteran who just moved into the area or a travelling businessman. The new guy might be there for a single run or there to join the club indefinitely. Underlying all of these, the primary goal of the new guy is to be invited in and have an enjoyable time. But the quickest way to make this perfect situation completely horific is for the new guy to be too forward, too knowing, too ignorant or too irritating. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that inserting oneself into a group of runners is as difficult as blending into a prison click but like everything else in life, the new guy has one chance to make a first impression. So if you’re the new guy, here are a few things to do and a few questions to ask to ensure the enjoyment of your first run:

1. Call ahead. If you’re the spontaneous sort, you can just show up at the posted time and meeting place, but it’s been my experience that that’s a 50/50 shot at best. Lots of clubs post regular runs but many either never instituted anything formal or the group changed their logistics or eliminated the weekly run entirely. When you call the organizer, ask them a few basic questions. Do they meet as scheduled? How far do they run? Is the posted time an arrival time or a run start time? What pace do they run? How large is the group? Do they run on streets or trails? How easy is it to get lost? Is the course marked or easy to follow? Will you be there or should I be looking for anyone in particular? Should you bring anything? Does their group have a specific purpose or mission – what’s the composition of its members? The answer to this last question may not seem important but if you are a new runner and you connect in with a group of cross country A-personality racers you may not be very happy as they drop you in an unknown area within the first few hundred yards. Another reason is that the running group may be part of a larger community. On two occasions, I found myself running with Christian church members and GLBT members without knowing it until I was about a mile into the run. On both occasions I had terrific runs, but I felt a bit disingenuous as both groups assumed that I was already a part of their community. These are fairly benign examples, but increasingly I’m seeing that causes of all types are realizing that appealing to runners is a great way to recruit new members, and you just might want to insure that the folks you’ll be running with are at least somewhat aligned to the conversation topics that you might want to have out there on the road.  For instance, I wouldn’t necessarily want to be running with a group of hunters talking about their latest kill.
2. Show up early. Parking and logistics are never as easy as they appear to be, especially if you are connecting with a group while on a business trip. I remember connecting with a weekly group run in Piedmont Park in Atlanta and the starting place was listed on the internet as near the tennis courts. It took me a good twenty minutes of driving around before I finally stumbled upon the correct entrance to the park and the meeting location for the group. The only thing worse than a crappy run is missing the run itself in an unfamiliar area with no idea where to run next.
3. Introduce yourself. I know this sounds like an obvious thing to do, but how you introduce yourself can give you a lot of information about the group and can help to blend in much quicker. I usually begin first by asking if this is the group run that I’m looking for. Even as recent as last week, I showed up at a running store where runners were congregating and when I asked them if they were members of a particular group, they told me no, that this was a running class and the group I was looking for would be arriving a few yards down in about fifteen minutes. In Los Angeles, if you show up on a Saturday or Sunday morning at the end of San Vicente where it hits Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, you’ll find four or five different groups meeting within a ten yard area and it can be both overwhelming and a bit intimidating if all of a sudden you jump into a group with a completely different purpose than the one you expected. The better a runner you are and the more familiar you are with the area, the less of an issue this is. Introducing yourself to the runners that are already there will help to alleviate this issue. When you introduce yourself, let people know that you are new, that you haven’t run with this group before, and let them know how familiar or unfamiliar you are with the area in which you’ll be running. Here’s what not to do. Don’t tell them what distance you would like to run and how fast. In short, you are not a member of their club yet and you haven’t earned the right to do that. I’ve seen folks do this and they are seen as pushy, entitled and assuming. It sets a bad tone that is completely avoidable.
4. Ask them what their plans are for this particular run. Even if you have previously asked the organizer this on the phone, things change. It also solves the awkwardness described in step number three. By asking them how far they are planning to run and at what pace, you can figure out if that fits with what you are able to, and want to do. There’s still an escape clause. Nobody knows you and there’s no harm in backing out if it doesn’t work for you. You can do it quietly and without fanfare by simply telling the organizer that you were hoping to go longer, shorter, faster or slower, however you’d love to connect with them another time now that you have a better understanding what they do. But do let the organizer know. There’s nothing worse for a conscientious club organizer than hunting around for a new runner that’s gone missing, especially when you haven’t gone missing, you just dropped out on your own.
5. Find at least one person running a similar distance and pace. Many groups start together and then break up into smaller groups by pace. This can be a formal process set up before you start or informal as runners start to hit their stride. Try to find at least one person slower than you, and a person faster than you because in most all cases you’ll need to apply a pace discount or premium to what they tell you. “We’re going to probably run 7’s” might mean we’ll start out at a 7:00 min/mile pace but then the speed up once the testosterone sets in, or alternatively it means we’re really running 7:30’s or even 8’s but I exaggerate a bit. The terrain can also come into play. This is a bigger issue with cycling groups but running 9’s on a 6-mile climb requires much more energy that running 9’s on a flat route. If you’ve been used to the latter, you might not be able to keep up. What you’re really looking for is a tour guide, someone to follow that knows the route so you won’t get lost. By identifying folks slower and faster, you hedge your bet and once you start running you can blend in with the folks that seem right for how you’re feeling that day.
6. Communicate but don’t over-communicate. This isn’t your group and even the friendliest of folks will get tired of you if you talk the entire time about how great running is somewhere else. If they’re interested they’ll start asking you questions but the general rule is that less is more. Remember you’re the new guy.
7. Run with humility. If you are a world-class runner don’t go out with the intention of showing everyone how terrific you are. They’ll see it soon enough. Nothing is more endearing that a great athlete that seems to be content enjoying the company of those who are less gifted. And as the new guy, you are already cool, and only by opening your mouth or by doing something silly can that change and it can only really change for the negative; view this as just another interpretation of low impact running.

Most importantly, have fun out there. Being the new guy doesn’t last forever, so enjoy it while you can.

Running is a lifestyle that yields tremendous benefits in all parts of our lives. One of the terrific characteristics about being a runner is that across the globe we all share a common connection, and no matter where you may travel or live, you will always find like-minded souls putting in their mileage, enjoying a trail, pushing a stroller or hanging out at a local coffee shop after a good sweat out on the roads. The trick is finding out where they are all running.

I’m down in Orange County, CA this week and while I used to come down to this area when I was back in college, almost everything has changed since then so I needed to do a bit of quick research to figure out where I could safely run to keep my training going full bore in these final few weeks before the Los Angeles Marathon on March 21st. Here is my approach to get looped in quickly and seamlessly:

Step 1: Find locations to run

The best way to do that is to find places where people have already run which is super easy using all of the available Web tools for runners. A few of my favorite sites include Map My Run, USATF Running Routes, and Garmin Connect. USATF alone turned up dozens of mapped routes from 1 to 19 miles each and if you use a Garmin, you can download routes from Garmin Connect directly to your device which gives you turn by turn directions right on your watch. Goggle will also come up with blog posts and other useful information to help you orient yourself appropriately before heading out. For example, Google turned up this awesome site called Friends Run Orange County which included pdf maps of all of the various running trails in the area – priceless!

Step 2: Find your local running store

In my case I Googled “Running Aliso Viejo” and came up with A Snail’s Pace Running Shop and Road Runner Sports. Not only are these a great place to replace the Body Glide that Homeland Security confiscated from you on your flight over, but it’s a great place to get local knowledge of the area and find out if there are any group runs happening while you are there.

Step 3: Join up with a local group run

As mentioned previusly, the first place I look to is the local running store. You can also Google “Running Club [your location]” and you’re bound to come up with contact information and a schedule of group runs. A note of caution. Runners are well meaning people who try to create community. It doesn’t always work, so contact the group administrator to make sure that the run is actually still happening and that it is happening at the time and place published. Here in Alsio Viejo, I connected with the Snail’s Pace Running Club on their Wednesday evening group run. I showed up last night and there were thirty runners of all abilities loitering around at the published time and I was able to introduce myself to a group of incredibly friendly people and then get a near-perfect 6-mile tempo run in with four people at my pace, with plenty of other runners doing their own thing of less or more mileage and pace. In my case their website was a bit squirrely but I found a great link to the A Snail’s Pace Running Club page on Facebook and got all of the information I needed. The best part about group runs is that you have built-in tour guides.

Step 4: Plan your own run

Some of the sites mentioned earlier also allow you to draw out your own run on a Google Map or similar device. Gmaps Pedometer is another site that allows you to do this really easily. This way you can create a customized run of any distance before you head out. Note that sometimes maps are not completely accurate, so one of the things I do is to write down the turns on the back of a business card and take it along with me just in case. That way, even if I go off course, I’ll recognize the names of the streets and be able to find my way back.

Step 5: Let people know you’re around

With so many people on Twitter and Facebook, you’re bound to have a friend or follower that may live right in the area and can play tour guide on your behalf. As in every other community, there are cats – those who do their own thing, and dogs – those who love to join in and please their masters. The running community is no different. My friend Barry loves when I let him know that one of my running friends is coming into town so he can take them out on a run and show off what he believes is the greatest running city on earth. Bet you have friends that would do the same.

Step 6: Get lost

OK not literally, but don’t be afraid to just go out and run, and as long as you know the area is safe, you’re bound to see the area from a totally different perspective. Pretty sure that Zooey Dechanel and Jim Carrey had something going with their early morning running photography club from Griffith park in the movie Yes Man. You’ll get inspired, feel great and it will really set you up for a terrific visit, whether it’s for business or pleasure. The best part of just heading out and running is when you pop out and you figure out exactly where you are. it’s a great confidence boost knowing that you can head out with just a pair of running shoes and have a terrific mini-vacation of your own. Obviously, if the weather is unpredictable or you are heading out on the trails, you might want to bring along water, a few dollars and maybe even a cell phone in case things go downhill rapidly…get it? Downhill.

Step 7: Race

I was in a group cycling class recently where the instructor said she went down to Costa Rica and found out that there was a road race going on, but decided not to enter it because she felt intimidated. Malarkey! Anywhere you go, if you can register for the race, there will be runners that are faster than you and runners that are slower than you. If you can’t register for the race, it probably means that you’re at the Olympic Trials and then it would be OK to be intimidated. In all seriousness, join in the fun and participate. I guarantee you’ll have a great time. You can find out about local races through the local running stores and clubs, by Googling “running race [your location]” or by searching race specific websites such as Active.com.

My personal adventure here this week in Aliso Viejo has been nothing short of spectacular yielding two 10 plus-mile runs along the Aliso Creek Trail, where both times I “got lost” and had a terrific time finding my way back, and a 6-mile tempo group run and I’m not done yet. It also allowed me to connect with new friends Matt, Bob and Tom with the Snail’s Pace Running Club, which not only provided me with a great run but introduced me to Tom who I found out lost his daughter in the second plane that flew into the World Trade Tower on 9/11 and who went on to carry the Olympic torch back in Salt lake City. Tom is also running his 26th Long beach Marathon, one of only 16 runners that have run all 25 of them. Pretty cool! I even got invited to an awesome Italian restaurant after the group run where over 40 club members laughed and chatted about their upcoming races and runs. If you ever find yourself in Orange County, I highly recommend Antonucci’s in Mission Viejo. The pizza was amazing!

See you out there on the road.

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) The see-saw continues as Week 7’s surprise drop of 2.75 lbs was followed yet again by a corresponding increasing gain, albeit of only 1.25 lbs this time. This was a near perfect week for me with the only major gap being a lack of weight/resistance training. Therefore just as Week 7 yielded a surprise benefit, the Week 8 result is equally surprising, but considering that I have dropped and gained weight on an alternating basis throughout this challenge, I should probably be used to it by now. But it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.

I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. My grade?

Met Expectations Overall, for week 8 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Met Expectations. The reason I can grade myself this way is because of my strict adherence to the process goals set forth; my nutrition was excellent, my portion control was good and I got in 10+ hours of endurance activities including 50 miles of running and 42 miles on the bike. Why the resulting positive weight gain? I have no freak’n idea except that the actual weight measurement itself may be dependent upon a number of other factors that I have yet to identify.

Before we get into this week’s details, I thought it would be fun to throw out a week by week log to illustrate exactly what I’ve been talking about:

• Week 1:  +3
• Week 2: -4.5
• Week 3: -.75
• Week 4: -1.5
• Week 5: +1.5
• Week 6: -1.5
• Week 7: -2.75
• Week 8: +1.25
• Total to date: -5.5

I know it looks like I’m counting cards, and to make it even more squirely, there is very little relationship between the gains/losses and how well I met my weekly objectives that week. To me this begs that there may still be important and relevant determining factors I am not measuring or a time lag between the implementation of positive behaviors and the resulting measured response. Your thoughts and opinions on an explanation are both encouraged and welcomed.

Report Card – Week 8

February 22 – February 28:

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Met Expectations

Portion size: Actually pretty good this week.

Eat Healthy Breakfast: Only issue was a few more bagels than I would have liked.

Eat light every three hours: Much better with this this week.

Eat fresh whole foods: Good. Salads almost every day.

Avoid junk food and sugar: No slip-ups this week at all. Ruthless adherence.

Eat protein first: Did this.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Hunger is ugly leaving your body.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Met Expectations

February 22 – February 28:

Workout early: Got out for 2 early morning runs this week.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: Excellent week for cardio, including a 23-mile run on Saturday.

Resistance training: Hit legs and chest this week but I could have used one or two more days of weight training to keep things off-balance.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Conclusion: I’m very proud of what I accomplished this past week although it didn’t result in the weight loss I had been hoping for. More work to do and a short time to get it done.

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) The bagel week. This was a crazy week and the bottom line is that I ate too much and worked out too inconsistently. The result is that I lost another 2.75 pounds. Hunh? Proves yet again that this weight management stuff is highly irregular, the benefits are cumulative and not even close to linear. I’m down to 209.75 pounds which is really exciting but I can’t say that it’s due to a great week on my part. Only tangentially related to my weight loss objective, my athletic performance continues to climb, including having paced out a 16-miler at a 9 min/mile pace, which isn’t fast historically but it’s the fastest I’ve run distance in quite some time.

I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. My grade?

Less than Expected Overall, for week 7 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Less than Expected. How can I say that when I had my largest weight loss week to date? Because the focus must remain oon the process goals if I am meant to achieve the objective and then sustain it after the fact. I’m totally supportive of the motivational mantra of celebrating small victories but I can’t let the variability of the outcome goal give me a false sense of productivity. With some significant changes to my routine coming up, I really need to step it up this week.

Report Card – Week 7

February 15 – February 21:

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Less than Expected

Portion size: Actually pretty good this week.

Eat Healthy Breakfast: I’m not sure about healthy but I ate breakfast most days.

Eat light every three hours: Think this stretched to four, five or even six on some days.

Eat fresh whole foods: Good. Salads almost every day.

Avoid junk food and sugar: Ice cream a few times this week. Just silly on my part.

Eat protein first: Sort of.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Crappy as all get out, eating too late almost every night.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Less than Expected

February 15 – February 21:

Workout early: Finally got out for a 5:30am run this week, but only once. Still having trouble waking up full of energy.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: Didn’t work out from Wednesday morning until Saturday, but when I did the quality was good.

Resistance training: I know I needed to do more but got a bit ill on Thursday so I only got one day of lifting in, which I focused on my legs on Saturday and definitely am paying for it.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Conclusion: It’s great that I dropped the 2.75 pounds but there is no rational reason for me having done so, and that can’t continue. More resistance training this week and a ruthless commitment to stay away from the sugar.  Results from all of the other great folks participating in this challenge can be found at the 10 in 10 blog. Have another great week.

It’s almost March which means a full two months have passed since most of us made our annual commitment to be better people, save the world, stop smoking, find more time for friends and family or get out of debt – some of the more popular New Year’s resolutions made each and every year. For those of you that follow my blog, you know how opposed I am to the term resolution, because it is such a weak term and lacks basic accountability as evidenced by how much meaning is put behind a resolution in Congress. But hey, it’s a whole lot more catchy and less corporate than New Year’s Objective, a term which actually creates visions of drinking oneself into oblivion while hooking up with strangers at a New Years party. So New Year’s Resolution it is.

My own objective/resolution was to lose ten pounds in ten weeks, and I’ve been pretty darn dedicated to doing this including posting weekly results on my blog and being a part of the 10in10in10 Challenge. Even with my background in health and fitness, I have found this seemingly simple task quite the challenge. I’m down four pounds so far but it has been quite the yoyo experience, lose two pounds one week, gain one-and-a-half the next, and so on.

Having recently moved to NE Ohio, I have found both the good – lack of typical restaurants, and the associated calories, that I would typically frequent in NY, and the bad – Duck’s kitchen. OK, in all fairness, I have to openly admit I absolutely love Duck’s kitchen because it is incredibly warm and friendly with family members and friends stopping in at all hours of the day and night to sit down and partake of any number of delights that she has somehow constantly bakes throughout the day. I’ve often wondered to myself if this is how Mrs. Fields got started. The bad part is that the house should essentially be built out of gingerbread. There is sugar everywhere, cookies and pies on the kitchen table and counter tops, bins of cookies stacked five feet high in the family room, pancakes and waffles being made as soon as you wake up and more deserts being prepared right before you go to sleep. It’s utterly a diabetic shock waiting to happen. This is what I have to navigate through to get from the living room to the kitchen table, and again, this is not for any holiday, this is just what it looks like during the middle of any typical week and I’m not even showing the bins of cookies.

So as I’ve been going through this 10in10in10 Challenge, I have been hard pressed not to partake in any of these sugary treats and have been outstandingly successful. I think this is a positive indicator of how committed I am, this and the fact that there is a Cold Stone less than 10 minutes from my house and I haven’t been there once; alright, that’s not exactly true, I went there once but they had just closed and I didn’t have a sugar tantrum and try and break the door down as I probably would have done in past years. Long story short, once again, I have proven to myself that objectives/resolutions/goals or whatever you may call them are best achieved when they are realistic and when a clear road map to success is set out. I hope your resolutions are still top of mind for you and if not, perhaps this is yet another opportunity to get re-focused. And if that doesn’t work, just stop by Duck’s kitchen and put yourself into an insulin coma. Hey no worries, Duck can take care of monitoring that too.

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) Well last week I gave back all of my losses from the prior week and this week I recovered it back losing 1.5 pounds and dropping to 212.5. I’m starting to sense a pattern here and it’s not yoyo dieting, it’s yoyo weight loss – two steps forward and one step back. Losing the 1.5 pounds only took running over forty miles including a 20-miler on Friday and a seven-hour spin class on Saturday. Clearly cardio is not the issue, and while my diet wasn’t perfect, the one thing that was missing was resistance training. It’s pretty darn obvious, to even get close to reaching my objective this month, I need to hit the weights.

I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations.

Less than Expected Overall, for week 6 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Less than Expected, mostly because the nutrition needed a lot of work and I did hardly any resistance training. Need to step it up this week.

Report Card – Week 6

February 08 – February 14:

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Less than Expected

Portion size: OK except for Saturday night after the Spin-a-thon and Sunday when we went to Troy’s birthday party. Pasta and salad seem to be the Ohio staples of dietary nutrition and I needed to prepare better.

Eat Healthy Breakfast: Pretty good each day.

Eat light every three hours: OK.

Eat fresh whole foods: Salads almost every day.

Avoid junk food and sugar: Cake at Troy’s birthday party threw me off a bit.

Eat protein first: Failed miserably.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Ate right before going to sleep almost every night.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Less than Expected

February 08 – February 14:

Workout early: Not even close.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: No problem with the cardio this week but it wasn’t as moderate nor consistant as I would have liked. I did get used to pounding out 10 milers on the treadmill and did a 20-miler in McDonald and a 7 hour ride at the Spin-a-thon in Y-town.

Resistance training: After a great week at Equinox, I failed miserably at lifting this week.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: Sleeping has not been a problem.

Conclusion: It’s great that I dropped the 1.5 pounds but it took an irrational amount of cardio to do it, an amount that I obviously can’t continue. Need to get back to basics this week.  Results from all of the other great folks participating in this challenge can be found at the 10 in 10 blog. Have another great week.

It’s too damn hot for a penguin to be just walkin’ around here. I gotta send him back to the South Pole. – Billy Madison

Winter running is not something that should be dreaded or avoided. In fact, some of the most memorable runs you will ever have may be on a snow-covered trail, running past icy streams and snow-covered lakes. Winter running can be as serene and pure as running ever gets. But winter running can also present a host of issues for the uninformed, uninitiated or the stubborn.

On February 10, 2010, I co-hosted episode 68 of The Runner’s Round Table where we discussed Cold Weather Running, it’s opportunities, it’s risks and how runners can prepare themselves to enjoy this whitest of seasons. A number of questions were asked during the episode specifically about what to wear. I encourage you to listen to this episode either by subscribing on iTunes or listening through your computer.

Cold is both personal and subjective. While 40F may be cold for those running in Los Angeles, it’s down right balmy for those running in New England. Therefore the recommendations that follow are based on my reality.

The best thing you can do is create a gear log of your running wardrobe that documents what you wear under a variety of conditions and includes commentary about whether you were too hot, too cold, too wet or too chilled. This information will be valuable for years to come and can finally take the guess work out of running in the cold.

Below is an example of a clothing log that you can adapt for your own circumstances and preferences. Click on each of the orange hyperlinks for photos of various outfits for the described conditions and temperatures.

It’s important to remember that you don’t need to buy a ton of expensive gear to run in the cold. It’s most important to cover your head to minimize heat loss, protect your breathing areas (e.g., mouth, nose, neck), and external appendages or exposed areas that have a tendency to freeze (e.g., fingers, toes, ears, eyes). You can accomplish this with the clothes you already have. Yes it may mean that the articles won’t be feather-weight or ideal, but it shouldn’t deter you from getting out there and enjoying the roads.

Hope you’ll add your own thoughts and recommendations below in the comment area.