To Run or Not to Run...Not to Run...Bummer

Greetings fellow fitness friends. I suppose I should write an update about the Hot Chocolate Run from Sunday. Well, I would love to write about this run except, I didn't go. I was out of town last week at a conference and somewhere between the time I left and the time I got back, I got sick. I'll spare you the gorey details, but I'll just say it was in my lungs. Yuck! I did however go to the Expo and I have some pictures from that. I was a fun expo, but I was really bummed that I could not make it to the run. It wouldn't have been all that fun anyway since I couldn't breathe, but I did hear from a friend of mine who ran it that the run was really cold.

I got an email last week while I was at the conference regarding the run stating that the run marshal was issuing a severe weather warning. The warning stated that the wind chill temp was going to be 5 degrees F! That's cold! The email warned about frostbite and risk of hypothermia. For these reasons I was considering not running, but then I got sick. Still, I wish I could have run. I am now going to work on continuing to get healthy and get back to training for this 5K of mine in April.

Of note, in my last post I wrote about how I gained weight and was hoping that the scale would go in the downward direction to 264. I did not get that close, but I weighed myself before I left for the conference and I weighed in at 265! I was super excited. One of the perks from last week was that I did a lot of walking. I wore my wife's pedometer and I clocked 20 miles in the week and averaged about 3-4 miles per day. All in all it was a good week...till I got sick that is. Enjoy the pictures from the Hot Chocolate Expo and keep training.

Merry Christmas!

Got Chocolate Milk After Video

I just applied to be apart of Got Chocolate Milk Team Refuel. In order to apply, I had to submit a video about why chocolate milk is apart of my after workout routine. I wanted the video to be very similar to the commercials they make. Here it is. I hope that I make it and if I do I am going to ask for each of my readers to vote for me once a day to go from a finalist to a team member. For now, I hope you enjoy the video.

Race and Training update

I wanted to give you all an update about my race schedule and where I am on my training. My training has been going well. I have been running/walking using the Zombies, Run! 5K Training app and have just finished with week 2. I am moving on to week 2.5. Basically I have created a 5K training program that takes almost 50 weeks instead of 8 weeks. I wanted to do this because of my history of injury. So week 2.5 is using another app to move from 30 sec of running to 45 seconds of running.

I had an awesome goal hit last month. During the month of November, I ran, swam and biked 100.8 miles and last night I started the month off with a Kettlebell workout. My legs are SORE! I am looking forward to the move up in run time though and have a race upcoming. It will still fall into my 5K training, but it'll feel good to finally get back out there and race again. I will be running/walking in the Hot Chocolate 5K. It will be Saturday, December 15th. I am looking forward to it and will do a race recap after the race is over.

As far as my weight loss goes, I believe that I am having a harder time with Thanksgiving and too much turkey and salty foods. I have not lost a single pound. In fact I think I have gained a couple of pounds back. I last weighed in at 266, but I think that I am nearer to 268. I would love to go the other direction to 264 by the end of this week. I am going to have to be much more disciplined to get there but I know that I can do it.

If you would like you can follow my twitter feed @Jonathanpharm (See sidebar for follow button). There I post all of my exercise workouts and weightloss. Thanks for reading!

We've Moved...Sort of...

I never know how to start a blog post, so I’ll just start. I moved...well, sort of. I had been talking about my athletic endeavors on my photography blog and I have decided to move them over to a blog of their own. The "sort of" part of the move is that the site looks very VERY similar to that of the Off the Street Photo blog, thats because I like to keep everything neat and tidy. You can always get from one to the other. I also like to keep them neat and linked because I feel like these things are an extension of who I am as a person.

When you read about my workouts, my athletic adventures, or my training you are reading about me. When you see a post about a recent photo shoot or read about my thoughts of an Illini game that I have shot or a new client I have gotten, you are reading about me. I am an open person and by doing this I am letting you see into my life, into who I am.

I love photography, I love sports especially endurance sports, thus these are the things I blog about.

So, if you are looking for a photographer and stumble upon this post or this blog don’t worry, you’re still in the right place just click the photo website link at the top called "Off the Street Photography Blog". If you are interested in my training and you are here, you’re definitely in the right place because here is where you can read all about that, all about my struggles and triumphs and successes and failures. If you want to read the posts I wrote before separating photography and training/fitness click HERE.

All of my posts so far regarding training and fitness will be still available, just see the link above called “Past Posts.”

I hope you enjoy the ride and subscribe to both blogs as they are going to be written on quite a bit and we are going to have a lot of fun!

Press On!