I felt the need for another playlist, so here we are once more with “Oh God It’s After Me!” Or, OGIAM! as it’s known in certain circles, (Read: My Brain) is my scientifically formulated playlist made specifically for running!

“Wha…” you ask?

That’s right! Every song on this play list I tried to match up with somewhat similar sounds. More importantly however, OGIAM!’s tracks are all at or around 150bpm (or halved at 75bpm). What’s that mean to you? That means that if you pace yourself to the beats of the enclosed playlist while running, you’ll be clocking in at a 10 minute mile! I’ve tested this list today and while I didn’t clock a 10 minute mile since I was…um…taking it easy…it made for good listening and helped me keep consistent all the same!

This time around, I’ve left the beards and flannel behind for some indie rock/stoner rock/just plain old rock for a better pace. There’s even a classic or two in there in the form of The Police and Elvis Costello. Something for everybody! For myself, a former musician and professional marching band nerd, moving my bulk to the beat of a song is second nature, so this is a great way to push yourself out on the trail!

It made for a good playlist sonic-ally too, so there! Mix that with an excuse to take pictures while I’m outside and my upcoming race; this seemed like a Good Thing to Do. (TM)

Enjoy! Got some playlists of your own? Share em’!

We’re finally here, the final days counting down to my next race, which is the Wheeler Mission Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving morning! This race is a 4.6 mile jaunt, one I’ve been looking forward to hitting up for quite awhile. I’ve found running races to be an absolute blast and let’s be frank; I’m still kind of blown away by the fact that I’m actually ‘running races’, so it’s good news all around. In addition to this, it gives me a tangible event to train towards and keeps me on track diet and exercise wise. So not only do these races boost up my ego; they also keep said ego on target for the long run.

The down side to this upcoming race however, is that it throws my normal gym routine into a bit of chaos as I try to cut back on certain workouts to preserve my legs for the big day. I’ve been dealing with a high amount of soreness in my quads the last week, more soreness than usual anyways, so I figure squats and deadlifts are a bad idea. While I don’t think I’ve hurt myself, I do fear maybe I pushed a bit too far a bit too soon when I deadlifted 245 last week, so for this week a rest. At the same time, ‘a rest’ in my mind doesn’t mean to lay off the exercise all together, so it means I’m stuck trying to tweak my normal routine on the fly. Generally, this isn’t too bad, but it also leaves my worry prone mind wondering if I’m not doing quite enough!

The typical routine consists of two Plans, A and B, done in a three day split. Plan A consists of Squats, Dead Lifts, Bench Press and Dips, with Hyperextensions and Weighted Sit Ups tacked on. Plan B repeats the Squats, then moves to Standing Military Press, Bent Over Rows and Pull Ups, then repeat the hyper extensions and sit ups. For this week, my split was on a B, A, B rotation. On Monday, I did everything but the Squats and it worked pretty well. Still, there’s the concern that maybe I didn’t do quite enough, yet I was still pooped by the end of the night and good and sore, so probably over thinking it! Today I’m going to do an easy 3 to 4 mile run at lunch to make sure I’m loosened up for the race on Thursday, then Wed. evening I’ll be looking at Bench Press, Dips, Hyperextensions and Sit Ups. I don’t really have anything good in mind to supplement the missing squats and deadlifts for this day, so I’ll go ahead and add in some Incline Bench Press as well and call it good.

While it seems like I’m worry a lot over little things, I find it pretty important to keep up on my exercise routine, especially this week of all weeks. It is Thanksgiving week after all, and Thanksgiving means EATING! As long as I’ve kept up the routine most of the week, I can safely consider Turkey Day a cheat meal and just not worry about it! That sounds like a pretty good way to deal with a food-centric holiday when you’re trying to drop pounds, don’t you think?

In the end, I hope the soreness in my quads goes away by Thursday morning. It’s not pain; it’s soreness, so there’s a big difference. Part of my mind is second guessing myself here, as the running has never felt quite the same after I took the week off after tanking last month. I think it’s safe to say that that issue is all mental however. Half of this trek is a mental game, so it’s important to stay positive and reminding myself that I can run 8.5 miles, so 5 miles is a piece of cake! Granted, that’s easier said than done, but we’re staying positive here!

Stay tuned for a full trip report after Thursday’s Drumstick Dash!

As a former musician, long time music geek and all around good listener…I’ve long been a fan of the mix tape. Since I started running this year, I find myself with long stretches of time with nothing but spotify and a pair of earbuds to occupy my brain space, so I started making play lists once again. Those playlists were random and wandering however, lacking focus and theme! Until a week or two back until my friend Mark sparked my imagination with his Sad Bastard Music themed mix, which in turn inspired my own Sad Bastard Music 2: A Bloo Hoo Hoo.

Turns out, I missed the art of making a good mix tape!

Turns out too, said mix tapes make for great listening when I’m out running! Not to mention…they make me want to run even more to hear the whole thing.

So below, you can check out my latest mix tape, “Songs of Love, Loss and Flannel”. It’s a mix of folky, alt-country type mellow tunes as that’s what I’ve been into here as of late. If you’re familar with that style of music, you’ll recognize a few names such as Glen Campbell and The Head and the Heart as well as a bunch of lesser known bands that I’ve been discovering and falling in love with like Dr. Dog, The Lumineers and Josh Ritter. All in all, it’s a pretty mellow mix and makes for good back ground noise when you’re cruising down the side of a country road in this blustery fall weather!

Enjoy! I’m having a lot of fun with this, so stay tuned for some more here in the near future! For that matter, if this gets your own gears turning, make sure you share you own lists with me on Spotify!

It’s been a bit since I’ve posted on ‘Ye Olde Weight Loss Programe’ or hell, even posted here at Cinema Fromage in awhile. Real life gets busy though and sometimes it’s just plain not easy to check in for awhile. Things have been moving right along…I’ve still been dropping weight, lifting other weights and running like a fool, so that’s good. At the same time, the weight hasn’t dropped quite as I had hoped it would continue here as of late; in fact the past three weeks have seen me in another plateau. These things suck of course, but they’re par for the course. So no real need to panic.

The plateau has had an unforeseen side effect unfortunately, which is more of a surprise to me. I’m sure it’s a full expected side effect to those in the know. All the same, I’ve found myself a bit discouraged and in general, ‘pouty’ about the whole process. I’m closing in on 100 lbs lost here in the next 8 lbs or so, so there’s a heightened sense of frustration involved. As much as hate to admit it, I’ve had a moment or two of ‘why bother’ when stopping myself from eating that piece of candy out of the Halloween bucket and even getting out to run in the early morning cold is just plain old hard to do. There was even a brief moment or two where I tried to half heartedly convince myself I need to take a week or two off from the whole diet thing. (Even in my bummed out state, I knew this was stupid.) But again; it happens. What’s important is that I’ve pressed on and continued doing what I do, despite not being happy about it at times. As of this weekend, I finally started to break the 260 lb barrier and weighed in at a svelte 259, so that plateau is starting to change. With that change, I’m sure my motivation will change as well and things will be back to normal.

Despite my moments of mental self doubt and feeling sorry for myself in general, things in the physical space still continue to improve so I can’t really feel too sorry for myself. The picture above was taken this past Monday, the start of Week 10 of the Starting Strength weight lifting program I’ve been doing. When looking at the weights that I’ve been hitting, compared to where I started, serves as a great motivator for myself and gives me a sense of improvement that the frozen scaled does not. In Squats, I’ve got from 115 lbs that I started at to a whopping 245 lbs. In Deadlift, I’ve gone from 105 lbs to 225 lbs. In Bench-press, I’ve seen the numbers go from 105 to 175, and all the numbers from the other lifts have grow just as proportionately. At 10 weeks, I’m now getting to the point where I can start to see muscle where there wasn’t any before and when shirtless, I can see definitely changes taking shape in my chest and my torso. Nobody wants to see a shirtless picture though, as I look like a balding Sasquatch with my shirt off, so you’ll just have to take my word for it!

On the running front, things stalled a wee bit due to injury. Nothing bad mind you, but I was suffering a bit from a pulled hip flexor. The pain was never excruciating, but it was a nuisance and I figured it was best not to aggrivate things and set myself back. So…I took a week off. This is big for me! The week off was well, but when I returned from that week off, I pushed too hard, too fast, and hit a wall early on. On what was a routine 5 mile run, I ran out of gas at about 1.6 miles in and felt miserable afterwards. So, I took the rest of last week off and restarted again yesterday. This time, I’m easing back in and it’s going well, so problem averted. All the same, I closed out October with a total of 55.6 miles which was fantastic. This puts me at 213 miles run for the year, and 242 miles walked! I didn’t think about this until just now as I typed it; I’ve now hit 455 miles traveled by foot this year. That’s a little staggering to me! Back in February, if you had told me I would close out 2012 with nearly 500 miles, I’d have laughed at you between fistfuls of Cheetos!

Here we are in early November. Things are going slow, but I’m feeling more resolved and set in my ways again. I attribute a lot of last month’s ‘weakness’ to a lot of work stress, lots of family stuff going on, Halloween and just a whole lot of being busy. But, we’re back to being strong and the weight’s starting to move again. I just can’t expect to be dropping the 4 to 5 pounds a week I was early on. It’s easy to get hung up on that number on the scale and it’s easy to forget that that number is not always what’s important. Looking back, it’s pretty laughable that I can beat myself up mentally over not dropping any weight for three weeks as I running an ‘easy’ 5 mile run, forgetting the fact that I’m running an ‘easy’ 5 mile run. Coming up, I’ll be running the Drumstick Dash in Broad Ripple on Thanksgiving morning, so the whole ‘what am I going to be able to eat on Thanksgiving’ thing is not even a worry for me! I think it’s fair for me to think that if I’m running a 5 mile race that morning, I’ll eat whatever the heck I want!

So there you are, caught up with my state of wellness and well being. Now that things are back in more of a rhythm with the exercise, weight loss, work, etc. etc. I’m going to try and get back to blogging about everything a little more regularly. If you’re interested, feel free to check back in regularly. Heck, feel free to leave your questions, your comments, your encouragements or if you’re my mother…tell me I look like a refugee. All are welcome!