Running a 10 km Race

I am preparing to run a race the coming Sunday. So many doubts and questions arise. I started hitting the gym seriously just a couple of months back. I was just a lazy lounging mom - before deciding to do something about my fitness. After roughly 7-8 weeks of gymming intermittently - I really do not know whether I am fit enough to do a 10 km - 10 kms of carrying my considerable body weight early in the morning with thousands of determined runners at a jogging pace.

Today I have been surfing for last minute preparations. I had some rough idea of starving myself the next 2-3 days to get my body weight down an extra kg or two - so as to run better. That seems to be a no no. All advise seem to suggest to eat proper (and not to think about weight now). The best I have run so far has been 3 odd kms on the treadmill at a stretch. That seemed to me an achievement last week! 10 kms? Will I cramp up mid stretch and an ambulance need be called. I am truly getting nervous! My calf and knee muscles also protest when I put in a bit of extra effort. At forty - and 15 - 16 kgs overweight - with flat feet - what else did I expect???

The best advise I found online was to run from telephone pole to pole and walk the next. Maybe I can cover the distance then. Walk, run, whatever - I want to finish the race, provided my knee, legs hold out.

So a week more of anticipation and nervousness. Wishing myself all the best! Will post update if I overcome my nervousness and get to the starting line.

PS - I still can't believe it! I completed 10 kms in 1 hr 25 mins odd and felt I had some to spare too!!! The couple of months of gymming and burning calories seems to have helped build stamina! As also the bootcamps!

All in all Adidas King of the Roads 2011 was an awesome run. The route was great and smooth with just the right gradient to make it interesting. The road was choc a bloc with colours befitting the theme. The pink, orange, yellow, blue Adidas vests all pounding away together made it really beautiful. Cant wait for my next run. Yoo Hoo!

Day 1 Experience at a Fitness Camp

Bootcamp - Day 1 Experience at a Fitness Camp

(Article originally published at www.xomba.com)

I had a sudden and unexplained notion to join a fitness camp recently. I guess not so unexplained since I am a huge fan of the Biggest Loser show. I googled for fitness camps in my locality and it came up with a solution which I thought was the perfect answer to all my fitness prayers. A fitness camp right near my home with perfect timings! The camp gives something called HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training.

Today was my first day at the camp. After getting up in the morning at the unearthly hour of 5 am I made my way in pitch black darkness to the campsite. I am sure I left behind my husband with amusing dreams of my losing my way, gasping on runways or fumbling on ropeways and treadmills!

Frankly, I had zilch idea of what to expect. Maybe some cute laps, a few stretches, sit ups and push ups like they do in aerobics class and some games. Like I said – I had a real vague idea. But this is what I got.

After a few stretches, the coaches gathered all for an innocuous sounding “fitness assessment test”. Fitness assessment, eh? For all my 165 pounds – I consider myself relatively fit. And assessment seemed a good idea – so I thought, till they started on it.

The group was divided into two and one group had to run back and forth for a distance of 100 mts or so for 10 times in sets of three – punctuated with squats, push ups, sit ups. Whew. My assessment of my fitness levels went for a toss. On the last stretch I had one of the coaches running along with me shouting – you can do it, cmon all the time as I panted, slobbered, gasped till I fell dead at the finishing line. Then I had the dubious pleasure of seeing my partner doing the same thing in less than half my time while I kept count.

The next bootcamp assignment started. The coaches showed us some markers around the huge field that seemed to stretch for miles. However it was just 200 mts we were informed. And we had to take 4 laps around the markers. The first lap went okay in the boggy and dark ground. The second lap, I just walked. The third I stuttered and by the fourth lap – I found all the participants lined up and shouting c’mon you can do it – as I dragged myself along to the finishing line. I was not last though. Not in a long way. I proudly left behind two stragglers. I felt like a dirty zombie at the end of it all – walking dead with mud splattered all over and blackened elbows and knees.

I did expect some tough fitness regime. Wish I was aware how tough! And I wish even more I never get these brilliant ideas!

Weight Loss Through Wuyi Tea - A Magic Diet!

Is Wuyi tea truly a magic diet weight loss formula? Looking for slimming plans (as I usually do at least once a month :-) I came across what is being claimed as a magic weight loss plan, the Wu Yi diet tea. The plan is simple. Just two cups of Wuyi tea a day, 30 minutes of walking, normal balanced diet.

What exactly is Wuyi tea? It’s the tea grown in the volcanic Wuyi mountain region. Wuyi Mountain is located in Southeast China. It is a Unesco heritage site and the cradle of neoconfucianism. The setting of Wuyi mountains, the nutrient rich trapped soil, the high humidity and provide the perfect environment for tea from that region. Tea from the Wuyi Mountains is being exported for centuries. The Chinese take their tea seriously. Drinking tea is almost a spiritual act. The tea is savoured and taken in small clay thimbles with both hands in the traditional Chinese way. The ancient Chinese believed this tea to be a cure for many ailments.

The most famous Wuyi Tea, Da Hong Pao is grown in only three bushes which accounts for its exhorbitant price (if its available!) Xing Hong Pao is grown from the branches of the smaller red robe trees which are descents of the original three red robe trees.

So why is the Wuyi tea believed to be a diet tea? Possibly because the caffeine in the tea raises the body’s metabolic rate? The tea in itself contains very little calories and should be taken in lukewarm water. Wuyi tea, in addition contains higher levels of polyphenols and thus has high antioxidant properties which are attributed to protect from a variety of diseases (the ancient Chinese medics prescribed them often). It also is supposed to be responsible for increasing body metabolism, which may account for the weight loss properties.

There are many resources on Wuyi tea on the Net. Here is one.

The Ideal Diet!

This article's not for you if are serious about losing weight! This is for all out there like me who know all about the weight loss diets, who find out all they can about losing weight, low carb diets, check out all diet programs, participate in all diet plans, with absolutely no hope or intention to minimize those pounds! For us its not really extra weight, its "the ideal weight!"

I am going to talk about what people are looking for in a diet...not what they really need to lose those ungainly bulges! These two things are as different as apples and oranges as you will see!

What you really need

- a strict diet! have a look a the flat belly diet and all the other diet plans out there...

- a strict diet- no impulse icecream, pastries, patties, burgers, lards, fried chicken, fried anything, restaurant food, creams, mid morning, mid evening, mid day snacks

- a strict diet - refuse that extra drink, dessert at your friend's... you might have noticed those trimmed figures always act coy while eating...SO START ACTING COY ...where the spread is mouth watering

- and regular exercise... anything...why not try the 12 second sequence weight loss program? that is HOT now! You can try anything but do GET up and BEND!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22465951/

But do you really want to do all these?

Now please be honest...arent you really looking at a "get thin quick" remedy? The methods stated above above are what we all know would lose weight...eventually. So why and what are you searching for in that ultimate diet?

I know WHAT I AM searching for in that ultimate diet!

It will be a diet plan that will enable me to get up at 10 am when the holidays are on without any thought of an impending morning jog disturbing my slumber! A diet that will enable me to check on that lovely flavour in icecream that everyone seems to be gorging on! It will be maybe a diet pill that will allow me to pick up whatever food is available at the nearest store whenever i am hungry! And the diet menu should not prevent me to taste any dessert spread that I feel compelled to have when I am dining out. And when I am home from work, my diet and exercise regimen should never never prevent me from propping up on the sofa and going to sleep munching on that fried chicken/pizza/burger/noodles watching TV and not even thinking about hitting the treadmill in the morning (remember I mean to wake up 30 mins before office)!

Will my diet allow me all this? That will be my ideal diet!