I reached the finish line of my symbolic 100-day diet at midnight on November 17th. No finish banner…no belt buckle…no cheering crowd…just me weighing 38 pounds less than I did on August 10th. Over the course of just 100 days, each one a symbolic mile on the Wasatch 100 mile course, I reached my ideal racing weight and made great progress in recovering from major hamstring reattachment surgery.
Celebration!
I celebrated my dieting success and marked an official return to running by entering the St. George (UT) Turkey Trot 5km. I was surprised at my pre-fun run jitters and had to laugh at myself for being so nervous, especially with several runners dressed in turkey and pilgrim costumes. “They didn’t have their hamstrings surgically reattached just 6 months ago!”, I rationalized as I stretched, jogged to the corner and back 4 times and generally looked way too serious.
I went out cautiously, hitting the first mile in just under 9 minutes. My confidence grew as I got warmed up and my hamstrings stayed put. With the finish line in sight, I even managed to pick off a few runners and cover
Body Fat Percentage– Looking and Feeling Like a Runner Agained the last mile in about 8 minutes flat. 25:49 isn’t exactly a 5km time to write home about but I was elated to reach this very symbolic finish line.
In my last blog, I talked about doing skinfold caliper measurements on all the Wasatch 100 weigh-in days (miles). Between Day 24 (Francis Peak Maintenance Shed) and Day 75 (Brighton Lodge), the sum of my standard 6 skinfold caliper measurements dropped from 128mm to 64mm. At the finish line on Day 100 (Midway), the 6 skinfold sum was 38mm. Curious about my body fat percentage, I used a couple body fat estimators found at the following website:
http://www.linear-software.com/online.html
The Parillo protocol uses 9 skinfold caliper measurements. The Jackson/Pollock protocol includes 7 skinfold caliper measurements. The Parillo protocol estimated me at 6.2% body fat and Jackson/Pollock came in at 7.2%. Both are estimates but make sense in comparison to last year’s figures (13.9%, then 10.6%) as I slimmed down for my 19th Wasatch 100 finish.
Time to Get Serious – 20th Wasatch Entry Submitted
Thanksgiving morning found me running the Feed the Hungry 10km in Idaho Falls (ID) with my 11-year old grand daughter, Sara. This was her first official race, complete with t-shirt and a number! Knowing she had never ventured past 4 miles, we took it fairly easy, talked a lot and focused on feeling good at the 5-mile mark. Pacing her through this rite of passage was one of the highlights of my 35-year running career!
Now that my weight’s down, my hamstrings seem to be firmly re-attached and I’ve got a couple races and a 3-hour trail run under my tightened belt, it’s time to get serious about finishing that 20th Wasatch 100 next September. The race application was available for on-line submission on December 1st.