12 days to go, and only one goal remains

With 12 days to go, I am down to just one remaining goal - run/walk 1,000 miles before the end of Project David 2.0.  Since I started walking on September 30, 2011, that gave me 9 months, 17 days to complete that goal.  With 12 days to go I have just another 38.12 miles to get there.  Since I carry a Fitbit tracker, people have asked if I was counting the miles that it reflects on a daily basis.  The answer is no.  I've only counted the running and walking miles from my workouts.

The last goal you ask? Yes.  But wasn't there another goal to be completed? When I wrote my last entry there were two remaining goals - 1,000 miles and my revised (upward) weight loss goal of 71.6 pounds.  Well, happy to report that on the morning of June 22, as we were getting ready to leave for our road trip to Oregon, I stepped on the scale and learned that I had lost - drum roll please........ 72.8 pounds!!!  An extra 1.2 pounds!!  10 months, 7 days.  More to come on that as I am preparing my Project David 2.0 "recap" blog entry for July 17, my "go live" date.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

30 days to go!

There are 30 days left in Project David 2.0.  How have we done? There are two key goals remaining - run/walk 1,000 miles, lose 71.6 pounds.  Are we going to make it? Well, we have 100.73 miles and 0.8 pounds to go.  I have no doubts that I will make these two remaining goals.  This nearly year long project has been about success!  And we're not stopping short!

If you've been following along with me, you know these are not goals that I set last August when I started this journey. If you are new to my blog, let met tell you where these goals came from.  The weight goal was 61.6, but I decided along the way to increase it by 10 pounds. Why? Because as I got closer to my original goal, I thought there was room for an extra 10 pounds. The 1,000 miles? Yeah, not in the original plan either. In fact I had no exercise goals when I started. At the end of September I started walking every night.  I logged all of my walking sessions. In January I decided that maybe I would try running. Walking 4 miles a night was taking about an hour. If I could run, I should be able to cut that down. So I started the C25K training program.  This is designed to get a non-runner ready to run a 5k in 9 weeks.  The 1,000 miles? Inspired by my good friend Bob Stanke.  In 2011 he set and achieved a goal to run 1,000 miles. I decided that take that one on - but in a combination of walking and running.  Since I wanted to hit my original goal date, July 17, I only had 9 1/2 months to complete the task.  Kind of aggressive for someone who was not a runner.

So how has the running gone? On Saturday I ran my second race.  This one was a 4 miler.  Beat my goal by 2 minutes, running it in 35:53.  I'm working towards a 10k, and a co-worker is trying to talk me into a 10 miler.  I think I am ready for the 10k.  Tonight was a 5.25 mile run.  It felt good.  It was my longest run to date. Adding another mile shouldn't be an issue.  Up next is a 5 mile race on the 4th of July, a 4 mile race on July 7th, and another 4 mile race later in July.  And I'll be entering the lottery for the Medtronic TC 10 Mile in October.  I have time to get from 5 miles to 10 miles by October. Keep your tigers crossed that I can get in.  It's very popular. Some will say that once I get to 10 miles, I am probably ready for a half marathon since I'm only 3 miles away.  Pretty amazing that a guy who has never been a runner, and 6 months ago just started running, could be working towards running 10+ miles.

I'll keep you posted on my progress!!

Thanks for reading!

Last bag of flour!!

Another accomplishment today.  I reached the 7th and final bag of flour.  70 pounds.  That leaves 1.6 pounds to go to hit my revised goal.  39 days to go and reach that mark.  Pretty sure I won't need that much time!

Additionally, I am 864.37 miles towards my goal of 1,000 miles walking/running.  This was a goal that I added in January, about 5 months into Project David 2.0.  I started with walking on September 30, and then started the C25K program in January because walking 3-4 miles a night was taking too long.  :-)  Since that time I've done a combination of walking and running to get this far.

More goal updates as they occur!  Thanks for following along with me on this journey.

50 days and 184.6 miles to go

With 50 days remaining in Project David 2.0 I have 184.6 remaining to reach my goal of 1,000 miles. This was a goal that I added 45 days into the project, so the 1,000 miles is over 9 1/2 months time.  It is a combination of walking and running on the treadmill and running outside.  It is going to be close.  No more days off.  Or else extra daily doubles. :-)

The 1,000 miles was not in my original plans, but after a couple of months, and tracking every session I decided that maybe it should be another goal.  Last year my good friend Bob Stanke made his goal of running 1,000 miles.  A little more aggressive then I am, but great inspiration.  Maybe next year I'll try running the 1,000 miles.

With 2 months to go......

Thursday marked two months to go in Project David 2.0.  It also marks one month since I hit my original goal weight.

So what's happened in the last month? Well, we continue to drive to our final (David 2.1) goal of 7 bags of flour.  That would take us to a total of 71.6 pounds.  Over the last month we've lost another 4 pounds.  (There was an amazing Mother's Day brunch in the mix that might have had an impact on the weight loss. Might have had something to do with dessert. A chocolate layer mousse cake.) So we have two months to lose the last 6 pounds.  Pretty sure we'll get there.  And once we do we'll continue to focus on toning and strength.

What about the other goals? Well, the running continues, sort of.  I am planning on 2-3 5k runs this summer.  Schedule has been such that it's been limited, but we are continuing to walk.  I am up to 758 miles since I started walking/running on September 30th. That's like walking from Minneapolis, MN to Knoxville, TN.  In January I decided to see if I could get to 1,000 miles by July 17th.  I'll need 242 miles over the next two months.  Going to be tight since I am averaging about 100 miles a month.  Need to pick up the running to increase my daily totals.

People frequently ask me how I did it.  Did I use one of those commercial weight loss programs? Nope. I did it by diet and exercise.  I tracked everything I ate using MyFitnessPal, working against a reduced calorie diet.  I tracked all of my activities with a FitBit tracker.  The really nice thing is the MyFitnessPal app and the FitBit tracker sync together.  My activities log on MyFitnessPal and calculate my net calories letting me know how I need to adjust my diet.  And as you can see on my blog page, MyFitnessPal updates my blog with my total weight loss.  Great tools.  Check them out!  I highly recommend them.