Here were the results:

Now, you won’t find me in the early results, I came in a 1:01 while my nephew came in at 49 minutes. I was right on his tail I just happened to come in 12 minutes behind him. LOL.

I am not exactly an accomplished runner and haven’t run since I was in my early 20′s on a regular basis, but trained for the past month or so, when I decided last minute to run the race. My nephew is headed to college next year and I was determined to run this with him.

Unfortunately I only saw his back side at the start of the race then not again until we were celebrating the finish.

Here are the things I learned and was reminded of:

1) When you are running hills, train on hills!

2) When you are running in the morning, training mornings, so that you are adapted to the time and temperature of that time of day. (I like to run at night; no wonder; you are so much more warmed up and have momentum by that time.

3) Make sure your running shoes are in great shape too. Mine weren’t bad but were feeling a bit flat.

4) Make sure you’re vital energy is high, as well as that you are well nourished before the race, but not full (I could have used some more sleep).

5) Make sure overall you have the right amount of training time before you attempt a race like this. I admit it was a bit last minute during an intense time in my life, and an added stress, but sometimes, you got just break ground.
…

I am a bit sore today because of all the hills; one actually forced me to walk but that won’t happen next year. I have taken stock of all the factors that resulted in my actual time, which was over my training time. I’ve factored in everything from lifestyle to stress, to tactics above, to shoes, to sleep, to training style and length of training and have lots of room to improve.

The great things about sports is that it’s a metaphor for life; what we learn competing against ourselves, and others (especially when it’s your nephew – my reptilian competitor does not care if he’s 25 years younger than me) and preparing for athletic events, can apply in your life whether or not you are into sports or even a fitness enthusiast.

I have rarely seen someone, particularly those who don’t identify as one who would ever participate in an athletic event event never not be exhilarated by completing such an event. The beauty is, preparing for athletic events are the most powerful influence on making changes in your lifestyle.

When a performance lifestyle becomes a status quo for you, no matter what your circumstances or fitness level, you’ll start preparing for athletic events (frankly every event ) throughout the year, and change your lifestyle accordingly and enthusiastically.

I haven’t done a public athletic event in a few years due to the fact that I’ve been making some big and deep life changes that have taken me into the realm of the deeply emotional (marked by the work I am doing with the book, The Curse of the Capable.

I am still in a residual period of change and getting comfortable with a new and improved sense of self, that lately has been getting some tests; but this year should be a period where local endurance events will be back in my life!

Only now, I am participating from a position of strength.

Set some bigger goals with me (bigger than weight loss and getting fit) and your lifestyle (weight, diet, exercise and training) will most likely follow.

Where do you find event’s in your area?

Just enter your zip code:

Lifestyle are changing in the wrong direction, don't you think?

PARIS – Citizens of the world’s richest countries are getting fatter and fatter and the United States is leading the charge, an organization of leading economies said Thursday in its first ever obesity forecast.

Three out of four Americans will be overweight or obese by 2020, and disease rates and health care spending will balloon, unless governments, individuals and industry cooperate on a comprehensive strategy to combat the epidemic, the study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The Paris-based organization, which brings together 33 of the world’s leading economies, is better known for forecasting deficit and employment levels than for measuring waistlines. But the economic cost of excess weight — in health care, and in lives cut short and resources wasted — is a growing concern for many governments.

Franco Sassi, the OECD senior health economist who authored the report, blamed the usual suspects for the increase.

“Food is much cheaper than in the past, in particular food that is not particularly healthy, and people are changing their lifestyles, they have less time to prepare meals and are eating out more in restaurants,” said Sassi, a former London School of Economics lecturer who worked on the report for three years.

That plus the fact that people are much less physically active than in the past means that the ranks of the overweight have swelled to nearly 70 percent in the U.S. this year from well under 50 percent in 1980, according to the OECD.

In 10 years, a full 75 percent of Americans will be overweight, making it “the fattest country in the OECD,” the report said.

The projection seems in line with those made by some American researchers. About 86 percent of U.S. adults would be overweight or obese by 2030 if current trends continue, according to a study led by a Johns Hopkins University researcher and published in 2008 in the journal Obesity.

However, the most recent findings by U.S. government scientists indicate the obesity epidemic may be leveling off, with roughly two-thirds of adults overweight and holding steady in the last few years.

Meanwhile, the same factors driving the epidemic in the U.S. are also at work in other wealthy and developing countries, Sassi said. “There is a frightening increase in the epidemic,” Sassi said, “We’ve not reached the plateau yet.”

The lifespan of an obese person is up to 8-10 years shorter than that of a normal-weight person, the OECD said, the same loss of lifespan incurred by smoking.

In the U.S. the cost in dollars of obesity, including higher health care spending and lost production, is already equivalent to 1 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product, the report said. That compares to half a percent in other OECD countries, Sassi said.

These costs could rise two- or threefold over the coming years, the OECD said, citing another study that forecast obesity and overweight-related health care costs would rise 70 percent by 2015 and could be 2.4 times higher than the current level in 2025.

The OECD found that rates of obesity, defined as a body mass index above 30, show a wide variation across its member countries, ranging from as little as 3-4 percent of the population in Japan and Korea to around one-third in the U.S. and Mexico.

“However, rates are also increasing in these countries,” the OECD said. Outside the OECD, obesity rates are rising at similarly fast rates in countries such as Brazil, China, India and Russia.

The OECD advises governments on economic growth, social development and financial stability.

Think like an athlete even if you're not into sports or a fitness enthusiast

By Laura S. Jones?Special to The Washington Post?Tuesday, April 17, 2007; Page HE07

Calling all athletes. Yes, you. Who did you think? Stop laughing — you’ll snort coffee all over the paper.

You may not be able to give yourself a nickname or call yourself charming, but you can declare yourself an athlete — whatever your waist size, bowling average or how much you’d really rather be snoozing. And maybe you should. Establishing a fitness identity — of any ability — makes it more likely you will keep exercising and live a healthy lifestyle, say some experts. And that makes you more likely to judge yourself on what you do, not on how you look, which some would argue is the road to happiness.

Think of it as the fitness equivalent of “You are what you eat.”

“There is a process of forming an identity as an athlete,” explains Diane Whaley, associate professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. “Buying the clothes, learning the lingo, hanging out with other participants in the chosen activity or sport. Once you form that identity mentally, it is more likely that you will come up with strategies to participate in that sport over time. Having that identity translates into the behavior.”

Or as Yogi Berra famously said, “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”

But what, you say, if you’re not very good at your chosen sport or activity?

Redefine your goal, suggests Whaley: “It’s all about improvement, not about outperforming others. You can improve skills or time. We all compare ourselves to others, but how we use that information is key. Use comparisons to learn, not to feel bad.”

My husband, Rob, did that instinctively when he was a college swimmer. He kept competing because he kept learning. “I never swam a perfect race, although I won a few,” he says. “Racing identified the things I needed to practice; it made practice interesting and fulfilling. Swimming is a sport that offers so many things to get better at. It’s like solving a puzzle.”

I didn’t grow up as an athlete, so I thought all athletes were just naturally good. Rob made sure I got over that and opened my eyes to seeing sports as a subject I could study. Studying was something I was good at, so I began to feel I had some control over what I was doing. Now, exercising and talking and learning about exercise is as natural a part of my day as eating and sleeping. I call myself an athlete, and not just to excuse the goggle marks on my face most mornings, my lack of interest in events that end after 10 p.m. and my chronic tardiness.

There are limits, of course, to such makeover thinking.

John Jakicic, chairman of the Department of Health and Physical Activity at the University of Pittsburgh and of the American College of Sports Medicine’s committee on behavior modification, doesn’t mince words: It’s “pretty obvious when you’re not Marion Jones.” Still, he thinks it’s possible to help people achieve an exercise identity. He has two suggestions:

“One, you must provide mastery experiences. A person must be able to complete an enjoyable activity in order to have a mastery experience. Then they can try to do better next time. We must tailor opportunities to exercise to be challenging and achievable.

“Two, it will take a long time to change the way people see themselves. People have both a visual and performance image of themselves. Changing the visual image is too hard. Focus on changing the performance image, and you might get to a feeling of confidence and self-efficacy.”

Curious to see how these ideas work in practice, I talked to personal trainer Robert Price at One to One Fitness in downtown Washington.

Price says that new clients who see themselves making progress toward their fitness or weight-loss goals double their efforts because they feel good about their achievements. A client may not start out wanting to run a 10K, but in the process of inching toward a smaller initial goal, she forms an athletic identity, and now exercise is a regular part of her life.

Olwen Huxley, a USA Triathlon-certified coach who was an active member and unofficial coach for the DC Triathlon Club ( http://www.dctriclub.org) before moving to Hawaii last year, described how rank beginners get hooked on a sport or activity.

“People stick with it because they are surprised (and happy) with what they can do after a short time of regular training,” she wrote via e-mail. “I think the most important thing for people to understand who are intimidated is that although there are tons of . . . people in sports who were gifted from the get-go, there are millions of people in this country who have picked up a sport they know they will never be that great at, but they don’t give a damn and they don’t let it stop them from enjoying being an athlete at their level.”

Glover Park resident Mira Mignon, 39, knows what Huxley means. Mignon took part in her first triathlon last year and found the experience transforming. Today, she wears her Ironman watch to work and sometimes lets the laundry pile up because she has learned to define herself by what she does as an athlete, not as a housekeeper.

“Motivation [to exercise] is not a problem anymore because exercising with other people is so much fun,” Mignon said. “And I have a goal, which keeps me from getting bored. There’s always more to learn.” Her goals for this summer’s races are to finish and have fun. “A solid mid-pack placing would be great,” she said.

My friend Randall Stoltzfus, 35, is a successful New York artist — a member of a group not known to exercise religiously. A few years ago, he discovered Ashtanga yoga, and now he loves it and the fortitude it gives him to work with the large canvases he favors. “It’s the first athletic thing I’ve ever done,” he said. Like a true convert, Stoltzfus has spread his passion for yoga and its benefits to his girlfriend, Callie.

Gordon Gerson, 70, hesitates to describe himself as an athlete, although he competes in swimming events and often wins or places in his age group. Gerson, president of Reston Masters Swim Team, used to be a long-distance runner, but he had to quit because of arthritis. Rather than give up his fitness identity, he returned to an old sport: He was a swimmer in high school.

Another athlete who has reinvented himself is Steve Wydler of McLean. Wydler, a former high school wrestler who took up squash and running as an adult, is recovering from surgery for a knee injury suffered in a squash tournament. He says he’ll keep exercising even if he has to give up the sport, because being fit is an important part of his life. His advice to those who didn’t get the exercise bug in high school? “If you have a partner, it will help. You can’t leave your friend on the corner at 7 a.m. and just not show up.”

Once you think of yourself as an athlete, exercise becomes a part of who you are, not just another item on your to-do list. Don’t let the professionals or the collegiate stars be the only ones to know the benefits of being an athlete. The word is democratic enough to describe you and me. ·

Laura S. Jones is a freelance writer living in Charlottesville. She is certified as a health fitness instructor by the American College of Sports Medicine.

This Article is from the Washington Post – Original Article click here

Too many times I see people who put themselves through extremely hard workouts and yet still find a way to waste it with their lifestyles. They think that by working out hard, this gives them a justification for eating and drinking whatever they want throughout the rest of the day and the days that follow until the next workout.

The crazy aspect is they expect to see results at the same time. Now this philosophy may work for a small percentage of people in this world that are very lean and that can pretty much eat whatever they want (who are probably not reading this article), but for the majority of people that continually battle with their jeans from 5 years ago, this is not the thought process that needs to occur in order to see results from their workouts.

The alternative solution (if this person is you) is to think ‘Don’t waste your workout’! Whether your goal is weight-loss, rehabilitation, or sports performance, your lifestyle outside the gym is just as (if not maybe even more) important than the workout itself. The average fitness enthusiast spends about 1 hour 3 times per week working towards his or her goal by performing cardio-respiratory training, strength training, or a combination of both each week. This means that out of a possible 168 hours in a week, a workout totaling 3 hours is less than 2% of the total hours available for that week.

I’m not the smartest person in the world but I know I wouldn’t expect to see any results doing something only 2% of the time. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect clients to have the ability to commit more than 3 hours per week to their workouts but what I do expect is for individuals to make the most out of those workouts and don’t be counter-productive with the lifestyle outside the gym (see my next article entitled The Performance Lifestyle Model.

‘Don’t waste your workout’ is the quickest but most precise way for me to get my clients to understand that it’s not only the workout that matters but what they do after that might make or break their results. When I say ‘Don’t waste your workout’, I mean the following:

* Following properly advised nutritional guidelines
* Getting the proper amount of sleep to aid in recovery
* Limiting the amount of empty calories (pop, alcohol, sports drinks)
* Being more active in your daily life (sitting less and being more upright)

Just following these tips will definitely help aid in faster and more desirable results. I know these may be elementary to most of us but just seeing them written down sometimes helps one to focus better. Now go kill yourself in your respective workout but keep in mind ‘Don’t waste your workout’ to see those results that you most definitely deserve.

*Andrew Wallen is the president/CEO of Integrated Movement. He has a Master’s Degree in Exercise Science while holding numerous professional certifications. Integrated Movement is a personal training and sports performance training studio located in Valparaiso, IN. Integrated Movement strives to achieve success through science. Here’s a link to another great article by Andrew (Dude, Where’s My Core?) where he says… “Your performance lifestyle (nutrition, sleep, workouts & supplementation) plays the most important role in getting those wash-board abs.”

It really isn’t a strange concept; perhaps only to those who haven’t had any athletic experience in the past. The truth is, we have to think like athletes if we’re going to thrive in today’s day and age. To thrive today, we need to have an identity around how we think and live (our lifestyles) to achieve our goals and experience the quality of life we want. If we don’t we’ll just go on trying to achieve and experience what we want without the lifestyle to support either outcome.

By Laura S. Jones
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Calling all athletes. Yes, you. Who did you think? Stop laughing — you’ll snort coffee all over the paper.

You may not be able to give yourself a nickname or call yourself charming, but you can declare yourself an athlete — whatever your waist size, bowling average or how much you’d really rather be snoozing. And maybe you should. Establishing a fitness identity — of any ability — makes it more likely you will keep exercising and live a healthy lifestyle, say some experts. And that makes you more likely to judge yourself on what you do, not on how you look, which some would argue is the road to happiness.

Think of it as the fitness equivalent of “You are what you eat.”

“There is a process of forming an identity as an athlete,” explains Diane Whaley, associate professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. “Buying the clothes, learning the lingo, hanging out with other participants in the chosen activity or sport. Once you form that identity mentally, it is more likely that you will come up with strategies to participate in that sport over time. Having that identity translates into the behavior.”
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Or as Yogi Berra famously said, “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”

But what, you say, if you’re not very good at your chosen sport or activity?

Redefine your goal, suggests Whaley: “It’s all about improvement, not about outperforming others. You can improve skills or time. We all compare ourselves to others, but how we use that information is key. Use comparisons to learn, not to feel bad.”

My husband, Rob, did that instinctively when he was a college swimmer. He kept competing because he kept learning. “I never swam a perfect race, although I won a few,” he says. “Racing identified the things I needed to practice; it made practice interesting and fulfilling. Swimming is a sport that offers so many things to get better at. It’s like solving a puzzle.”

I didn’t grow up as an athlete, so I thought all athletes were just naturally good. Rob made sure I got over that and opened my eyes to seeing sports as a subject I could study. Studying was something I was good at, so I began to feel I had some control over what I was doing. Now, exercising and talking and learning about exercise is as natural a part of my day as eating and sleeping. I call myself an athlete, and not just to excuse the goggle marks on my face most mornings, my lack of interest in events that end after 10 p.m. and my chronic tardiness.

There are limits, of course, to such makeover thinking.

John Jakicic, chairman of the Department of Health and Physical Activity at the University of Pittsburgh and of the American College of Sports Medicine’s committee on behavior modification, doesn’t mince words: It’s “pretty obvious when you’re not Marion Jones.” Still, he thinks it’s possible to help people achieve an exercise identity. He has two suggestions:

“One, you must provide mastery experiences. A person must be able to complete an enjoyable activity in order to have a mastery experience. Then they can try to do better next time. We must tailor opportunities to exercise to be challenging and achievable.

“Two, it will take a long time to change the way people see themselves. People have both a visual and performance image of themselves. Changing the visual image is too hard. Focus on changing the performance image, and you might get to a feeling of confidence and self-efficacy.”

Curious to see how these ideas work in practice, I talked to personal trainer Robert Price at One to One Fitness in downtown Washington.

Price says that new clients who see themselves making progress toward their fitness or weight-loss goals double their efforts because they feel good about their achievements. A client may not start out wanting to run a 10K, but in the process of inching toward a smaller initial goal, she forms an athletic identity, and now exercise is a regular part of her life.

Olwen Huxley, a USA Triathlon-certified coach who was an active member and unofficial coach for the DC Triathlon Club ( http://www.dctriclub.org) before moving to Hawaii last year, described how rank beginners get hooked on a sport or activity.

“People stick with it because they are surprised (and happy) with what they can do after a short time of regular training,” she wrote via e-mail. “I think the most important thing for people to understand who are intimidated is that although there are tons of . . . people in sports who were gifted from the get-go, there are millions of people in this country who have picked up a sport they know they will never be that great at, but they don’t give a damn and they don’t let it stop them from enjoying being an athlete at their level.”

Glover Park resident Mira Mignon, 39, knows what Huxley means. Mignon took part in her first triathlon last year and found the experience transforming. Today, she wears her Ironman watch to work and sometimes lets the laundry pile up because she has learned to define herself by what she does as an athlete, not as a housekeeper.

“Motivation [to exercise] is not a problem anymore because exercising with other people is so much fun,” Mignon said. “And I have a goal, which keeps me from getting bored. There’s always more to learn.” Her goals for this summer’s races are to finish and have fun. “A solid mid-pack placing would be great,” she said.

My friend Randall Stoltzfus, 35, is a successful New York artist — a member of a group not known to exercise religiously. A few years ago, he discovered Ashtanga yoga, and now he loves it and the fortitude it gives him to work with the large canvases he favors. “It’s the first athletic thing I’ve ever done,” he said. Like a true convert, Stoltzfus has spread his passion for yoga and its benefits to his girlfriend, Callie.

Gordon Gerson, 70, hesitates to describe himself as an athlete, although he competes in swimming events and often wins or places in his age group. Gerson, president of Reston Masters Swim Team, used to be a long-distance runner, but he had to quit because of arthritis. Rather than give up his fitness identity, he returned to an old sport: He was a swimmer in high school.

Another athlete who has reinvented himself is Steve Wydler of McLean. Wydler, a former high school wrestler who took up squash and running as an adult, is recovering from surgery for a knee injury suffered in a squash tournament. He says he’ll keep exercising even if he has to give up the sport, because being fit is an important part of his life. His advice to those who didn’t get the exercise bug in high school? “If you have a partner, it will help. You can’t leave your friend on the corner at 7 a.m. and just not show up.”

Once you think of yourself as an athlete, exercise becomes a part of who you are, not just another item on your to-do list. Don’t let the professionals or the collegiate stars be the only ones to know the benefits of being an athlete. The word is democratic enough to describe you and me.

The sudden death of Paula Nowakowski has been a wake-up call for hard-charging Hill staffers.

“For a lot of us, this was a mortality check,” said Justin Harding, 34, who’s often on call seven days a week as chief of staff for Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and frequently gets home from work after his kids have gone to sleep. “It’s causing us all to reflect and sort of check our own circumstances.”

Hill staffers say Nowakowski’s lifestyle mirrored much of their own. She smoked, she didn’t always eat well, and she often worked seven days a week.

“Paula believed in what she was doing, but there are sacrifices that you make,” said Nowakowski’s friend Jamie Roe, chief of staff to Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), his voice cracking with emotion.

To read more go to Politico.

This is a perfect example of the downward trend and why we don’t simply teach you how to live a “healthy lifestyle” here at the Lifestyle Coaching Center, but rather help you live the healthiest lifestyle possible by focusing on your capacity to function and perform well for goal achievement and quality of life.

Paula needed to do more than simply eat better. She needed a PerformanceLifestyle. She was steeped in a downward trend that overstressed her. She was overstimulated, under recuperated, over fed, and under nourished (likely), overwhelmed by foodstuffs. She was super busy and physically inactive and ultimately ended up overweight and with a health complication that took her life.

To change that pattern requires more than simply eating less or a little bit better, and exercising more. No one in that state can stick with it. my friend Ian Graham says, “we have to sculpt our whole lives, not just our bodies” and that means, we have to get our our lifestyle’s working for us they way they do for athletes to survive and thrive in the fast paced culture that ultimately took the life right out of Paula Nowakowski.

People all over the world are suffering from this trend. You don’t have to work on Capitol Hill to have this problem and it takes a PerformanceLifestyle mindset and skills set to solve this problem.

Obviously one cannot simply quick their job and go become a sky staring Buddhist, and leave the game. To step up your game you also don’t need to work harder. You need to work and live smarter and that requires the skills to manage your lifestyle no matter what environment you work in.