Day 3 of getting back to normal

Last year at this time, I began a concerted campaign to become fitter and to lose weight. Julian bought us a Wii Fit console for Christmas, and I began to use it regularly, particularly using the running segments. I also began jogging outside regularly. The Wii Fit showed I was greatly overweight, bordering on obese. And it tracked my BMI and weight in graph form. As the weeks and months progressed, so did the graphs showing a steady reduction in weight and the BMI. By June, my BMI was nearing the division between overweight and the normal range, and I had lost around 25lbs.

Then I had my heart attack while jogging. Since then, I have been able to slowly regain my health while maintaining my June weight.

For 2011 I plan to resume that weight loss progress in which I had success. I need to lose another 20 -25 lbs, and to bring my BMI well within the normal range.

Over the last few months, I have slowly resumed my jogging and my Wii Fit exercises. Before Christmas I had two or three weeks of inactivity as a low grade fever hit me. Now that has gone, I have resumed jogging, with two 5 km runs yesterday and the day before.

Today's jog was cut a little short at the 4 km point as a slight ham string pull told me to ease off for a while. I walked the rest of the way home.

Tomorrow we get back to twice weekly swimming of senior's laps at the local pool. And if my ham string pull still bothers me, there will be lots of walking instead of the jogging. At day three of the program there is a long way to go, but the program will see success.

Remebering 5BX and 10BX

I am trying to get back some fitness and have begun jogging again. On today's 30 minute jog (at a very slow pace) I thought about how I was introduced to jogging. I was a rookie teacher at Rideau District High School, in Elgin, Ontario. There the head of the Physical Education Department, Lyle McLellan, asked all rookie teachers which sports they would coach. The question was not would you coach! The only sport I could possibly coach was cross-country running. After all, in my own high school career at Leek Boys Secondary Grammar School in England, I had placed third in the open mile when only fifteen.

I was then introduced to the 5Bx (and later the 10BX) fitness training plan. This was a fitness training plan involving running devised by the Canadian(?) military, possibly the air force. I discovered I really liked running long distances. I trained with the cross-country teams and loved it. Later, when I taught at Red Lake District High School, my coaching expanded to soccer, rugby and Reach for the Top.

From these early beginnings came what became an obsession with jogging. Adrian, our son with autism, had very little physical activity in his schooling, so the whole family took up jogging. We lived very close to the high school in Red Lake, on land we had purchased from the school board.
The land once was part of the high school's acerage. We took advantage of Adrian's fascination with numbers. He jogged 10 laps around the inside of the high school gymnasium at 6 30 am for the first few days. Then 11 laps, then 12. Then more and more. We all entered "fun runs" in Winnipeg of 1km, 5km and 10km. We could get to Winnipeg in six or so hours for a weekend of shopping and running two or three times a year.

The 5Bx plan started us on this course. In my 30s and 40s I started six marathons and finsihed four. Lyle McLellan has a lot to answer for as that Phys Ed Head!