Tag / BTN Big 10K

by jim

GlobalFit III: Week 3

Y3Week3Overall, it was not a great week, though that will be masked somewhat thanks to Saturday’s huge total, which ranks as my second highest day since I started this endeavor 2 years and 3 weeks ago.  Only 3 days crossed the 5000 step day, although one of them far surpassed it and made the overall numbers for the week look good.

My main goal for this year’s BTN Big 10K 5K race was to beat my time from last year, which was 54:10.  In that regard, I guess you would have to say I failed, as my time was 40 seconds slower, at 54:50, good enough for 3981st place out of 4132 total participants.  That said, I could have improved my time, but there was a group of us walking together and the social aspects kept us all together.

After the race, I hurried back to the Metra station from the museum campus, which was a hike in and of itself, and then put in some more steps by starting to walk home from the train station after my ride mysteriously did not show up.

Total steps: 48,524

Weekly average: 6932

by jim

Big 10K Time Again

btn5kNext month, I will once again be participating in the 5K run associated with the Big Ten Network Big 10K.  Last year, my goals were modest: to finish ahead of at least one other person.  This year I hope to improve on my time of last year and finish in under 54:10.  I’ve got a little more than a month to start preparing, with the hope that the old sciatic nerve issues don’t rear their ugly head.

by admin

GFY2 – Week 4

After a day of rest following the 5K, it looked like a good week was in the works.  Monday started things off with a nice walk around the campus at work followed by a bowling outing with Danny and Michael.  Tuesday was our area picnic, which included some volleyball, which the tool translated in to nearly 9000 steps.  From there, things leveled off to their sad normal levels on Wednesday and Thursday.  Friday benefited from Elvis Night at the Cell, as a different parking lot led to post-game ramps instead of the escalator.  Saturday was another wasted day, with only another Sox game, this time with escalators, on the docket.

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GFY2 – Week 3

Well, a slow start turned into a pretty good week, helped along, of course, by the 5K on Saturday.  The work week itself was pretty good, with every day over 5000 steps and 2 days over 8000.  Saturday, between the race and the walk to and from the El, turned out to be my highest step total since I’ve had the tracker, coming in at 14,688 steps.

by jim

My First 5K

With very little training and not quite knowing what to expect, I headed downtown yesterday morning with one simple goal: to finish the race ahead of a least one other person.  Was the mission accomplished or was it a day filled with failure?

The day started at 4:30 in the morning with a quick shower and breakfast before hitting the road at 5:00.  There is not a lot of public transportation options from the suburbs at that time of day, and I didn’t want to spend $20 for parking, so I drove down to 35th Street and switched over to the Red Line, which got me down to the greater museum campus around 6:15, an hour before the race started.

Everything was going down on the south side of Soldier Field, which is where I met up with my old friend Tina and her friends that were also participating in the festivities.  It basically turned into 45 minutes of pictures before it was time to line up in the starting corral. Continue reading →

by admin

Big (10) Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day, and, thankfully, I was able to get a little training in over the past week once our ANI friends headed back to Belfast and the cornicopia of food ended at work.  It’s going to be a tough day on top of the 5K itself.  I need to get down to Soldier Field by 5:30 AM, which means I’ll be getting up rediculously early.  Assuming I take some sort of public transportation instead of paying for parking, I’ll have a mile walk both to and from the train.  That’s a grand total of 5 miles on little sleep, all before noon.

Anyway, my one goal for tomorrow, aside from survival, is to not finish last.  As long as I beat one other person, I will feel victorious.

by jim

Global Fit Year 1

Well, the first year of using the Global Fit tracker has come to an end and I didn’t quite achieve the goal of 2,000,000 steps over the course of the year.

I did manage to finish within 10% of the goal and, more importantly, I also managed to keep it up for the entire year.  Year 2 is now underway, and my personal goal is to improve on this year and hit the 2,000,000 steps, along with the ones I missed this year.  So I expect to show 4,000,000 total steps by 7/11/13.  Step 1 for that is the upcoming BTN Big 10K race that I signed up for.  If only I could get out and start training for it.

by jim

A Week Of Training

Exactly one week ago today, I signed up for the inaugural Big Ten Network Big 10K, or at least the 5K portion of it.  In preparation, I’ve done the following training over the past week:

Monday

Dinner at Buca di Beppo with the work crew, including the slightly decadent dessert pictured to the left.

Tuesday

Lunch at Superdawg with ANI, then dinner and drinks at Pizano’s pizza followed by the Fiona Apple concert.

Wednesday

Full slab of ribs from Portillo’s for lunch.

Thursday

Lunch and drinks at the Yardhouse, followed by a night of pizza and beer at Rocky Vanders.

Friday

BBQ pulled pork sandwich for lunch at Smokin’ Ts.

Saturday

Dinner with the visiting ANI folks at Fogo de Chao.