Baseline

Today's post is about eight months late. If I could have envisioned the change my body would undergo after eight months of running, I would have recorded aspects of my health in order to get a baseline for comparative purposes. But I didn't, and today's post will have to serve as a baseline.

Weight:
142.5#

Body Fat %:
10%

Max HR:
191 (as measured on 4/28 at 5k race)

Resting HR:
40's? 30's? I wore my Heart Rate Monitor last night while I slept and got this graph. The raw data says the lowest recorded reading was 30 BPM (got a few data points at this rate), and several readings in the mid thirties. The average over the night was 48 BPM. But I'm not sure how accurate any of those numbers are.



I weighed 185# before I started running, which means I lost about 42#. I've basically bottomed out at around 145# around a month or two ago, which seems to be my ideal weight for peak fitness. Any less and I think I'd be sacrificing muscle. Thankfully I don't really need to watch my caloric intake. I eat until I'm full, but I do my best to minimize fatty food and maximize fruits, vegetables, and otherwise "good" foods.

In about two weeks I have an appointment to measure my VO2 max, which is "the peak oxygen use of an athlete at maximum exercise and is measured in milliliters of oxygen. This metabolic test is an excellent indicator of aerobic fitness."

I also had some blood work done at work the other day, which I'll try to track down and post as a further baseline.