All tagged Running

Man vs Sea Elephant - Unlocking the Secret of my Slowness Part III

Man vs Sea Elephant - Unlocking the Secret of my Slowness Part III

Fabian
Health

The quest to understand the roots of my appalling running performance is an ongoing topic of this blog. In two previous Life-Sparring rounds I looked at possible reasons like age and weight and my running form. In this article I dive deeper, literally going more than just skin-deep, doing a professional athletic fitness assessment at the Institute of Human Performance of the University of Hong Kong. If you are a regular reader, you can imagine that it was a humbling experience with a lot of insights.

Older, Fatter, Faster? – 50 km of Joy, Pain, and Mindfulness on the Hong Kong Trail

Older, Fatter, Faster? – 50 km of Joy, Pain, and Mindfulness on the Hong Kong Trail

Fabian
Health

While I enjoy running in general, it constantly and painfully reminds me of my physical limits. Despite my almost life-long relationship with running, I am embarrassingly slow and technically bad.

As the stubborn and competitive person that I am, being slow and bad at running does not stop me from occasionally reaching for the sky. My recent participation in the Green Power Hike, a 50km trail running race over the full length of the Hong Kong trail, across the rocky backbone of the island was an example for me testing my limits. The 24th edition of the iconic trail running event was my fourth participation. How would my lack of training, five years of age, and five kilogram body weight since my personal best in 2012 affect my performance?

Why don’t I run faster? – Unlocking the Secret of my Slowness (Part I)

Why don’t I run faster? – Unlocking the Secret of my Slowness (Part I)

Fabian
Health, Life

I love running for the almost meditative effects that it has on me. At the same time, I hate that I run so depressingly slow.

In my twenties my times were actually not too bad. Not enough for competitive ambitions but not too shabby either. A mere decade later my running times have deteriorated massively, and just getting below the 1h for 10km again was a massive battle. In past years I often wondered what exactly caused the breakdown of my running abilities. So let's take a look.

Quarterly Lederhosen Report Q2 2016 - Checking in on my New Year's Resolution

Quarterly Lederhosen Report Q2 2016 - Checking in on my New Year's Resolution

Fabian
Life, Health, Happiness

This is the quarterly check-in on the goals from my New Year's resolution. Just as a reminder, the idea was to choose targets that fulfill the S.M.A.R.T criteria: being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-related. By making my goals public and checking-in regularly with you out there, I hoped to keep me motivated over the year to achieve all goals for 2016. And just in case this is not enough, I added a punishment on top, promising to go to work in original Bavarian Lederhosen on the first working day in 2017 if I miss more than one of the six goals for the year. Still pretty scary! So let's see where I am at the half-year mark of 2016.

Quarterly Lederhosen Report – Checking in on my goals for the year

Quarterly Lederhosen Report – Checking in on my goals for the year

Fabian
Happiness, Health, Life

After many years of New Year’s resolutions that lasted hardly longer than a few weeks, I wanted to do it all differently in the first full year of my Life-Sparring experience. Choosing targets that fulfill the S.M.A.R.T criteria: being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-related to be effective; making my goals public; and checking in regularly with you out there hopefully is enough to keep me motivated all year to achieve all goals for 2016. And just in case this is not enough, I added a punishment on top, promising to go to work in original Bavarian Lederhosen on the first working day in 2017 if I miss more than one of the six goals for the year.  Scary!

So let’s see how I fared during the first quarter of the year!