Healthwise

Numbers
The weight is coming off, as of this past Monday I am down 106.8 lbs. It feels good to be smaller. I'm learning to deal with how my body wants to shed the weight. I don't seem to lose in a contiguous fashion, but overall it is continuous. At least I feel like it is helping me run faster.

Doctor
I had a doctor's appointment last week. He was happy to see I've stuck with the whole healthy lifestyle thing. My blood pressure was down to 120/80. My pulse was incredibly low at 44. In fact he wanted to keep my BP meds at the same dose, but after such a low pulse he decided to cut my dose in half (My BP meds lower pulse, as does running). So that is good, my hope is that someday I won't need to take BP meds, but high blood pressure runs on both sides of my family tree so I know it may be an inevitability.

Clothes
Monday I dug out my rubbermaid container of shirts that don't fit and went through it. I found that only one shirt still doesn't fit. I got rid of a lot of my clothes from when I was at my previous thinest, so these were mostly 2X items that I had grown out of. I also went through my shirt drawer and put all the shirts that were too big in a bag for Goodwill. The pants front is getting a little silly. I have 3 pair of size 46 jeans that feel very large on me. I also have 1 pair of size 40 jeans that would be worthless without a belt. I need to pick up a pair of size 38's or maybe even 36's.

Food
I've been watching a TV show on TLC the last couple weeks called 'I Can Make You Thin'. The main thing I'm taking from it is the strategies in recognizing when you are full. Even though I eat better and less than when I started, I still have room for improvement. If you are struggling with weight it's definitely a program to check out. It's not a quick fix, or maximize the loss type of thing, but it is solid steady approach if you are lost.

P.S. Last Night
I got a chance to help a friend out and give a good reference interview to a possible future employer for him. I got the call right as I was about to walk out the door to run. Afterward I must have been all jacked up on adrenaline cause I went out and killed the course. Early on it felt like I was going faster and I got confirmation at the 1.1 mile mark with a 10:53. I did the math in my head and came up that was a pace under 10 min/mi. I was tired but knowing that I was running faster than I previously thought possible motivated me to push as much as I thought I could take given the distance left. I set a new mile PR on the middle mile with 9:37. With only .9 left to go I felt like I let up a little bit, ironically enough though I didn't, 8:31. My total time on 3 miles was a shocking 29:01. Last week when I ran a 30:56 I thought that maybe that was an aberration, now I see it obviously wasn't. Afterward I was pretty spent, but not hurting. I'm going to keep running 3 miles as my easy 3 time a week run until I break 30 minutes again, after that I'll up it to 3.5 miles.

Activity Wise

The Race
Well I ran the '10k' back on March 15. The race went well running wise. I started in the middle of the pack. I got passed a bit in the first 1/2 mile or so. After that I started passing people. It got to a point where I had to leave the street and run on the sidewalk to pass a big gaggle of runners. Of course a couple hundred feet after that all those people I was passing hung a right with the 5k course. Only one person was behind me once us 10ker's were alone. The course was hilly, but no more than what I expected. I turned the last corner and was surprised to see 1:05 on the clock. There was no chip timing in the race so I consider my watch as official time, it read 1:05:44. The first hint of trouble came after the race when I checked the offcial times. It had me at 56:something, so that's 9 minutes too fast by all accounts. They also had the winner of the race at a 4:00 min/mile pace, so my guess is they foobared everybody's time by some factor. Then Monday came and I was back at work so I got into my runningahead.com account to log the 10k. Once I mapped out the course I found out why I was able to run it so fast, it's only 5.84 miles long. Immediately I felt cheated. I've been back and forth on what even to write here. What I've come up with is I take running a bit too seriously. I had fun at the race and though the course was not a 10k it was the right balance of fun and challenging. I won't be counting this race as a PR though, otherwise it might be a record that takes me a year to break.

Training
Things have been going well, I haven't missed a run since I was sick in February. March 18 I had an out of this world 3 miler, 30:56. A good couple minutes faster than anything I've ever done previously. Also that day I absolutely crushed my mile record with a 10:08. This past weekend I ran another 10.05 miler, this time the route was on my road heading mostly in the opposite direction. That too went very well besting my old time by more than 10 minutes, 1:55:46.

What's To Come
My plan is to run another 10 miler this coming weekend. Then the next weekend is another 10k, the Metor 10k (USATF Certified). Then the following two weekends should be two more 10 milers or better. Then the weekend after that is another race, but I'm not sure if I'll run the 5k or the 10k there, as it is a small one. Of course there are a lot more 3 mile training runs too.

Record Smashing

I went on a bit of a record breaking binge this weekend. Friday night I was able to ride farther than I've ever been able to in 30 minutes on the indoor bike, 9.442 miles. Then Saturday I ran my fastest 3 miles ever, which happened to be on the road by my house, in 33:36. Also that day I broke my mile record with the middle mile clocking in at 11:22. Then finally Sunday I knocked out a 10 miles in town, my first time at that distance and faster than when I ran 9, totaling 2:06:42.

I did run into a little problem on Saturday (pun intended). Somewhere in that middle mile I felt what was either a pinched nerve on my heel or a rock in my shoe. I didn't want to stop because I knew I was breaking my mile record. It stopped hurting after a half a mile or so. When I finished I took a look at my heel and it was bloody. Turns out if you run with a rock stuck in your shoe it can break the skin. The next day it was scabbed over pretty good. It only hurt for the first half mile or so of my 10 miler, but when I was done of course there was another bloody mess. My plan for this week is to keep Vaseline and band-aids on it during the day when I'm in shoes and socks. Hopefully by Saturday's 10k it will be healed up enough not to bother me at all.

I weighed 268.2 lbs Monday morning. That is a loss of 6 lbs this week, bringing my total weight loss to 98.8 lbs. Glad to be back to losses, if the pattern holds I should lose this week and then gain the week after.

White Flag

Not Really News
I concede defeat. I've tried to keep up with the daily blogging, but it just isn't working for me. I have about fifteen half written entries in a text file and I know I'm not going to finish them. I suppose from now on I'll just be posting when I can. If anyone is interested in my daily training stuff they are welcome to check out my runningahead.com page.

Racing News
With the half-marathon plans in flux, I've finally made a decision as to what race to shoot for. The Capitol City River Run (Lansing Half Marathon) will be held on September 28, 2008 and I'll be there. I am dissappointed that I won't be able to attend any this spring, but the stars are just not aligning on that front. The couple that do fit schedule wise have time limits that I'd rather not have to live up to at this point in my ability. This race will also ensure domestic happiness, if you catch my drift.

I'm registered for my first 10k on March 15th in Clare. Looking at the past years finishing times I probably be coming in last, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. I've also registered for the Martian 10k on April 5th in Dearborn.

Weight Loss News
I lost some weight. Then I got sick and lost some more even though I couldn't exercise. Now that I'm better I've gained most of the weight back, but I'm happy to be able to run again.

Training News
The weather has been nice enough that I haven't done a run on the treadmill since Feb 17. It looks like a storm is coming though that might threaten my streak come Thursday.