Thursday, December 27, 2007

Running Update

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog -- the holidays and all... Here's a list of what I've been up to in December:

  • The new shoes did wonders for the right knee/hip pain I was having. Unfortunately that has been replaced with ITB issues on the left side.
  • My new HR monitor rules! I'm not yet a good judge of my perceived exertion, so looking at my wrist to see if I need to slow down or turn on the juice has been helpful. I haven't quite figured out how to play with the pretty graphs and stuff though.
  • Our long runs on Fridays have increased to 120 minutes. I'm running an 11-12 minute pace (if I'm feeling healthy), so this should translate to about 10miles. Last week I only made it about 9, but I was proud of that.
  • The two most excrutiating run-related workouts have been 1) hill repeats up Dahlia (a 31% grade if you don't know of it) and 2) the 2mile fast-pace run. I hit well over my max HR that day.
  • I haven't been swimming as much as I like, nor spinning as much as I like, nor lifting as much as I like. But darn it, I'm getting my runs in. And that's the point for off-season, right?
  • I have, however, enjoyed a few token mornings of sleeping in, a mini-vacation with my sweetie pie, and way too many Christmas treats. I may be up several more pounds than I'm happy with, but I'll have fun working it off in January!
Ken and I on the way out from Clear Lake Lookout Tower:

Ken and I before heading to the Nutcracker:

Monday, December 3, 2007

I Love Food

My biggest downfall in regards to training and my struggle with weight management is that I love to eat. One of my favorite things about the holidays is the food. In a mere 48 hours last week I consumed an entire large pizza and 2 tins of Christmas cookies. Yes, by myself. To make it worse I wasn't feeling well (suprisingly, it wasn't because of gastrointestinal issues...) and I missed my Thursday workout. No surprise when Friday's weigh-in showed that I was up 2 pounds from the previous week.

I'm proud to say that I headed off for my long run on Friday with such disgust that propelled me to completing the 7.5 mile loop exactly 10 minutes faster than last week. Saturday I swam in my upper heart rate zones (yay for the new heart rate monitor), added 5 pounds to my lifting routine, and even managed to drag my butt out for a recovery run. This morning those 2 pounds were back off.

Unfortunately I scarfed down a half bag of Chex Mix that my Mom just sent while working on endless spreadsheets at my desk. I should mention that it was a quart-size bag. *Sigh......*

If I make it through to 2008 at a neutral weight from October, rather than the original quest of a net loss, I will consider my goal achieved.