Weather or Not

I didn't like the idea of running 8 miles in 20-degree weather this morning....so I schlepped 7.5 miles on the treadmill. That was two X-Files episodes (Terms of Endearment and The Rain King) and I just couldn't do that other half-mile. Call me lame. Go ahead, I'm waiting.

My knees are unhappy with me now. I usually don't have knee troubles, but then I don't usually run on a treadmill. I'm hoping that's the last long run I'll have to do that way.

Still, the stats are encouraging:

7.5 miles
1:32:00
12:16 pace
1,029 calories burned

Okay, so a 12:16 pace is NOT all that encouraging. But I still have eight weeks to go.

I'm throwing in an "easy run" during the week. I should just cross train twice a week, but I can't bring myself to do it. It seems to me like not even exercising. Plus, I'm betting on the weather getting nicer.

After my run, I took S. ice skating for 3 hours. That also could be part of why my knees are hurting......

The Folly of the Scale

Just for fun, I weighed myself after showering. I was down 2 lbs from this morning, and down 4% body fat.

Which begs the question why I am even bothering to weigh myself at all. I don't know.

Three Pounds, Four Miles

After a week and a half of Fitday, I got kind of bored with it and stopped keeping track of what I was eating. Got on the scale this morning and I was up 3 lbs from last week - for a grand total of 1 pound of weight loss over 3 weeks. Hmm. I would really like to drop 15 pounds or so. I will have to figure out a way to do that without obsessing about food - because once I start obsessing, I eat more. Daily 2-hour workouts did it for me back in the day, but that is just not feasible right now (nor does it sound all that appealing, really).

On the exercise front, I finished 4 miles in 43:45, which is exactly the length of an X-Files episode called "The Ghosts that Stole Christmas". X-Files holds my attention much better than the West Wing....you actually have to concentrate when watching WW, because everyone says clever things under their breaths and the dialogue can be rapid-fire. Even sitting still, I have a hard time catching everything in a WW ep.

The stats:

4 miles
43:45
10:56 pace (!! Woo hoo!!)
544 cal

Okay, so I did rest on the treadmill rails a couple of times while it was still running. But that's still darn good for me, and very close to the 10:45 or 10:47 or whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing for my tempo runs.

Eight miles this weekend - Sunday is supposed to be sunny and 40, so I'll be out there then!

This Is How I Think

Here is why I will never be a size 4:

Hmmmm...this recipe on the side of our box of Fiber One cereal looks good....chocolate crunchy cookies made with Fiber One cereal.....

I need a box of brownie mix, some chocolate chips, an egg, some vanilla...and two cups of Fiber One.....

Um.

Why not just make chocolate-chip brownies, and skip the whole cereal thing.....

4X800 Done

Today was 4x800 day....and I completed all four very close to my goal time (4:58).

Times were:
5:00
4:56
4:58
4:58

270 cal expended (that includes an 0.75-mile warm-up)

I can't say it was easy, but I'm somewhat of a wuss when it comes to running. I want it to be easy but I also want to get faster and lose weight and gain muscle and do all that great stuff that can only happen if you WORK at it. Sigh.

In other news, the dog has some sort of UTI and I am supposed to try to get a urine sample before his vet appointment today. I'm to "catch it in a shallow dish and then pour it into a Ziploc bag, and keep it cool and out of the sun."

Notwithstanding that it is Vermont in March (read: no sun to be found), what sort of shallow dish would I possibly want to sacrifice to dog urine? And don't even get me started on the transferring to a Ziploc.

Word Economy

Cribbed from another blog...I'm tired o'writing about running all the time!

1. Yourself: needing a shower
2. Your spouse: playing with kids
3. Your hair: multicolored (nothing exciting - it's brown with blonde highlights)
4. Your mother: elsewhere
5. Your father: watching TV
6. Your favorite item: whatever book I'm currently reading
7. Your dream last night: don't remember
8. Your favorite drink: Magic Hat HI.P.A.
9. Your dream car: a purple VW Beetle
10. The room you are in: office
11. Your ex: computers, computers, it's all about computers.
12. Your fear: To never reach the top of the mountain, and know I'm there
13. What you want to be in 10 years: Still me, but less self-conscious
14. Who you hung out with last night: Jamie and Claire (reading a Gabaldon series)
15. What you're not: well dressed
16. Muffins: chocolate (cupcakes in disguise)
17: One of your wish list items: iPod
18: Time: fleeting
19. The last thing you did: made lunch for Z and myself
20. What you're wearing: running clothes (still...shower is overdue)
21. Your favorite weather: 70 and sunny
22. Your favorite book: can't pick just one
23. The last thing you ate: Annie's mac 'n' cheese (shells and white cheddar)
24. Your life: busy!
25. Your mood: fairly upbeat, slightly overwhelmed
26. Your best friend(s): are the coolest
27. What you're thinking about right now: a shower
28. Your car: a CR-V and a minivan (gasp)
29. What you're doing at the moment: "working"
30. Your summer: will involve being outside as much as possible.
31. Your relationship status: happily wedded
32. What's on TV: nothing right now.
33. The weather: sunny and 30 degrees
34. The last time you laughed: a few hours ago, listening to Z tell me something. She is so earnest and has this little baby-duck voice...it's too cute.

Productive Meetings

I have never liked meetings. Usually they seem like venues for people to talk and talk and complain, and nothing gets done.

Today I walked uphill (4.0-5.0 incline) during my staff meeting at about 2.8 miles per hour. I walked 2 miles, burned 275 calories....and the meeting actually seemed productive to me. (And not just in an exercising sort of way.)

Any meeting where I can wear running capris and a 15-year-old T-shirt is okay with me!

(The T-shirt is a Hard Rock Cafe shirt from Reykjavik...and I actually bought it at the HRC in Reykjavik! Walked in, bought the shirt, and walked out again. It's a bit grimy and has a few little holes in it, but I love it and will never willingly give it up.)

Running Against the Wind

Six miles yesterday, outside. Sunny, but cold. And windy - I had a headwind for most of the way home. Fun!

Stats:

5.86 mi
1:12:05
12:18 average pace
8:58 max pace
154 bpm average hr
167 bpm max hr
944 cal
161 cal/mi

Not too bad, though I was shooting for 11:32 pace. But I'll take 12:18, considering the temperature and wind, and my current state of fitness.

Next week I'll try to keep my heart rate up a bit higher - I think it should be closer to the upper 150s (but anywhere between 153 and 163 is okay).

This afternoon I felt dizzy and strange -- I think I just needed food, though. After three snacks in a row (including chocolate frosting spread on graham crackers...that's approved by Runner's World, I'm sure!), I feel 80% better.

Step By Step

So...I am up half a pound since last week. The good news is that I'm still down 4+ pounds, so it wasn't an artifact!

I just walked half a mile uphill on the treadmill...while reading. It's not only below freezing outside, but very windy. All the puddles and melted snow have frozen, making our driveway just fascinating to drive on.

Today:

0.5 mi
13:52
I'll not worry about the pace here!
67 cal


Better than nothing, eh? Plus I was able to get through a couple of pages of a very cool book - "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. Right now he's discussing the extinction of about 40 species of large mammals in the United States back at the same time humans appeared in the Americas. I had no idea there used to be an American lion and an American cheetah - or that there were beavers as big as bears!

Dam.

;)

Tempo Run Done

Three-mile tempo run accomplished! Now I'm ready for a nap.

Stats:

3 miles
33:12
11:04 pace
forgot to look at calories burned...probably 500-ish

That's above my target pace of 10:47, but not too shabby. If I could do that for 13.1 miles, I'd finish in about 2:25, which would be a PR. Of course I am wiped out after 3 miles....

I wore my new women's Asics, with special Spenco for Women inserts. They felt a bit odd at first, but became quite comfy.

Momma's Got A New Pair of Shoes

Two new pair, actually. They just arrived. They seem to fit really well, but it's hard to tell without road testing them (or treadmill testing, as it were). The women's ones seem a bit narrow - now I remember why I stopped buying women's shoes! But I will give them a go.

Cross training today - a 30-minute uphill walking program interspersed with light weights.

Stats:

1.3 mi
29:00
200 cal (approximately)

The weather is just nasty here. Snow, rain, sleet, freezing rain. The high temp is supposed to be 24 degrees on Easter Sunday. I hope the Easter Bunny has his furry boots at the ready.

4X400

I am not a speedy lass. But I did my 4X400s relatively easily today, under my goal time of 2:27 each. My times were:
2:26 (9:44 pace)
2:23 (9:32 pace)
2:22 (9:28 pace)
2:21 (9:24 pace)

I think I could have pulled off at least one more, but I figured, why mess with success??

(Plus, I ran quarter miles, not 400s, so I am even a bit faster at the 400! [There is a teeny difference (0.25 miles vs 0.2485 miles), which matters when you are slow!])

This also included a 0.75-mile warm-up jog and a short (0.15 mile?) cooldown. (Cooldowns bore me.)

Tomorrow is cross training, and Thursday is another 3-mile tempo with a goal pace of 10:47, for a total time of 32:21.

I signed S. up for her first race - a 0.5-miler the day before my half marathon!

Oh...and I am running the second half of the half....the half with the huge hill. Someone was swearing to me that it wasn't that bad, but I have run it, so she wasn't fooling me. Still, the rest of the course is fairly flat, and I will get to cross the finish line, which will be fun.

Ugh.

I have been denying it for a few days, but it is now obvious....I have a cold. So far (knock on wood) it is above the neck, so I'm going to keep on running.

My running shoes are mostly shot...so I ordered a couple of new pairs. My old ones are Asics 1090s and Asics 2100s. The new models are 1130 and 2130, so you can tell how old mine really are. I finally measured my foot at a running-shoe store and the measurer thingie swears I am still a size 10 in women's shoes...but a C width. They don't make C width running shoes, as far as I know. So I got a 10.5 B and a men's 8.5 D. Plus special cushy runnercentric insoles to make me feel special. :)

I can't wait until they get here...everyone knows that new sneakers make you run faster!

I think I can, I think I can.....

Long run done this morning...almost. I did 5.25 miles instead of 6. I have a long excuse list for this, with which I will not bore you. But I am not wearing my New Balances ever again for anything longer than 3 miles!

Stats:

1:01:43
5.25 mi
11:45 pace
714 cal burned

My goal pace was 11:34. This seemed slow to me, before I started running. I just have to remember that I'm sort of starting over here. Six weeks from now, it should be a different story.

Humility

I did 25 minutes of cross-training today - uphill walking interspersed with free weights and crunches. Then, just for kicks, I tried running 0.25 mi (400 m) at 9:40, which is about the pace I'm shooting for.

WOW.

Sure, I could do four of those, if you give me 5 minutes of recovery time!

OTOH, my scale says I'm down 5 lbs from last Friday. I find that very hard to believe -- not to mention unsafe as far as weight loss goes -- but I'll take it. :)

Enlightened by the Past

I just read a journal entry from 2001, when I did my first (and only) duathlon. It was 18 miles of biking, sandwiched between two 5K races.

I did the first 5K in 28 minutes flat.
I biked 18 miles in something like 55 minutes.
Then I ran the second 5K in under 30 minutes.

I just had no idea that I used to be...almost....FAST. I forgot completely that I had ever run a 5K in under 30 minutes (except for one in Baltimore that I did in 27:20....my PR three weeks before the Vermont City Marathon).

This shouldn't change my perspective, but it does. In a good way. It makes me realize that I can get back to that place again, that place where 10 miles at a 10:33 pace is kind of slow, but okay because it was 80+ degrees that day. The place of the sub-30-minute 5K.

It will just take...wait for it...TIME.

(Well, and a little bit of effort.)

First Tempo Run

So...the days go by faster than I realize. Here it is Thursday and I haven't started my half program yet. I skipped the 4x400s I was supposed to do, and did the 3-mile tempo run. My goal was to run it at a 10:47 pace. I actually ran most of it at 10:42. But I also took 3 walk breaks.

The final stats:

3.01 miles
34:05
11:32 pace
433 cal

My pace breaks down to a 2:34:22 half marathon, based on the program's formula (you should do your tempo runs at your half marathon pace, minus 15 seconds). I am okay with that at this point, since I am not in any sort of shape! That's only a minute or so slower than I did Leaf Peepers. (Of course I'm fooling myself to think I could run 10 more miles at this point.)

Sunday's weather is mostly sunny and a high of 35, so I am hoping to get out on the roads and do 6 miles.

Tomorrow: upper body workout!

Talk and Walk

I walked 1.8 miles today on the treadmill. I had two phone conferences (aka meetings) and I walked all the way through one and partway through another. Two hundred calories gone.

I've decided to do a 10-week training program for the half marathon. My half is 11 weeks away, so I'm going to do the Week 1 stuff twice. You figure out your goal time and then run three days a week. One day is repeats (400, 800 or 1600), with goal times based on your goal for the half. One day is a tempo run, at goal pace minus 15 seconds. And one day is a long run, at goal pace plus 30 seconds.

My goal is 2:24. That would be a PR. When I ran VCM in 2001, my time at the half was something like 2:29 or 2:30...and that was with 13.1 miles to go. I think 2:24 is a fairly lofty goal, but we'll see how the training goes, and which half of VCM I wind up running (the second half has Battery Hill at mile 15, which I still remember 7 years later....so I'm sort of angling for the first half).

So....tomorrow it's 4x400 on the treadmill, with a goal of 2:45 for each 400. That seems very doable, but that could be because I haven't done it yet.....

Whoa.

First treadmill workout was a wake-up call. I used to think treadmill running was easier than road running...I guess I was in shape back then!

Here are the sad stats:

2.183 mi
28:06
12:52 pace (I think; I calculated it myself)
It also counts calories, but I forgot to input my weight. Next time.

Granted, I used a 1.0 incline to simulate "real road"....but still. I am a perspiring, worn-out girl after only 28 minutes and 2 measly miles? Jinkies.

It's also so loud that I can't hear the DVD player...but they make earphones for that. I watched part of a West Wing episode and it was pretty hard to follow without being able to hear very well (except during my walk breaks).

I guess this will get me into shape!

I also signed up on fitday to keep track of what I eat. I really dislike keeping track of what I eat. BUT, I have been complaining for almost 2 years that I can't lose weight...and I've also been eating like it's going out of style. I have no concept of what an 1,800-calorie day would look like in terms of eating. So I figured I would try this for awhile and see what happens. It's almost 3 pm and I've eaten about 770 calories...and that's with being very mindful of what I had for lunch! My guess is that it will help.

No Excuses

So...the treadmill is here and upstairs (thanks to Matt and Forrest!) and set up (thanks to Matt and me!), though I haven't plugged it in yet. Once it's plugged in I will be forced to confront the reality that I can now run EVERY DAY with no excuses about the weather. (Which has been horrible lately - snow and ice and rain and snow and ice....great excuse-making weather! Unless you have a treadmill.) I was supposed to run 7 miles yesterday, but it didn't happen - we had tickets for the Mermaid Theatre's Eric Carle tribute. Zoe fell asleep 10 minutes into it, but Sascha enjoyed it.

Anyway. I WILL run today and report back on how the t'mill feels. Now I just have to decide which TV series to start watching. (The treadmill doesn't have a magazine rack, and it is facing the wall....I am all for "zoning out" but frankly I'd rather watch David Duchovny or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something.)

Later That Same Day.....

What a great day to run. Sunny, no wind, snow on the mountaintops and the smell of woodsmoke in the air....

I'm going to start wearing my heart-rate monitor again - I figure it's another good way to chart fitness. (Plus, with the heart-health history that my family has, it's worth keeping track of how mine is ticking along!)

Today's run:


3.71 mi
45:37

12:18 pace
8:42 max pace

1058 cal
285 cal/mi

155 bpm average
171 bpm max

A couple of Garmin complaints. First, this thing loses its signal a lot while I'm running. I know I'm in rural Vermont, but I'm not in the middle of a forest or anything. I'm clicking along, I look down and it says I'm running 15-minute miles. As I watch it, it goes to 16-minute miles and then 20-minute miles! (and yes, I was still running.) Then the pace section blanks out altogether for 10 seconds or so. URGH.

Second, I wish I knew how this thing comes up with calories burned. It must use heart rate, pace, elevation changes and my inputted weight (which, although I consider myself an enlightened woman of the 21st century, I am NOT sharing). Still, it seems to jump around a lot - did I really burn more than a thousand calories in less than 4 miles? I went back through last year's runs (which are still all on the Garmin - this thing holds a lot of data!) and none of my comparable runs burned close to that many calories. I did discover, however, that I used to be much more fit than I am right now. Oh well. There's always tomorrow!

Free Speed

So, as runners know, losing weight makes you faster. You aren't carrying around as many pounds, so you can expend the same energy and improve your times. "Free speed" refers to the fact that you don't have to train extra to get faster...you just have to lay off the chocolate, bread, pasta, and late-night ice cream. (not that I eat any of those things to excess.....)

I dread the idea of focusing on weight loss. It usually just makes me eat more.

But I think I might try 1 lb a week for the next 11 weeks (until the VCM). Starting a half marathon 11 lbs lighter would certainly help me.

In other news, my treadmill is here! but it's still in the box in the garage. It weighs 190 lbs, which doesn't sound like much until you are trying to figure out how to get it up a flight of stairs. I think it might just stay there until Matt can get someone to help him lug it up to the guest room.

Luckily it's nice out today, so I'm headed out for 4 miles in the sun soon!

Uphill, Both Ways, in the Snow

After more than a foot of snow, it was finally nice enough today for me to run. ("Nice" being a relative term.) It was still snowy, and windy, and cold...but sunny. I managed 5 miles...I probably should have done 6, but oh well.

The stats:

5.04 mi
1:04:27
12:48 pace
9:51 max
839 cal
166 cal/mi

Still waiting on the treadmill...it has traveled from Utah to Colorado to Missouri to Ohio. Now the tracking info says it's been "loaded out" in Pennsylvania and an appointment has been requested. I don't know what that means, but we are about 8 hours from the closest point in Pennsylvania, so I'm guessing it won't arrive until Wednesday or so.