Ten weeks

Ten weeks. That's what's left. How am I going to go faster? How am I going to go farther? If I asked ANY Joe on the street, the answer would be obvious. YOU'VE GOT TO DROP SOME WEIGHT.

For the past couple or years, I've wondered why I've been able to remain for the most part injury free, especially at my weight. Yes, I'm disciplined about listening to my body. I know what I can take and what I can't take. But another reason I don't injure myself is that I don't really push myself. I always seem to get to a point where I'm making progress, training hard, ramping up the miles, and then I back off, go into hiding. REST!!! Those seems to be my favorite words. REST! RECOVER!/p>

Don't get me wrong. Rest is good and recovery is the time when all the desired post-stress adaptations take place. But there are most certainly two extremes, overtraining and undertraining. Our job, MY job is to find the fine line between the two. For me, I tend to err on the side of undertraining and if you're going to err, I'd suggest you stay over here with me. But dang it, I want to run better. I want to run faster. And I want it now.

Ok, back to my real topic...It's sooooooo obvious that shedding this weight is going to get me a lot closer to what I so impatiently want. So, why don't I just do it? I know how. I guess it's just a matter of how MUCH I want it. Let me tell you...today, this morning, right now, I want it BAD! But it's not enough to say it. How bad I want it is directly measured by the actions I take to get it. I can't say "I want it BAD!!!" and then eat so much of the wrong stuff. So, maybe it's better to just not say "I want it BAD!!!". Maybe I should just shut up and sing, as they say.

So, I stand right now, on the scale, at 297. That's bascially up 5 pounds from my low mark back in September. Yes, there's good news. I've only gained 5 pounds. But the bad news is that I haven't LOST the 20 pounds I said I wanted to lose by now. Obviously, my goal of running Houston 50 pounds lighter than last year is gone. But running it 25 pounds lighter is not out of reach at this point. And the beauty of this whole thing is that 25 pounds will most certainly shave a lot off of my finish time. I may get more benefit losing 25 pounds than I would from my training. As far as training goes, it's all about the long runs now. That's the key.

Ok, rant over...

4 miles last night at ~13:00 pace. I wasn't fueled properly and ran out of energy early in the run. Luckily, it was just 4 miles and I pushed through and finished decent. I started with the Striders. The plan was to go out 2 and turn around to get back by the time Jen was returning. But Jen must have already turned around and passed me while I was in Starbucks for a potty break. I so wanted to wish her good luck in NY, in person. Good luck, Jen!!! It looks like PERFECT weather. You are gonna rock it. I'm sooooooo proud of you. We'll be watching.