Pheidippides’s BodyBlog

Yesterday ran two loops on the dirt trail around the local park –about 5.8 miles total, I think, in 57:34, recovery pace.  Temp was high 80s and the sun was very bright.

I overdid it a bit eating after the run because I was dehydrated, so my weight this morning doesn’t show the progress I’d like, but it’s still not bad: 169.6, only .2 pounds over yesterday.  I will make today my good day to try to get it under 169.  BF measurement was 19.7, which was encouraging.  Waist still at 35.25, so no backsliding there.

Definitely need a rest from running today, although I may go to the gym to use machines tonight. Or perhaps swim.

A.M. weight:  169.4  BF:  20.9

Waist:  35.25 !!

More progress, although not in bodyfat, which I attribute mostly to the crudeness of the measuring ability of my scale.  I don’t think it will pick up progress until I really lose fat.

Any way, I ate fairly carefully yesterday — breakfast — some cereal with 1% milk (no extra protein, though — Jul won’t be happy), several small meals during day with baked chicken and some of wife’s carrot-mushroom casserole.  Lunch was half a turkey sandwich with tomato and lettuce.  Dinner was medium serving of pasta with a cream sauce (I know) which onions and marshmallow, plus grapes.  I also had a small slice of peach pie and a small scoop of ice cream after that.  But I had just run 4.5 miles before dinner.

My food choice wasn’t ideal, perhaps, but I definitely burned more calories than I consumed yesterday. I drank a lot of water between my run and bedtime.

Run: 4.5 miles overall.  3 mile tempo run in 21:58, average pace 7:17 min/mile.  Temperature was in the 80s, so that pace was about right for a tempo run.  Felt pretty good, although the ball of my right foot is a bit sore from my long run the other day.

I am going to try to make today my very low calorie day to get my weight down well below 169 for my measurement tomorrow.  Then I’ll have a shot at getting it around 168 by Friday.

That’s more like it.  Weight this morning: 170.2; BF 21.0%.  That makes my goal of getting under 169 before the end of this week look doable.

I took yesterday off to let my very sore quads rest.  I think they appreciated it.  It’s back to the exercise table, today, though.  I probably should run.

Yesterday I noticed my calves were looking a bit chunkier to me than before, so I measured them, and, sure enough, they are 15 inches.  So I’ve managed to increase the muscularity of my calves through running, even though I have done almost no weight exercises with them in three to four months.  Who needs weight lifting?  Who said cardio was bad for gaining muscle?  Of course, my upper body would tell a different story!

Yesterday I was very controlled in my eating.  Basically, I skipped through lunch time and ate a late lunch that sufficed for my dinner as well.  I came home from the office late — around 9 p.m. — and ate a few grapes, a couple of bite sized chunks of mozzarella cheese and some other cheese, and had one quarter of a cookie, with a few ounces of 1% milk to wash it down.  I don’t know the exact number of calories I consumed yesterday, but it was definitely less than my maintenance level.  I should have drunk more water, though.

Still have to measure my waist.

My 16 mile run yesterday morning left me feeling parched and ravenous for the rest of the day, so I overcompensated with eating and drinking a bit.  Not so much, I think , that I undid the calorie-burning benefits of my run, but enough to leave me somewhat bloated.  The consequence is somewhat disappointing results on the scale this a.m. — weight 172.6 and bf 21.6.  The BF I discount somewhat because of the extremely high error factor with the scale, and the weight I attribute to the quantity of food and drink I put in my system yesterday.

Still, that’s a loss of 1.4 pounds over the last week, and my waist checked in at 35.75 — so that’s heartening as well.  The goal this week is to eat extremely carefully, to continue ramping up the running while getting in some modest weight lifting and a little cross-training, and to get back down under 170 by Friday morning.  I’d like to get back down to around 169; I think that’s possible with very careful eating.  I need to get there soon to have a realistic shot at 165 by Labor Day.  I tend to hit a wall once I get around 169-170; my body wants to eat to make my weight bounce back up.  Getting past that wall is the key.  I won’t lose the love handles if I don’t.

My quads are sore today, but my knees are fine.  Knowing I can run 16 miles is very heartening.  My running foundation is decent right now.  I just need to get in more runs per week, even if they are short ones.  I think I’ll try the Race for the Arts 5K on August 22 as a test of fitness, and as an opportunity to see if I can beat my 20:28 PR and maybe even get under 20 minutes.

Well I survived San Francisco — meaning, my diet, that is.  This a.m. I weighed 170.4, less than yesterday morning, so I was pleased.  It was a gorgeous, warm (for SF, not for Sacto), sunny day there, and we spent it sampling both the sublime and the ridiculous — the Dale Chihuly glass art exhibit at the DeYoung Museum AND Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum at Fisherman’s Wharf.  I ate a chicken sandwich, and I did have a little ice cream, but I did NOT have a full Sundae like everybody else in the family.  So, for me, I count that as a victory.

This a.m. I ran with my local running group — 16 miles! That’s the farthest I’ve run, as I recall, since my senior year of college — 22 plus  years ago (half a lifetime — yikes!).  We stopped a lot for water breaks at drinking fountains along the way, so the overall time wasn’t that great, but the pace between breaks was pretty good, and the group really picked it up for a while around 12-14 miles.  Overall we ran for over 2 1/2 hours.  My quads killed me, but the rest of my body seems to have suffered without too much incident.

Goal: to get back under 170 tomorrow morning.  I burned over 1800 calories running today, by my estimate, so with moderate eating today I should be able to do it.

Tomorrow it will be one week since my beginning, so I can evaluate my progress.

Well, weight inexplicably measured 171.2 today, up 2 pounds from Thursday morning, with BF also slightly up.  I attribute it to random noise in the scale!  I’m still down quite a bit from Monday morning, and it’s only day 5.

Today is a crucial day, because I’ll be on the road with the family visiting the DeYoung Museum in SF — a prime opportunity to eat badly.  I will control how much I eat and what I eat so I stay on track.  As long as I don’t LOSE ground this weekend I’ll be O.K., because I usually can control myself during weekdays.

I dressed to run this a.m., but I’m going to skip it because my ankle is a bit sore.  I’m going to rest it in favor of a long run tomorrow a.m.

Yesterday I was pretty good about eating, although the quantity of eating was probably a bit more than it had to be.  Still on my diet, though.

This a.m.: Weight at 170 even, up .8 pounds from yesterday but still down 4 pounds from Monday, so that’s good.  Waist at 35.8 (although it depends upon exaxactly where I measure it).  Perhaps just slight improvement so far.

Running yesterday: 7 miles at about 4:30 p.m.  Temp around 90 degrees.  On bike trail shoulder.  3.5 miles out in about 32:30, then sped it up for 3 mile return in about 25 minutes even, with a slow recovery pace over the last half mile.  Total time 1:02:21.  The heat definitely slowed me down, but my legs felt pretty good.

Resolved: to maintain a good diet this weekend so I don’t blow my progress this week.  The challenge will be tomorrow when I’m in San Francisco for the day with family visiting friends.
I may try a tempo run if I can get myself out of bed early enough tomorrow morning.  I can’t do one in the middle of the day; it’s just too hot to run that fast that far.

Bad news: my running watch broke while running yesterday.  The strap just snapped right in two.  It’s a fairly inexpensive Nike watch, so it’s not a huge loss, but I’ve only had it about 16 months, so I was a bit surprised it broke.