Dread

I ate well yesterday, even though I spent the evening with my friend and that often leads to over-eating. Instead, I had a modest salad (with some BBQ chicken on it and a small amount of ranch dressing), and a tiny cup of chocolate-coconut gelato for dessert. In fact, I ended up under 2000 calories for the day, which combined with lots of water and my early-morning run, combined made me proud of my own choices.

This morning, though, for some reason I felt dread when I approached the scale. I felt bloated, and, yes, even fat. I was certain that I was going to see my weight go up. I mentally prepared myself for that eventuality; my internal self-talk was about managing my expectations. "I can live with it going up a pound from yesterday. That won't be the end of the world. I can just knuckle down and keep going I can work it off. I'll eat lightly today! It'll be OK!"

Imagine, then, my surprise when I saw 186.5 on the scale, when I finally got up the courage to step on.

Huh? It went down? But I feel fat. How...?

Obviously something else was happening. This feeling, this "full" feeling is not what I'm interpreting it to be. I am not "fat". I'm doing all the right things, making all the right choices lately. And it's working. I need to re-wire how I'm interpreting what signals my body is sending me.

It's working and I feel great.

Me love coffee

Not sure what my title has to do with my morning run but I'm going with it.

I got up early to run today. I'm hanging out with a friend after work tonight so I had to. I just planned a nice easy 3.5 miles, no goal in mind. I ran my normal loop in the opposite direction as Monday. It was around 56° F when I left the house. Felt cool and humid.

First half-mile I specifically tried to go slow-ish and I did it in 5:15. Perfect. It was hilly but mostly downhill. First mile was 10:22. Good.

Then the next mile was just 9:51. Surprising! Last full mile, I didn't even want to check because I didn't want to spoil the magic (that's a metaphor - I don't believe in magic).

Last full mile I did in 9:43. Wow!

I've been doing arm exercises in an effort to build up my upper body strength, and on the last half mile I noticed my neck and shoulder muscles hurting. I note that for future reference.

I finished the total distance, 3.69 miles, in 36:57, nailing a 10:00 pace. Hot damn that feels good. I don't know how long it's taken me to get back to this level.

I weighed in at 187 even (before my run) which also makes me happy. Trend is 187.75.

Back on track

After my flirtation with gluttony on Saturday, I'm back on track. Sunday my weight was up a little but still under 190. I ate well, too - 1,565 calories. Dinner that day was stir-fried veggies and chicken.

Monday my weight was at 189.5 - up a half-pound from the day before. So I worked hard to curb my eating habits and again kept my caloric intake well below my goal, finishing with just 1,756 calories for the day.

And I ran on Monday, too. 3.5 miles. The temperature was around 60° F but it was humid. And I ran before eating any breakfast at all. My first mile was supposed to be warmup but I actually ran it fast - under 10:00 pace. Then I had trouble keeping that pace for the rest of the run, stopping to walk every now and then. It was a slog. And my legs actually hurt for parts of it, especially the long incline up SE Bybee. I guess my legs weren't ready for that after the 7 miles on Saturday. I did, however, manage a final kick for the last half-mile; I did that in 4:26. Whoo-hoo! That made me feel a little bit better. Overall the loop took me 38:31, though.

This morning I weigh 188.

And now the guilt

As predicted, I feel bad for over-eating yesterday. I guess that's a good thing - that'll keep me from doing that often.

I weighed in at 189 this morning. At least I'm still under 190; that's good, too. My 30-day trend is up a bit to 187.35 (from 187.2 the day before).

I'm going to bicycle a lot today and keep my calorie intake under 1700. Let's see how much better I can do on Monday, weight-wise.

I'll regret this tomorrow

So, I ran my 7 miles. All together, it took me 1:18:41, for an overall average pace of 11:14. Once again, my early miles were around 10:00 - 10:20, then I gradually got slower. But not bad for my first 7-mile run in months. And I think the last time I ran 6 miles, I was much slower overall. Hang on.



Yep. Last time I ran 6 miles, I averaged a 12 minute pace. So I'm gaining.

Breakfast was pancakes, a scrambled egg, and bacon from the Hotcake House. Mmmm. Then I walked downtown. And then I had a cookie from Backspace (vegan - is that less calories since they don't use butter?). Then I came home and napped. Then I got up, hungry-ish but bloated, and decided to just say "fuck it" to calories today. I deserve a day off once in a while, and today, with my calorie-burning run, was a good day to do it. So I had a big chicken sandwich and fries (with ranch dressing) from the Limelight, then gelato, then throwing all caution to the wind, a couple of donuts from Foster's Market (since they were delivered fresh just as I was walking past it).

Yeah. I'm gonna feel the guilt tomorrow. But, hey, I need a break and I think I've earned it.

A long run

I got up in the wee small hours of the morning (around 5 AM) in order to eat a little somethin'-somethin' (peanut butter and blackberry preserves on toast) so that I could go for a long run at a reasonable time in the morning, before the hot hot heat started.

I love it when a plan comes together. It's 8:41 AM as I type this, and the weather widget says it's 58° F. Perfect.

So I'm off. I'm going to be doing my 3.5 mile loop, twice. First mile - warmup, then stop for water. Then I'm going to see if I can do 3 miles at a 10:00 pace, then after that I'll just see what happens. Plenty of water available along the route, and I'm taking some sports beans.

See ya on the other side.

Good choices, no effect (yet)

I did pretty well on calories yesterday. Had 400-500 left around dinner time, so I walked down to the Thai place and had stir-fry veggies and chicken (no rice). Then for dessert, even though I was craving cake gelato or donuts or somethin', I had a cup of frozen mixed berries. Yum. Also walked up to the grocery store right after dinner.

This morning I weighed in at 187.5, exactly what I've been for the last several days. Is this a plateau? Do I need to do a little extra starving to push down below this? At least my trend continues to go down - the 30-day rolling average is 187.35. But that's below my actual weight - it can't keep going down if my actual weight stays the same.

Early run

I got up early today to run, just as I'd planned. Ran my 3.5 mile route, only in the opposite direction from last Tuesday. I wasn't supposed to care about time or pace, but I brought my watch, and noted that around the half-way mark, I was basically doing a 10:30 pace. I tried to push the second half but, no, I ended up doing the loop in 37:05, for a 10:23 pace.

It felt a bit chilly, the internets told me it was 53° F when I left the house, so I wore a long-sleeved technical shirt. It felt fine... until the half-way point, when it was a bit warm on my arms, so I pushed up the sleeves. Once again, for future reference, I need to dress for the middle of the run, not the beginning.

Weight was 187.5 again, which is up, but the trend went slightly down, to 187.45. Yes, just slightly below my actual weight. I thought I had done very well on calories yesterday, but I think the chicken Caesar salad from the Limelight was a bit more than the ~350 I'd calculated. When I got home, I couldn't help snacking a bit on croutons, and a few (less than 10 total) almonds, and finally a couple of teaspoons of peanut butter and jelly. I mean, I could have done worse, so I can cut myself a break. But, still.

Continuing

It's Wednesday already?

On Monday I rode my bike to work. I weighed in at 187.5. I figure I had what I call the Monday "bump". The bump happens because I tend to eat later in the day on the weekend, so when I get up early for work on Monday there's more food in my belly. It's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

On Tuesday I rode my bike home from work (having left it there overnight) and then went for a 3.5 mile run. And my morning weight was 187.5. Still. But my 30-day trend still went down.

Today I weighed in at 187 even and did almost no exercise.

Tomorrow I hope to get up early to run before work. I think the 3.5 mile loop will suffice. No tricksy training or hills or tempo or intervals. Just run. I can try a specific training on the weekend.

Tempo run

So, I kinda messed up my tempo run.

I ran from home down to the Springwater Trail along the river. It's a nice flat paved trail with markers every half-mile, making it perfect for measured runs. I was going to run three segments north (towards downtown), then turn around and run them back, then jog home to cool off. And there's a water fountain at the church near the head of the trail, which on days like today (it was in the high 60s when I left and muggy) is necessary.

My warm-up was around 12-13 minutes, and then I started with a fast segment. I set my countdown timer to 4:30 (which is a 9:00 pace) and reached the next half-mile marker with 12 seconds remaining! Whoo-hoo!

Jog-walked the next segment, then started a fast one again. Note: that's three half-mile segments. I did not so note at the time. I finished the next fast section with 17 seconds remaining! I'm a speed demon!

Then I kept going and walked the next segment and turned around.

I was running the first fast half-mile back when I realized that this was, in fact, my third fast one. I'd gone too far. I kinda worried about over-exerting myself (I was sweating like Mr. Moist from "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog") and decided I'd stick to the plan, even though it meant lots of walking back home because I'd be about a mile from home after a 10-minute cooldown. Oh, well.

I did lots of walking on my slow sections. It was hot. I was cutting myself a break.

I finished my third fast interval with 12 seconds to spare again (fast for me!), and then did the jog-walk back past the water fountain (there was a wedding going on, with a real Rolls Royce limo), and then started the walk back home. I did a bit more running, about 4 or 5 minutes worth, just because.

Next weekend I'll do another long run, 7 or 8 miles worth. And this coming week maybe I'll toss in some hill intervals. I'm likely more than ready.

Still going

Yesterday, I had to get up early to return my Zipcar (a MINI Convertible - suh-weet!) before 8:00 AM, so on my way back I decided I'd have a giant breakfast at the 24 Hour Pancake House.

So I did. And vowed not to eat too much the rest of the day. I had two pancakes, four pieces of bacon, a scrambled egg, and copious coffee. I counted everything, including the syrup and pats of butter, and it all came to around 950 calories. Totally do-able, considering I didn't eat until close to 10 (due to bus travel ordering and general slowness at the restaurant and suchlike), leaving lots of calories for a big-ish snack and dinner.

I almost went over, anyway, because I hung out at the local coffee shop for a couple of hours in the late afternoon, and Nicole had made my favorite kind of cake: white with chocolate frosting. But I resisted and just drank coffee (and counted those calories!).

Before I went to bed, I weighed myself. I've found that my morning weight is usually about 1.5-2.0 pounds lower than my right-before-bed weight, so it gives me a preview. I was surprised to find 189.5 staring me in the face. Ugh. I thought I'd done well, but that seemed high.

So this morning when I got up, I was prepared for disappointment. Instead I weighed in at 186.5 - only a half-pound up from yesterday! Nice! It must have been water weight.

I've had a small breakfast (my usual - yogurt cup and peanut butter and jam on toast) about an hour and a half ago, and now I'm going out for my hard run.

I decided on an interval run - warmup, then alternate between hard 8:30-9:00 pace half-miles, and jog/walking half-miles, for a total of 3 apiece. That will be just over 5 miles. And it should be difficult to make that pace on the last fast segment. But I'd like to get faster, and the only way to do that is to, y'know, run faster.

I'll report back on how well I did.

Ever down

Yesterday I ran 4 miles at an east pace (that turned out to be just under 11:00 per mile), had a small dinner of a turkey and cheese sandwiich, then went out drinkng. A vodka martini and a gin & tonic. Mmmmmm.

And this morning I weighed in at 186 lbs even. Niiiiice.

Weight watching

I had about 500-600 calories left for the day when dinner rolled around. So I went to the local Thai restaurant (it's only 2 blocks from home) and ordered stir-fry vegetables and chicken. I should've told them not to bring rice, but they did. I mostly ignored the rice, though, and just ate the veggies and chicken and delicious sauce. I ordered it hot, and it was what I call "Portland hot" - spicy but not mouth-searing.

I gave in and ate about a half-cup of the rice. I used it to sop up the remaining sauce.

My mental estimate of the calories for that dinner suggested I had another 100 or so left, and I wanted to hang out at the coffee shop. I went next door and ordered a non-fat chai latte. However, when I sat down to actually count up the calories, I ended up going a little bit over for the day. Probably should have skipped the chai.

I worried that I would be up over 190 lbs. I know, silly. But it all worked out in the end, because this morning I was only up by a half-pound, to 188 even, from yesterday. My 30-day trend actually went down some more, to 188.9. *phew*

Like I said, this weekend will be the test. I really want to keep my numbers under 190 for a week. I can do it!

Tonight after work I'm going for a run, even though it'll probably be warm and muggy. I think I'll aim for 4-5 miles. Then this weekend... hmmm. Long run? Or some kind of speed work, or hill work? I can't decide. Somethin' hard, anyway.

Celebration

I forgot to note this, but yesterday I broke past my all-year low weight when I weighed in at 188.5.

So it is with extreme pleasure that I note going even lower today. Today I weigh 187.5, and my 30-day trend stands at 189.15.

Feels great!

I beat Monday

Tuesday, in spite of having an Oreo-covered Voodoo Donut with lunch, and gelato for dinner, I stayed under my calorie count for the day, and woke up this morning the same weight as yesterday, 188.5. Maybe the 2 hour walk helped. And my 30-day trend dropped below 190, to 189.65. As I said before, when it stays below 190 for a week, I'm celebrating with dinner at Macaroni Grill. This coming weekend will be the acid test.

And this morning I was up early for a run. I ran the same 3.65 mile loop I ran on Monday, although in the opposite direction. And I was determined to run it faster. I didn't stop at any of the water fountains along the route, and only braked to a stop twice, very briefly, to avoid being hit by traffic. And I did it! I finished in 37:33, over a minute faster than Monday's time, for an average pace of 10:13 per mile. So in a very real and measurable way, in both weight and exercise, I beat Monday.

Workin' it

I mistakenly set my alarm for 5:00 PM, and woke up with a start around 5:45 AM. But I still went out for a 3.5+ mile run (took around 38:00) while the temperature was in the mid-60s. Then hopped on my bike and biked to work!

Oh, and my weight was still 190 lbs even. Argh. But hopefully it will drop again. Thirty day trend dropped back down to 190.2.

Bad Brian! No donut!

I gave in, late last night, and walked up to Foster's Market to get a couple of delicious donuts. I'd already eaten almost 2000 calories worth of food, and I didn't even feel hungry. I was just bored. I got a raspberry jelly filled, and an apple-filled bear claw. So good. But...

This morning I weighed in at 190 lbs even. And my 30-day trend went up from 190.2 to 190.25. I know that some of that is just water and won't stay with me, but I'm going to use it as a reminder to stick with the program and not to indulge when I'm doing so well.

Fat panda ass

Six miles kicked my fat panda ass. The hot hot heat helped seal the ass-kicking deal.

It was 74° when I left the house around 11:00 AM or so. First segment was 1.14 miles. I tried to be slow and just warm up. I stopped for water, then headed out for the long, 4.22 mile middle part. I wanted to try to maintain a 10:00-11:00 pace. But after the first mile and a half I started slowing down. In retrospect I was being ambitious. I'm glad I tried, though.

The last section was less than a mile, but it was mostly uphill. I walked most of it. Feh.

Gettin' there

This morning I weighed 188.5, which matches my second-lowest weight of the year. Another half-pound and I'll match my lowest all-year weight.

Then after that, I'll be in new territory again.

My trend this morning, which is a rolling average that Calorie Count calculates based on the past 30 days of weigh-ins, is 190.20.

I just had a slice of toast (Franz Oregon Trail 100% Whole Wheat with delicious "pockets of honey") with peanut butter and raspberry preserves. Yum. In an hour or two, I'll go for a nice long run. My plan is my old 6+ mile loop. First and last mile will be warmup, but I'll be timing myself on the middle 4 miles and hope to maintain a 10:00 pace. Of course it's hot and I haven't run that far in months, so I will have to cut myself a break if I don't meet my goal.

One of my projects for the day is to map out and annotate my various neighborhood loops for future reference and link them here. Time to bust out Google Earth!

In writing

I've decided that when my trend weight finally goes below, and stays below for, oh, a week, 190 lbs, I am going to treat myself to a nice dinner at Macaroni Grill.

Does that seem odd? Rewarding myself for starving by eating lots of food?

Very well, then. It's odd. Or counter-productive. But most importantly, it's delicious.

A quick run

I didn't have much time after work for a run. I was supposed to meet friends at the Rose Quarter around 6:00-6:30 PM. But I wanted to run and I wanted it to count.

Since I've been feeling slow, and aware of the adage "train slow, race slow", I've also wanted to start including speed work.

So my post-work run was: half mile warm-up, a mile at a faster pace, then a half mile cool-down. I did an out-and-back route, from home to the park, and the fast segment being the length of the park and back. Fast is better on softer surfaces. Plus there's a water fountain at the turnaround.

I timed the whole thing, including the middle part. The middle part, Google Earth tells me, was 1.08 miles. I didn't stop the clock while drinking water, and I did it in 9:47, making that a 9:03 pace. Whoo-hoo! I just knew I had it in me!

This weekend I'll do a nice long run. Probably.

Pushup Update

The past two days I've weighed in under 190 - 189 even yesterday, and 189.5 today. I'm never going back over 190. This I swear on my swearing-upon-thing.

I have, however, failed this week to do any pushups at all. I will begin again next week, at the beginning place.

Ran Tuesday night after work. May or may not run tonight - going to a concert at the Rose Quarter (Foo Fighters, yeah!).

Downtime

Apparently this site was offline yesterday, and possibly longer. The downtime was accidental, and caused by a routing issue on my home network. It's fixed (hopefully, he says just before clicking "Publish Post" in Blogger).

My apologies for any inconvenience.

Week 1 pushups

I completed Day 3 of Week 1 of the hundred pushups challenge.

I struggled with it, though, so I'm going to go ahead and repeat Week 1, as they suggest on the website.

So tomorrow I'll do the initial test again, and Monday I'll start again.

Pushups and a run

Last night I completed (again, barely) Day 2, Week 1 of my pushup challenge.

And within the hour, I'm going for a nice run before it gets too hot.

I weighed in at 190.5 this morning, and my trend went down by 0.15 lbs. Yay!

Running in the hot hot heat

I ran tonight. My 3.5+ mile loop. I ran it slowly. I tried to run the second mile a bit faster than normal, and except for the hot hot heat and the traffic lights I think I succeeded. But then the last mile and a half or so really took it out of me.

It took about 43 minutes. Yeah. Sucky. But damn, I did it.

Day 1 Week 1

I (barely) managed to do Week 1, Day 1 of my pushup plan.

Tomorrow I rest. At least as far as pushups go. I'll still run at some point.