Snow Workout

Weekly Stats
Current: 209.4
Weekly Loss: 1.2
To Go: 34.4
Total 115.6

Sunday is usually a rest day for me, but we got about 6 inches of snow. Earlier in the week they predicted a blizzard and we got zero inches. This time no blizzard warning and we get a good dose of snow. You all know what that means. SNOW WORKOUT!!! I can always tell when we are going to get a good snow storm because when my neighbor goes out of town, it usually snows hard. We watch out for each other when it snows and so I got a double dose of the workout.

It has been cold the past week and the streets were snow packed this morning. I bought a pair of rubber cleats that fit over the bottom of your shoes. I put them on not knowing how well they would work and I was pleased. I had good traction the whole route. Most of the route was plowed, even most of the river trail, but as I got close to the canyon, I had to trudge through the snow. It was a good workout on the legs and it got me excited to try snow shoeing in the near future.

How did you all do during the holiday? I know Martha did another tread mill torture the day after. Good job Martha. I myself ate a little too much at Thanksgiving dinner, but I did workout and ate good the rest of the day. Hillary is doing well. Rachel will soon have a big weight loss (couple days past her due date!). Hang in there and I will too.

A Pleasant Surprise

Weekly Stats
Current: 210.6
Weekly Loss: 4.4
To Go: 35.6
Total 114.4

The pleasant surprise this week is when I stepped on the scale, I was down 4.4 lbs. I think I can attribute this to two things. Most days, I was very frugal on eating. I tried on those days to eat every three hours, but tried not to go over 300 calories for each meal. This kept me at about 1800 calories on those days. The other thing, is with the colder weather and trying to get my leg better, I mixed up my workout routine a bit. I had bought some Bob Harper workout DVDs and they are quite the challenge. Even the people that he has one to put through the workout struggle, moan and complain at times. I can't do all of the workouts, but I can do most of them and keep up for the hour. Mostly it has been fun. I also was able to run a bit further on each run until I needed to rest my leg so that was good too. I am hoping by the end of the week to be up to four miles straight.

Cold weather has taken a firm hold. We have snow on the ground here. I am better equipped to run in the cold, wet weather this year. The run this morning went well. I stayed nice and warm most of the run. When we get some more snow, I have plans on giving snowshoeing a go. I'll let you know how that goes.

Shout outs to Hillary this week. She has kept her weight off and has even lost a bit more. Whoooooohoooooooo! Way to go! Andy had another good outing with his cross country team! Nice job coach. Martha, Hillary, Chris and Rachel, I trust that you are all doing well on the no weight gain challenge. It's not to late for anyone else to commit about not gaining any weight during the holidays. Get yourself weighed before Thanksgiving, write it down and then weigh back in during the first of the year. The official weigh in will be between Jan 1 and 5th to determine if you made your goal. Hang in there and I will too!

Stabilization

Weekly Stats
Current: 215.0
Weekly Gain: 0
To Go: 40.0
Total 110.0

I said last week that I was only going to post my weight, but my friend David, who is an accounting junkie says he missed the numbers. Fair enough I will keep posting the stats partly because of David and partly because I said I would at the beginning.

The meaning behind my title is that my weight did not jump all over the place. I saw consistency throughout the week which is great. I am still hampered by my a couple of nagging injuries that aren't serious, but prevent me from running as far as I would like. This morning was my best distance since the half. I was able to go about 2 1/4 miles before I needed to walk it out. That is a mile better than last week. I walked and ran the rest of the 4 1/2 miles. As hard as it is to be patient, I need to not push it too hard or it will take longer to heal up.

I took the Scouts out camping this weekend. The only thing I miss about my former weight is the insulation. It was cold and I had to throw on a lot more clothes than I used to and my feet were cold all through the evening. I guess the price of some good insulated boots will be worth the it compared to the cost of being overweight and out of shape!

A shout out to those who took the no weight gain challenge from last week. Rachel, Hillary and Chris are on board. Still time to weigh in and commit to no weight gain over the holidays. Bill is happily running again! Keep going Bill! David said he was going to start back at it. Go David! Hang in there and I will too!

Reset - Onward and Downward

Current Stats
Current Weight - 215.2

You noticed that I didn't post any other info other than my current weight. This is for several reasons. First of all, my weight is still all over the place. I weighed in anywhere from 210 to 219 during the week. Even though I it was birthday celebration on Friday, there was no way that I ate enough extra calories (or cut back for that matter) to justify 9 pounds up and down. I am going to go with my weigh-in weight from this morning and use it as a baseline. This may all be related to the half-marathon.

During my last few weeks of training, I was all over the place as far as weight goes. I felt that when the race was over, I could get right back into the regular routine which was working for me, but I have been surprised about my recovery. I went out for what I thought would be an easy run for me last Monday. I thought I would be a bit sore, but I would be fine. I had run 12 miles the week before and was able to not only do my taper training the next week, but felt good going into the race. After talking to a couple of runners, they said that the downhill was probably pretty hard on me. It really was quite a drop during the first 5 miles of the race. I probably did a little damage. I have also read that recovery days from a long run can take as long as a day per mile. So for a half marathon, to expect 13 days of recovery time. That advice may not be far off for me. Here I am at day 9 and I still had some hip and knee issues this morning. I had to alternate running and walking this morning because of it. I just need to be patient.

For the next two weeks, I am going to focus on portion control and get back into some good habits. Hopefully this weight roller coaster I've been on will stabilize and I will start heading down again. Until I get back down into the 190's I am going to just post my weekly weight and get back to that 130 lbs lost and keep going.

I would like to throw out a challenge to anybody that needs a little motivation. Make a goal not to gain any weight over the holidays. We have been challenged at work to that goal and I am going to take it further by getting to 200 lbs by the end of December. Sound hard? It can be, but it is harder to take off an extra 5 - 15 lbs that I could gain instead. I don't want to go there, do you? What it takes is to be mindful of what you are eating. Allow yourself a little treat now and then, but fill up on healthy alternatives when they are available and make sure you exercise! If you want a little accountability, post a comment about your commitment and we will all keep each other motivated!

Great job Hillary! Looking good! Bill is back running and happy about it! Way to go Bill! Saw my neighbor, Lynn, getting his bike ready for a ride! Great job! Hope to catch the rest of you doing your great things as well! Hang in there and I will too!

Thirteen point one and done!

Current Stats NA

I was planning on weighing in this week as a baseline, but my weight once again varied a whole bunch this week. I will eat right this week and establish my new baseline next week.

I had a great experience running my first half marathon. Not that it was easy, but I am glad I reached what I thought was unreachable goal for myself. I learned a lot about myself along the way and even during the race.

It all started out early Saturday morning. We boarded buses to take us up to the start line. Barbara was good enough to get up early and drive me there. I really appreciated the support. This race ended up have close to 3,000 people enter. There was a line of buses and I got in the line and got on board. The bus was full and there were many who were excitedly chatting while others were sitting quietly. For me it was a lot more emotional than I thought it would be. It was hard not to cry as we drove on some streets that I had done my prep work on, realizing I was on my way to face a big challenge that I had been training for for weeks. This meant I lot more to me than I had realized.

We got off the buses at Theater in the Pines parking lot, not far from one of the Timpanogos Trail Heads. It was quite cold and there was still a bit of snow around from a storm that had come through earlier in the week. Here I was at the start, but I still had about two hours to go until the starting gun sounded. They had a heated tent that filled up as the morning went on. I found a place near the back and waited. A lot of people wore costumes. This was the Halloween Half and costumes were encouraged. I am not much of a costume wearer anyway, especially not in my first half marathon!

After a long wait, both for the start and the lines for the bathrooms, we were all ready to start. I lined up near the back were there was a pacer for a time of finishing in two and a half hours. That's the quickest I thought I could finish, but I would be happy if I was done by three hours.

Between a late start and all of the runners, I didn't get past the start line until after 15 minutes of when we were scheduled to start. Not far from the start, I could tell that someone had fallen. I was trying to watch out between all the people around me, not to step on the downed runner when suddenly I went down in probably the same big hole she fell in! Luckily, I had my running gloves on and long running pants and averted disaster myself. I got scraped up a bit but was able to get right back up. The girl that went down was being helped off and I heard her say, "I heard something pop!" I knew what that meant having heard that noise come from my own ankle before. I felt bad for her, having to drop out of the race before it even started and was grateful I had avoided the same fate!

The first part of the race was quite steep. I was glad I had put duct tape on my feet as suggested. I think I would have had blisters coming down at that incline if I hadn't. I passed my pacers without much effort realizing that I would slow down later. It was a quick run down past Sundance and to the intersection with the Provo Canyon road.

As many of you know, Provo Canyon is a well traveled highway. They had been stopping traffic to get the runners over to the other side of the canyon. By the time I got down there, they made the runners stop to get the backed up traffic a chance to get my. We waited quite a while until they stopped them again and they let us cross to continue the race.

We ran on the road for a bit until we hit the tunnels. Some of my neighbors were helping at the aid station there and it was fun to see their surprised faces as they handed my water. It was a bit of a lift. We then headed down to Vivian Park to where we were directed onto the Provo River trail for the rest of the run.

About a mile down from the park, I kept leap frogging a runner who would run and then walk. I tried to encourage anyone I passed my telling them they were doing good. We were about half way at this point and fatigue was setting in to many. After passing her another time, next thing I knew, she was running along side me and without saying much we paced each other. After about a mile, I struck up a conversation and found out that she lived just a couple of streets away from me. We stuck together for several miles and chatted which helped both of us take our minds of the pain. With about two miles left, she had to stop and walk, so I slowly went on. I had another conversation for a while with a guy about my age from Heber. Those talks really helped! As I was approaching the last mile, I was really bonking bad and it was all I could do to move my feet, when much to my surprise, the girl that had been running with my pulled even with me. It really helped us both I think to turn out of the canyon and make the homestretch down to the finish line. As I approached the finish line, I became emotional as I could see not only the finish line, but my sweet wife and my youngest daughter. I didn't have the words to explain how much it meant to me to have them there!

Running has become an important part of my life. I have learned a lot about myself and have learned that I can do much more than I thought I could. For me, running is a way of looking at yourself. It strips you down to your emotional and physical limits. You get a glimpse of what you are really like deep down inside.

Thanks for all of your encouragement. I have said this quite frequently, but it has made a big difference for me. More than once during the race, I thought about being able to report back to you all that I had finished the race! It was quite motivating to keep going! Andy and Bill, thanks for supporting all of the runners on the race! It was nice to know that friends we helping to make it happen. Great job Hillary on keeping after it! You look great! Hope the rest of you are doing what you need to to keep yourselves healthy and happy! Hang in there and I will too!