December Run 3

There are clouds outside. I'm hungry. It's probably cold. It feels good under the covers. If I wear that shirt, then I won't be able to wear it to ride my bike. My legs are tired. I need to rest.

All of these things went through my head this morning, begging me not to get up and run. Eventually, I told them all to shut up, pulled on my clothes, and went outside. And ran/walked. I was slower today, because I walked more after my 5 minute warm up. I was very far behind the virtual partner. . .and then, on the last big downhill I thought, Hmm, wonder if I can catch him. I'm only 150 or so feet behind him. So I did. I ran him down and stomped on him, and only after I was a little bit ahead of him did I start walking again. Bwhahaha. Take that! 10 seconds slower than yesterday, but I still made it under 12 minutes with some walking. It's still a teensy bit faster than my first day when I was all rested.

I was SO sore yesterday. And I'm somewhat sore today, although it's not as bad. Eh. That's the price of moving. Tomorrow I think I will start giving myself even more warm-up walking time. I think that I will walk for 20 minutes to warm up and then run/walk my mile. The more warm-up I do, the easier it is to speed up and to do that for a longer amount of time.

Today we will finish our Christmas shopping. We started yesterday, and we are halfway finished. I hate this part of Christmas, and most of the time I would be ok without presents and instead a nice day together, playing board games or going to the museum or something. Oh well.

December Run 2

Well, we decorated our tree and mantel last night, and put pretty colored lights on the shrubbery last night. I feel so festive now!

Today, I was a little sore through my legs and abs, but I figured I would go ahead and run. I expected to not beat the virtual trainer in my Garmin (1 mile in 12 minutes). After stretching, I decided to walk for 5 minutes to warm up since I was a little sore. It must have worked, because I ran/jogged more than yesterday and was 16 seconds faster. Oooh, a whole 16 seconds! Haha. But that's not a bad improvement. I know that my lungs/heart recovered faster today than yesterday, but I think I'll be sore today and tomorrow.

As long I can get my brain around getting up and getting going, I'm ok. The weather is perfect here for running--bright blue skies and it's only about 60 degrees. I also have some salad and fruit to eat today, which is great. I think we are going to have sushi for lunch!

December Run 1

This morning, I got up and ran/walked for a mile in 12 minutes. Then I had to walk the half a mile back to my house. It felt wonderful! About twenty minutes of exercise, so not much but enough to make me feel as if I were doing something good for myself.

I'm going to try to do this every day for the rest of the month. It shouldn't be too hard, since this is my break. I keep reading and hearing about my friends' successes, and I'm ready to hop on that bandwagon!

On the other hand, I'm now living with television which is incredibly addicting. Well, that's because I'm watching Scrubs and stand-up. Bwhahaha.

I can't wait to put up the Christmas tree tonight!

Ahhh!

The semester is finally over!! I have two more days here, in which I will be volunteering. . .at my internship. . .and talking about a new job for the spring. I have some VERY important deadlines to meet very soon, so this evening I will work on that.

I spent some time last night looking at what I can start doing again. I'm going to run tomorrow morning for the first time in I don't know when. I'm going to go to the grocery store and get a few healthy things for the next couple of days. I'm going to clean my house. It is going to be wonderful!!

My two big training goals for this upcoming year are: my dad and I are going to do a self-supported bike tour this spring of about 200 miles, and I want to prepare to run a 10 mile race in 2008 (or sooner). I'm going to set up a calendar with goals, since that has helped me in the past.

Also, I worked up a selection of healthy dinners I can make myself so that I don't have to think about that--just go buy enough for a week, and have it all ready. I thought about the ways I was getting more veggies in my diet, and I'm going to start back doing that also. Thankfully, the water habit has not been broken so I'm still there.

Goals for today: clean kitchen and living areas, complete application, eat a vegetable(!), get 8 hours of sleep. And I'm off!

Long term Stats

In the name of procrastination, I got Dr. MM to send me my excel sheet where I tracked my weights and measurements before he took that computer away.

In the past two years, my highest weight was 164 (June 2005) and my lowest weight was 154 (May 2006). So not huge fluctuations, of course. (And I am almost 5'5'') The good news is that there is somewhat of a downward trend. In 2005, my average weight was 159.4, and in 2006 my average weight was 157.7. At this rate, I'll lose 10 pounds about as many years! I did best at losing weight when I was tracking my RDA's steadily, so I should probably try to do that more steadily. I'm sporadically entering my food into fitday right now. I was also measuring and weighing consistantly, which I have not been doing. Tonight I moved the measuring tape to the bathroom and that should help me remember to do that when I weigh.

Sigh. It's just the doing that gets you, isn't it.

W

W: 158

Hmm, up a little. Probably from the tons of (salty) food I ate this week. Eh.

Funny Fitness Challenge

So my mom had to buy a blood pressure machine thingy a few months ago and monitor her blood pressure and heart rate at different times of the day--and ever since then, our family randomly takes their blood pressure several times a day. You know, you walk in to the den to watch tv and oh, look, you can measure your blood pressure too! And once one person does, everyone else has to as well to see who "wins" with the lowest blood pressure and heart rate. No, my family is not competitive. (My dad always wins overall, although my brother doesn't play this fascinating game very often. Wonder why.)

Anyway, we were doing this (AGAIN) today after lunch and, of course, my dad won on the heart rate and I beat him out with my fabulous blood pressure. (You should hear our excuses for losing: I've been chasing the cats around! I just ate! The phone ringing scared me!) Not being competitive, I have made a promise to beat him completely in March. I actually think this is physically impossible because he is in pretty good shape and women tend to have higher heart rates than men anyway. But, I am going to work on it and see if I can decrease my heart rate any (yesterday morning after breakfast but before I had moved around too much, it was 88). I don't really have to work on blood pressure, because I always win the blood pressure round (today it was something like 111/77 in the 2nd match).

So. I have told my dad that he must vegetate for the next 3 months. He may not even rock the chair when he watches tv. Ha! Which is a joke, and he's going to be riding his bike even more regularly now so he might beat me in both categories. Grr.