100 miles

I reached 100 miles for the month of June. First time since before the marathon - in October 2007.

The weight is kind of stagnating, if not going up a little. A little frustrating. Seems as if I'm going have to give up eating the way I do. (i.e. out of control!) Not happy about that...

I started to work on a training plan for the marathon. I've been good with the long runs, and even doing a little tempo here and there. But the thought of driving out to the track to do intervals is less appealing. Hard to do it with all my early hours these days. And the evenings on the track are impossible - too packed with people going for strolls!

In other news I went for a bike ride today. First time in three years I believe. I need to get a bike...

Upset

I've been really good, and yesterday my weight had reached a milestone I've been waiting for. However, it was the morning after my Sunday long run, and I refused to count it until I was there for two days in a row. Unfortunately, last night I had a family wedding...

Once the food is in front of me, I have no control. I specifically did not come early, so as to avoid the pre-ceremony "shmorg". I was kind of counting on the actual dinner being unimpressive, as it often is at these events. Nope. When I want the food to be bad, I'm of course disappointed.



Dessert didn't help either.


Part of this weight tracking is this obsession with weighing myself. Since I showered before the wedding, I stepped on the scale once I was in the bathroom. Over the course of 4 hours I was gone for the wedding, I gained 4.5 pounds! Ugh. The next morning's official weigh-in was three pounds up from the day before. So upsetting...

Sigh...

In iPod news, since the shuffle seemed to be working I took it out for my run on Sunday. I had a few things going on in the hospital, so I had my phone with me. The shuffle was working until about 3 miles in, when I got a phone call. I paused the shuffle, and then couldn't get it restarted. So annoying, since I had another 9 miles planned! In the end, I plugged my headphones into my blackberry, and was able to listen to music at least.

I was able to use it for an hour trip to Brooklyn yesterday, and a 45 minute trip back. Today, it worked fine on my run. So temperamental. I'm hoping to get the clip plus delivered tomorrow (super-saving delivery from Amazon is super-slow!) and so this might have been my last run with the shuffle.

Since I know you're all dying to know what happens, I'll keep you posted. :)

Running "Naked"

I've had iPod troubles. My last 5 or so runs have been "naked", that is without any music or podcasts. It hasn't been too bad, but on several of those occasions I had been expecting the entertainment, and it failed at he last second. That's kind of annoying.

I had a 2nd generation shuffle, which just stopped working out of the blue. I couldn't charge it for days, and then suddenly one day it charged. (I have a replacement charging connector, and I wasn't sure if it was the connector or the shuffle.) Anyway, once I charged it up, I took it out for a run. Nothing. I assumed the battery was dead.

So I order a new player. (Sandisk Clip Plus. I'm Interested to try a non-iPod out.) In the meantime, I've had an old first generation shuffle sitting around the apartment. I bought it as an extra gift many years ago, and then never ended up using it. So I charge it up, load up some songs, and charge it fully overnight. The green light was on. Today I took it out for a run - nothing. Couldn't get it to start.

Strange this is, that when I get back home, the thing works fine. I'm so intrigued that I check out the original shuffle as well. Wouldn't you know, that works fine too. I even took it with me to work, listening to it on the commute both ways. No problem. So weird.

In the meantime, to make things even worse, my amazon order for the new player has been delayed. Halfway through my order being filled, my credit card account was compromised. They closed the account and sent me a new card. The credit card people said the amazon charge would still go through, but today I get an email that there's a problem. Sigh...

Anyway, now I have two players that work. At least in the house. And hopefully the new one next week - which I'm looking forward to. It comes with 2gb for 29 bucks, and I have another 2gb microSD card hanging around. And so, I'll quadruple my current mp3 capacity. This will allow me to put podcasts and music on the same player. I just hope it's not too much of a pain using a non-iPod. I've been using iTunes all these years...

In other news, I put in two short runs this week. 4 on tuesday, and 5 today. I ran today as a slow tempo, just under a 9 minute mile, but no stops. Felt pretty good.... Hope to go nice and long on the weekend. On call Saturday, so hopefully that won't be on no sleep like the last time.

Diet was looking good early in the week. (I skipped the all you can eat!) Took a bit of backward step today, but I ate a lot last night. I weigh myself in the mornings, and so eating at nght really hurts me. (At least it kept me from eating the M&M's in front of me at work today.) I hope to be hitting a major milestone soon, so I'm still sticking to things most of the time.

Sauna Suit Stupidity

My legs have been sore lately. I think trying to "catch up" my long run after I missed it for the race, was a bad idea. In any case, I took an "easy" day and only ran 10 miles. Feels funny to say that, but the last few weeks have been 11, 12, and 13. Each week the last few miles have been tough, and so today's 10 actually seemed relatively easy. I think it was a good move.

Hypothetically, if I would be starting the FIRST program in a few weeks, I'd start out with a 13 miler. I can already see that I'm not up to snuff to start out the program as prescribed. I don't recommend modifying it, but I may have to do that myself - though I don't expect the same results.

The diet has stalled a little as well - this wasn't a good week for me. I'm trying to get back on track, and at least I haven't really gained much.

Speaking of weight loss, I have noticed this this increasing trend lately of runners wearing these "sauna suits".

This is one of the most idiotic ideas I have seen. The fact that people believe this is helping them is insane. The only use for this is for a weightlifter or boxer to (temporarily!) get down to weight. I don't think any of the overweight "joggers" I see are using it this way. They actually believe that sweating more will lead to more weight loss. It makes me want to stop and educate each one. Firstly, it's dangerous. Second, in all likelihood it leads to less exertion, with the dehydration and overheating leading to earlier exhaustion.

For the record, in these hot summer days I try to run with as little as possible, often wearing sleeveless tops. Even with drinking I get dehydrated. On today's 10 mile run, even with my water belt, I still lost 4 pounds on the run.

I changed the title of this post, on the off chance someone will find it in a google search. If you're considering getting one of these for weight loss, don't do it! To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in. Sweating more does NOT burn calories. It only dehydrates you - which is dangerous and not lasting.

End of rant...

Bad Habits

I've been going to an all-you-could-eat sushi & chinese place for quite a few years. It's a weekly deal on Mondays. Most of the week I think I'm not going to go, but Monday afternoon I start to feel the pull.

I've tried a few tricks. First I would tell myself I'll only have sushi, which is healthy (healthier?) right? But I'd always give in to the chinese. Then I decided to try the takeout offer. Same deal, except it's not all you can eat, but rather all you can stuff into the plastic container they give you. So I took only sushi. Trouble was, it's a lot of sushi!

For a couple of weeks I was good, and managed to eat the sushi over two days. But the last two weeks I've eaten this ridiculous amount of sushi in one shot. Last night I don't even think I wanted the last few pieces. But I couldn't throw them out either.

Combined with all the soy sauce causing me to retain water, I felt terrible when I was done. This morning, I was 3.5 pounds up from yesterday, and I didn't eat that much else during the day. I can't even put that on my graph, it's so ridiculous.

Since I didn't get a long run in on the weekend, I planned to run 12 this morning. I left early, so it wasn't too hot. (Though it was still pretty hot.) I felt terrible. The first few miles were really a struggle - which I blame directly on last night's dinner.

I was going to shorten the run to 10, but by 5 I felt a little better and so I forged on to about 6 before turning around. In the end the last 2 miles were killer. I was pretty slow all day, running about 10 min miles, a little above or a little below. And I took plenty of walk breaks. But the last two miles were rough. It could be because I was back in the heat again, but I felt wiped. And so with all those calories last night, I still didn't have the energy needed for this run. It was depressing.



And for the record, though I drank 40 oz of water on the run, I was down 3 pounds just from the run. Obviously some dehydration, but I like to think that I was sweating out some of the salt as well. Actually didn't feel that thirsty when I was done, so we'll see what happens.

Anyway, old habits die hard. I'm not ready to swear off this weekly treat of mine, I just think I need to adjust a little. Maybe not stuff the container so full that I can barely snap the lid on? It's a work in progress.

I'm away from my scale tomorrow morning, so the next weigh-in will be Thursday morning. I suspect that might impact how I feel about this Monday extravaganza...