Mid February update

Time for an update for the last 2 weeks. It has been a good couple of weeks. I have been able to run every day that I have had scheduled and have been able to put in the mileage I wanted overall. I put in 40 miles last week which is more weekly mileage than I have ran in many, many years. My weight dipped under 200 pounds this week for the first time in 16 years. I came in at 199.6. I reviewed some of my old records and I believe this is the first time I have been under 200 pounds since 1995. I am optimistic that I will continue to drop about 2 pounds a week until I get closer to my ideal weight goal. I am sure that the closer I get to that goal the slower the weight will come off.

Yesterday I needed to run 21 miles in order to get to my 40 mile goal for the week. My schedule was for 20 miles, however I ran short a mile on Thursday due to having an appointment I needed to be at and just ran out of time. It definitely felt good psychologically to put in that much mileage in a single run, but today I am very sore. I'm sure this will pass very quickly and I will be back at it tomorrow morning.

I am still very slow but am getting a little faster as I drop more weight. I feel that I should be able to start doing some speed work in a month or so to help get my time down. Right now building mileage is the most important element of my training. Once my mileage is to where I need it to be I will start doing some speed work. My work situation is still out of control. I hope it settles down very soon, right now it occupies my thoughts 24/7. During yesterdays long run all I did was think about work the entire time. I do believe that if I can get my work situation under control it will definitely help me with my training and my ability to hit my running goals.

February begins and so does the freeze!

This morning as I rolled out of bed to do my Tuesday morning run the temperature on the web for South Jordan read 18 degrees. With that in mind I wore my warmest gear and headed out the door. I did 4 miles this morning and just about froze! When I got home and explored further, with wind chill in South Jordan the temperature was 1 degree. Tonight is supposed to get down to about 0 so unfortunately I will be running on a treadmill tomorrow morning.

The last 2 weeks have gone well with my training, last week I put in 36 miles, and have also done well with sticking to my diet. Unfortunately I have not lost as much weight as I had hoped. I was shooting for being at 200 lbs today, but am at 203.5. I guess I should be happy with dropping about 2 pounds a week but with my healthy diet and mileage I expected more. Maybe as my body realizes that I really am changing how I eat my weight will start to come off a little faster. I should still easily be able to be down to 180 by June 1st but was really hoping to be there by the middle of April. We'll just have to see how it goes. Work continues to be extremely stressful and that may play a role. I am optimistic that work will improve over the next 6 weeks but right now it is all consuming.

I am shooting for 36 to 38 miles for this week and then 40 miles for next week. Hopefully that will knock off some of those extra lbs.