Last week was a bit of a slacker week for me. I was in S. FL on business.  I managed to do the two longer runs on Tuesday and Thursday of 8 and 9 miles respectively, but I slacked off on the Wednesday and skipped the recovery 5 miler.

Also, my flight back to TX on Friday got delayed and diverted to Houston and by the time I made it back to Dallas, it was close to midnight.  I decided to skip Saturday’s recovery run also.

Other than that, the week had started with an 18-miler on the Sunday and it went quite well.  I could tell that my body was able to handle it much better than the first 18-miler I ran the previous Sunday.

The week started off quite well.  I was schedule to run 17 miles on Sunday, but I felt pretty good and I decided to throw in an extra mile to make it a nice round 18-mile run.

After that, it was all downhill.  From the Monday, I started waking up with a sore throat.  Monday was a rest day, but Tuesday was a 10-mile run.  I struggled through my run and decided to call it a day after just 5 miles.

Wednesday was a 5-mile run, but I felt a bit better and decided to run an extra couple of miles making it 7 miles for the day.

I woke up Thursday feeling even worse than the previous days.  I had a 10-mile run scheduled, but I just felt too ill to go run.  I even contemplated taking a sick day from work.  My wife suggested I at least get up and take a shower and see how I felt after that.  I took her advice and I felt well enough to work, but I was sure to take cold medicine.

Friday was a rest day and I started to feel a bit better, but my throat was still bothering me.
Today was a 5-mile run, but I decided to throw in an extra rest day.  I figure the most important workout I have each week is my Sunday long run so I’ll rest today and see if my body will let me run an 18-miler tomorrow.

In the end, I managed 30 miles for the week whereas I should have run 47 miles.

I’m travelling on business next week.  Next week was supposed to be a recovery week so I’ll probably take it easy again.  Maybe I can come back from that trip fully recovered and ready to resume my training at full speed.

Today marks the end of the first year since I laced up a new pair of running shoes and started the C25K running plan. A running plan designed to take a complete couch potato and get them to the stage where they can run 5Km (3.1 miles) at a time.

I had just turned 38 the previous week and after evaluating my weight (230 lbs) and fitness, I had decided I wanted to be in the best shape of my life by the time I turned 40. I wanted to lose at least 50 lbs and I figured 2 years would be a good start. I had tried running in the past and only stuck with for 3-4 weeks. I had tried to lose weight in the past, but would usually stall after losing the first 10-15 lbs and then I would gain it back. I was determine to not repeat the cycle again this time around!

Even now when I think back to those early days, I’m amazed at how far I’ve managed to come. At the start, I could barely run 60 seconds, and now I just did an 18-mile long run this past Sunday. I was able to lose 50 lbs by the end of 2006, and while I haven’t lost any more in the last 6 months, I’ve kept it off.

Here are some of my accomplishments:

The following chart shows my daily runs since finishing the C25K plan:

The following chart shows my weekly mileage since finishing the C25K plan:

When I started running, my only goal was to lose weight. Since starting though, I have managed to set new goals for myself. I initially wanted to run a marathon around now, June 2007, but I realized that I would not be properly prepared and even though the general advice for first-time marathoners is to just finish, I can never be satisfied with that. My goal is run a sub 4-hr marathon. I don’t know if that is even a possibility, but it’s something I need to strive for and work towards.

On my long runs, I actually spend a lot of time thinking about why I’m there running and what motivates me. I think the answer is improvement. There are three ways I can improve:

• Lose weight
• Run further
• Run faster

As long as I see an improvement in one of those areas, I’m motivated to go out running the following week. In the beginning, I would see improvements in all three at the same time….oh how I miss those beginner days. Now I still see improvements, but it tends to come in just one of those areas. Today, it’s running further as I gradually increase my weekly mileage and my long runs.

The other motivating factor I have right now is knowing that every day that passes, I’m one day closer to the Chicago marathon. I can’t say that I enjoy running and as matter of fact, if given a choice between going for a run at 5 am or sleeping an extra 2 hours, I would much rather sleep the extra two hours. I’m too competitive with myself though and I know I wouldn’t be satisfied with my marathon performance unless I gave it my very best attempt.

I haven’t lost any weight recently, but this week, one year after I managed to set goals for myself to lose weight, I’m setting new goals. I really want to lose another 20lbs to get down to 160. I’m going to resume tracking everything I eat and ensure I maintain a calorie deficit so I can lose about 2 lbs a week.

Today I finished my 8th week of marathon training.  I’m now 1/3 of the way there!

This week wasn’t too bad.  I wouldn’t classify as a great week, but I think I got through it quite well.  Once again, I now have a new weekly mileage high of 45 miles.

This week was the first time I had to run 10 miles in the middle of the week.  As I mentioned recently, I noticed that on my Thursday runs, my legs just feel drained and it’s a struggle to get through it.  For this Thursday’s run, which was 10 miles, I decided to take a Gu with me.  Normally, I only take gels on my Sunday long run, but I remember it wasn’t that long ago that my Sunday long run was 10 miles and I used to take 2 gels on those runs.  I took one gel which I ate at mile-5.  It made a huge difference to me.  Right on schedule, about 1.5 miles later, I noticed I was actually running faster without even thinking about it or trying.  The gel helped me up until the last mile where I once again started to feel drained.  Next time I’ll take 2 gels.

The other change I made this week was on Sunday’s run which was a 16-mile run.  I remember from the previous week that on my 15-mile run, I actually ran out of water in the last 1/2 mile.  This time I took an extra 20 oz bottle of water which I left at a sign at a street corner that I would pass several times as I do a few loop before heading out for the bulk of the run.  Together with my water belt, I had a total of 60 oz of water.  I was much better hydrated. But probably not hydrated enough….

I decided to weigh myself before and after the run.  My net loss for the run was 7 lbs.  When you factor in the water I consumed, I sweated out about 11 lbs of water weight!!!