Week 4

So that is another week complete as I move to week 4 of my "comeback". Last week was 4 runs, 28 miles. Included a two mile stretch at a blistering 7:50 pace! Plus two runs on the trails. This was the view on yesterday's trail run, which was just over 9 miles.....

This was about 2,300 feet, off Monte Bello Road, near Ridge Winery. A warm day but nice on the trails.

Still haven't lost much weight, I think I may be drinking too much Belgian beer!

Plan to see if I can get to 30 this week on 4-5 runs.

Week 3

Still going with the every other day thing. Even managed to do a 7 miler with some hills last week, still all slowly though.

Was in the redwoods yesterday so ran on the real trails, in Henry Cowell State Park near Santa Cruz. A cool, wet, misty morning, on beautiful trails, lots of hills. Felt great to be out in the woods again after so long.

It's still a slog, but it's beginning to slowly come back. Now I have lost 2 pounds, it's not coming off very quickly. Maybe I will need to stop drinking so much beer.

Week Two

Well, last week went OK - ran 4 times (M/W/F/Sun). Not far (~20 miles) and certainly not fast but I did stick to the every other day plan. Will attempt the same this week.

Lost 1 pound! So now I am just way over weight. Being anal(ytical) about things like this I have data for mileage and weight for the last 6 years when I started running. This diagram shows the strong relationship between miles run (top chart is monthly miles) and body weight (bottom chart is daily weight).

Looks like the weight starts to drop when I get to about 140 miles/month and then really falls off when I get up to 200+. Of course, when I get injured, stop running but continue to eat tons of crap it skyrockets.

Tomorrow I am going to run again, and see if I can run a mile under 8 minutes without anything falling off.

Run #2

Amazingly, I ran again today. Another 6+ miles, this time a little hillier and on some trails. Was very nice to get out into the hills after such a long break. Very slow, and legs are a little sore from Monday's run. I guess that is what you get for being a lard ass for an extended period of time.

I'm still here. Sure, I'm fatter and slower, but still here!

Alright, time to catchup. Running has petered out to the extent that I ran once in the last 2 months for a total of under 3 miles. Weight is up to 168lbs, highest I have been since 2004, two years before I started running. Basically a combination of work business, injury and idleness stopped things. Yearly mileage to date for 2012 is 132 miles. At my peak I got close to that in a week!

Here's the last 7 year totals....

Highlights, if they can be called that, since the last update include:

• December - Vegas half marathon - 1:43 - 20 minutes off my PR
• January - Miami half marathon - 1:49 - 26 minutes off my PR (2 minutes/mile) - this one was run drunk after 2 hours sleep. bad idea.
• Just started playing tennis - I am new to that sport and my lack of skill combined with my lack of fitness makes me truly awesome!

So today i decided it was time to get back into it before I balloon to 400 pounds. I am not working this summer, so really have no excuse. Now I must admit that it took me a while to find my shoes, and remember how to tie the laces but after a slight delay I was off! Managed to drag my butt a little over six miles at a very pedestrian pace. But with that one run I have surged ahead of my total combined mileage for May and June. One more run and I could be ahead of April!

Plan is to run every other day, just 4-6 miles until it feels not completely horrible, and then I'll add in extra days and miles the the extent my crumbling body permits. Not sure how long it will take to get back in shape since it's been 13 months since I was running properly.

If I am consistent I should hopefully be able to shed some of my lard quickly, which will help simply because I will have less to carry when I run! (I am about 25 pounds up on the weight when I was really fit). Target is under 160 by end of August. 1 pound lost is about 3,500 calories burned, which is about 30-35 miles running, so 8 pounds is about 250 miles. So 25-30 miles/week should do it.

Then I will only need to lose another ~15 pounds......