8 miles

I knocked out an "easy" 8 miles yesterday for my long run. It actually wasn't that bad, albeit cold, and I only stopped 3 or 4 times. 1:19:19 (without stops). Pretty good.

The amazing part?

I was thinking, around mile 6.5 when I was ready to go home, how 5 (FIVE!) years ago I was knocking out 8 milers midweek marathon training.

That made me feel a little crappy. Besides that I don't run 30+ mpw now, I'm a good 15+ lbs heavier and quite a bit slower now.

But then I got to thinking...in 5 years I've(/we've):

• bought 2 houses
• sold one
• moved three times
• had twins

• took two new jobs, then got promoted/moved to a new role at the latter

So maybe I'm really doing ok?

and on the upside, I'm pretty on track with training for my March 17 half, and its been a LONG time since I said that.

2012 review

Considering I didn't have a "good" training year, I'm pretty damn impressed with myself. I guess every mile does add up.


So far I am on mile 7 of my 1000 goal for 2013. Good thing my half training is starting for real this week...I think I'm going with (the latter 10 weeks) of Hal Higdon's Novice II.

Day 1

Ate: 42 points
Used: 12 earned activity points (6 running; 6 elliptical) and 3 weekly points.

Today's big takeaway: maybe eating two big cookies for breakfast at home (then having real breakfast at work) isn't a great idea.

On the upside,  I ran for the first time in almost a week...30 minutes, 3 miles and change (3.27?). I decided to add "Run 1000 miles" to my goals for the year. That's about 2.7/day and almost 20/week, which is ambitious for me at this point and I think a good motivator. I hit 700 in 2007 running Jan-March (half training) and July - Nov (full training)...

2013

In the spirit of looking forward, I'm not going to rehash 2012...

Here's my goals for 2013:

• Follow Weight Watchers (effective Jan 3, hah). Post-holiday weigh-in to follow tomorrow...
• Lose 25ish lbs by July 7 (my 32nd birthday...that's a bit under 1 lb/week)
• Defend my dissertation proposal
• Complete the IRB process
• Do interviews for proposal
• Complete a first and second draft of dissertation
• Run a 2 hr race at the NYC Half March 17
• PR at the Ridgewood 10k Memorial Day (57:xx?)
• Complete the Warrior Dash in August
• Run the NYC Marathon in November
• Don't buy any clothes/shoes until July (unless I need a new pair of jeans...) and then stick to a $600 budget for the remainder of the year
• Do one kid-centric family activity out of the house each weekend

I might come up with a couple more...

holiday tipping

I'm kind of a cheapskate, but the internetz (and Emily Post?) tell me that some people tip mailmen, garbage men, and other similar service people...

A woman on a message board I follow was nice enough to tip her mailman (I've never even met our mailperson, so sorry if you're out there, no tip for you) and this is the thanks she got.

I'll stick with tipping my hairdresser (and a special tip to daycare for the holidays).

first week

So my first week of weight watchers was a mixed bag.
Downside: no weight loss. I actually was down 1.5 lbs on Friday, but then ran out of "extra" points and didn't track all weekend. fail. so back to where I started.

Upside: I've determined my HUGE issue is I eat almost no fruits and veggies and a SHITTON of candy and other assorted bad for you things. Omg. I don't even LIKE candy that much.

So here is my December goal:
(pretending this weekend didn't happen)
Stick within my WW points (including activity and weekly) for the entire month.  I'd like to aim to lose 5% of my weight (about 8.5 lbs) by Jan 1, but I know that is a stretch.. so sticking with points will be it for now!

Turket Trot

My dad and I (and my mom and a friend of mine) did our annual Thanksgiving 5k this past weekend. We started running it in 2009 (I even managed to blog about it in 2010).  I ran it in 29:02 (on my watch, the chip times were all screwed up. I didn't run a 23:xx nor did my mom do a 40:xx (she did come in under 50 minutes though which is a huge PR for her, not that she keeps track...).

It's a great race, sizeable (at around 2k runners) for a local run, if crowded at the start. I can't blame the runners for me time (ok, maybe for 30 seconds of it). I can only blame myself, my walking on the hills and my lack of general training.

In other news I started weight watchers today.