The Dog Days...

Got up and managed to hit the pavement this morning for a nice 40-minuter. I'm realizing more and more that the worst part is just getting out of bed in the morning. If I can make it out the front door, I'm almost immediately glad that I got out there and am getting it done. Gotta keep working on this in the coming days and months. Also jumped out at lunch and finally joined the gym, so hopefully in the days to come I can start going over there for lunch instead of eating for shite.

Had a breakfast burrito since I was out of the usual morning stuff, and killed off a small McD's cheeseburger (no really, the small one and that's it; no fries, no shake, no cherry pie, etc.) and a Keva smoothie for lunch, and then two slices of pizza for dinner. At some point I should probably think about adding up calories just to see what's going on. Thankfully, Saturday's trek alone will probably erase about a day's worth of eating.

Another day lost

Alarm went off bright and early this morning, but just couldn't seem to get my arse moving early enough. Just made it to work as it was. Thought about hitting the pavement after work, but it was still so freakin' hot at 8:00 and I was starving so...try again manana.

Usual breakfast, 6" turkey subway at lunch, one of those charity candy bars midafternoon (c'mon, it was for charity), then a turkey/cheese wrap w/some milk for dinner. What an exciting life, no?

And is that countdown clock nearing the hundred day mark making anyone else a little nervous?

Up & Downer

Rolled out this morning and hit the pavement first thing. Legs felt a little tired most of the way, but turned out I was also running a bit faster that normal training run pace, so I guess that made sense. Running around my little corner or downtown is getting a bit tedious, so I'm going to have to start mixing it up and crossing some major streets it seems.

Breakfast was the usual, but knew ahead of time lunch was going to be my downfall. My new co-workers, one in particular, has fascination with a local Chinese buffet, and not one of the nicer ones. As you might imagine, I had too much orange/General Tso's chicken to be good for me, but at least I stayed away from the desserts. And the enchiladas (yeah, you read that right). Dinner was some hamburger helper with salad and a piece of pita bread. Went to bed a bit hungry, and that can't be a bad thing.

CS is apparently melting in the Colorado heat wave...

Rest Day...I guess

This morning came much too early and it was hard enough just getting out of bed in time for work, let alone for 50 minutes of running beforehand. Pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't run after class either, so looks like I'm in for three straight days of training runs this week. Gotta get it done, because that Saturday of 14 is looming large.

Back on the path with the usual breakfast minus the string cheese, but supplemented with a banana and two sample size Lara bars that have been floating around since the Colfax Half. Had a citrus salad with a chicken breast at the Elephant Bar that was actually pretty good, considering chicken was closer to jerky; the walnuts, dried cranberries and bits of bleu cheese did the trick. Had a couple of Hershey's kisses mid-afternoon and a string cheese before class. And finally for dinner, killed a small portion of leftover spaghetti, a ciabatta roll made into garlic bread, a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter and some bits of beef jerky...really scavenging, apparently.

Gonna try and start sawing logs before 11 so I can hope to drag my arse outta the rack 5ish tomorrow. Try to put off that whole "road to hell..." adage for at least one day.

Wonder if CS is ever coming back?

Welcome to the Swamp

NM is so freakin' humid right now, I long for the comfortable summer days I spent in DC. My clothes, the carpet in the house, even the bed all feel damp all the time, and I'm already dreading the coming electric bill after listening to the swamp cooler labor away non-stop for days. Makes doing any exercise outside that much more unpleasant, too. Thankfully, I didn't do squat in that vein on Sunday. Slept in, had a makeshift breakfast burrito for (late) breakfast, a few pieces of candy during the day, and a small cheeseburger with some pasta salad and watermelon for dinner. Maybe I can drop weight by just not eating, because going outside after 9am really sucks.

Can't wait for the 14 miles this Saturday...

Making like MacArthur

I have returned! The bronchitis has proven to be a much more tenacious foe than I expected, and because of it I haven't gotten in a good run in over a week. But today I'd had enough and decided I'd be damned if I was going to miss another Saturday run with the group. Bounced my fat arse out of bed at 0530 and met everyone at Tramway & Central an hour later for a leisurely 8 miles up to Comanche and back (and I do mean "up to Comanche"). In all, not too bad given that I hadn't run in a week and a half and was still coughing and hacking my way through the run (especially at the end). Beautiful overcast morning running along the base of the mountains with the clouds spilling over them. Only wish next week's 14(!!) was going to be in the same conditions. One thing worth noting: bought some Cytomax the other day since it's the drink sponsor for SA, figuring it'd be good to get used to it before the big day. Had heard that it was high in sugar and should only be used for really long runs, but still wasn't prepared for it this morning. The stuff is like drinking soda syrup. I'll be cutting the mix in half next week in the hopes that it'll be palatable, but wasn't too happy with it today.

After the run went to Flying Star to talk with other folks about San Antone plans, had a large OJ, a fruit/yogurt/granola parfait and half of girlfriend's bagel. Felt pretty proud of myself as everyone else was having eggs, potatoes, sausage, toast, etc. around us. See if I can do as well for the rest of the day.

Gotta admit, I missed the running.

Water World

Wife and I + 2 headed north to Water World today - we left the little little one home with Papa. Had a blast! Weather was great, it wasn't too crowded, were with some great friends and had FUN. I didn't get in a workout this AM, however unless I was sliding down a slide or floating in a river, I was on my feet and moving. I was also playing Sherpa and dragging tubes up hill...you know how that gravity thing works! I ate well with reasonably healthy snacks. We did stop at Taco Bell for dinner, but I ate off their diet menu for a total of 490 cal. I'm pretty proud of how today went.

Tomorrow kid #1 and I head off for a short little camping and playing trip!!! I should burn some calories and since I won't be taking up bad stuff to eat...I won't be able to eat badly.

The facts, nothing but the facts

Here it is, plain and simple: one pound equals 3500 calories burned (over calories brought in). The average male burns between 2500 and 3500 calories a day just staying alive (I'd put us closer to the 3500 mark). That means if I input, aka. eat, 2000 calories worth of food today I'll come out 1500 calories ahead. This means that in 2.5 days, I'll drop a pound. If I work out, take the stairs, play with kids, cut the grass, I might burn 5000 calories today and if I only eat 1500 calories, well then I lose one pound. That's essentially how the fatboys on the Biggest Loser lose so much weight. Many of them are burning 9000 -12000 calories a day and only putting in 3000-5000. That's a difference of + 7000 calories, or almost two pounds per day.

Of course you need calories, aka. energy, to burn calories and give yourself the required strength to workout, cut the grass, take the stairs etc.

The premise of weight lose is simple...now why can't I do it?

Quest for mono

So got up this morning to go to work and had a mild sore throat, but actually felt pretty good. Spent the night coughing, but I was finally coughing the junk out. The hot, steamy shower felt great and I was already thinking about trying to get in a training run after class.

By lunchtime I could tell something was wrong. Took the rest of the day off, came home, had two cups of tea with honey and went down for a nap. Woke up and felt like total arse. And it only got worse.

My throat is so sore, my ears hurt. Went to the doc; says I've got laryngitis and bronchitis. No work tomorrow, maybe none Wednesday, no running, no talking. Only good part is that when you can't swallow, you can't eat. Remind me: the next time Lisa says she's sick, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!

I really want to go for a run...

Back on track...

...at least for today. Got in an awesome 90 minute workout this moring - yes NM, that would be at 6:30 this morning!

1 slice of toast for breakfast, a small salad for lunch (with a few bites of the kid's left over pizza) and despite going to Old Chicagos for dinner, I had a piece of grilled chicken with steamed vegitables...nada mas! No snacks today either! Of course it helps that there is absolutey no food in this house, compliments of being out of town 5 of the last 6 weekends (and 2 of the next 3).

Let's hope it can last.

Bummer 1 and Bummer 2

I forgot to mention that I accomplished a first in my competitive running career last week. I came in last place in my age group. Despite this being my third running season, I appear to be going in the wrong direction. Now I wasn't last, just last in my age group, but still....it sucks!

The other bummer - my Monday weigh in. Despite it being almost a month to the day since my last weigh in, I'm headed in the wrong direction (see a pattern here?).

Weekend in Eastern Colorado

WTF - are you going to come down with mono next? My 6th graders don't even get pink eye (they used to get lice, but that was at a different school). Jemez dam road is pretty straight and lonely if I remember correctly, you could have run it with your eyes closed...puss.

Didn't run at all this weekend but I did drive from Col Sprgs 2.5 hour east and then 1 hour north to the spectacular town of Wray, Colorado. After the reunion we proceeded to drive another 90 minutes NW to Ft. Morgan, CO. the we got to do the 2.5 hour drive all the home today. Did I mention it was about 185 degrees in treeless, mountainless, shadeless eastern CO this weekend? That part sucked...as did my eating.

In case I needed more motivation, I didn't go swimming at the reunion because - you'll never guess this - I didn't want everyone to see my fat shirtless self out there. After scouting the area (the kids and wife all swam, I hung with the little sleeping one) I realized I was probably the fattest one at the pool - country boys are skinny!

Nice job on hitting the 280's!!!!

Grade-school days flashback

So this morning's run was a 12-miler along the Jemez Dam Road. Out past the San Felipe Casino, it was a 6 mile out and back from the dam itself, relatively downhill to start, and obviously uphill on the way back. It was a beautiful morning, with a great view of the mountains the whole way, the area and the air cleansed by the monsoon rains the night before. At least that's the way it was supposed to be, anyway.

I, however, spent the morning in the urgent care. Came home early Thursday and Friday afternoons because I was plainly coming down with a cold: sore throat, light headed/dizziness (probably a fever). First thought that a training run on Thursday would chase the faint bug out of me but that was not a wise choice. I felt really bad after that. Then Friday, the chest congestion. No big deal, right, so why the trip to the doc pm Saturday? Because I woke up at 4 something-ish on Saturday morning with the pinkeye. Yeah, that's right, THE FREAKING PINKEYE. Who gets the freakin' pinkeye? Ten year olds, that's who. I HATE the pinkeye. Of course, the fact that I spent all of last weekend with my girlfriend's sister who had, you'll never guess, a cold and the pinkeye, might have something to do with my current condition. So, between not being able to breathe right and not being able to open my eyes without the use of an industrial strength chemical solvent, I missed the run today.

But, dammit, sure would have been nice to get out there today.

Friday on the Peak

To sum up today: workout good - eating bad. The plan was to go up Pikes Peak to do some altitude work for next months race. One problem, the road was closed for the auto race practice. Instead I went to Crystal Res. and ran around the lake for about 45 minutes and then went and watched the Hill Climb practice for about 30 minutes before they opened the road. Once up I got two hours of work above 13,000 ft.

Now for the bad part. Sonic for lunch and Red Robin for dinner...nuff said. Stuff like that pisses me off. More bad news is that we're off to a family reunion tomorrow which is sure to include chips, cookies, and other bad picnic food. I'll do my best, keep your fingers crossed.

NM- how far is this weekends run?

Where have I been???

My bad, my very very bad! I realize I've been MIA for a few weeks now (this whole summer vacation thing doesn't lend too well for me keeping any sort of routine). Let me summarize the past few weeks: poor eating - little exercise. Not necessarily the formula for success.

Here are my workouts - as best I can remember:

7/13 - Barr Trail Mtn Race - 12 miles = I did OK, about 4 minutes off of last year's time, with most of the loss coming on the downhill.
7/5 - 1:40 run up and down the ski slopes/bike trails at Keystone - at elevation
7/4-7/6 - lots of little bike rides with Amy, don't worry NM, we didn't do the Dillon loop - saving that one for you! We did ride into Dillon and somehow emerged right in front of the brewery??? imagine that. Since it started raining we had to put the bikes on the bus and ride back to KS.
pre-7/4 - some treadmill work and a great 10 mile run with...... you'd never guess.

I actually think I'm going to start my marathon training prior to the Ascent. I'll still do my altitude work and my long weekend runs will be summits to the top, but I'm going to switch my weekday runs from treadmill incline power hikes to actual runs. My lack of running was evident this weekend as my legs, even on the downhill, didn't want to move!

I've also got to get back on the eating better bandwagon.

I'm afraid to weigh myself, therefore there is no new weight posted. I'll do it Monday.

Long time, no habla

So it's been a week, and it's been mighty quiet from both NM and CS. CS came down last week, negating some of the purpose of this little endeavor, but it's good to be disciplined, so I'm going to try and get this thing going again.

Since last post, only got in 2 of the training runs last week, but still ran the 10 miler on Saturday (CS ran a couple extra coming back after he was finished to help drag my happy arse along). Got in the first training run of the week in on Monday night (running at 9ish is still less than ideal...if no other reason that it's still freakin' hot out) and just got back from run #2 a few minutes ago. Glad to know I've only got the one left to do this week. And since I'm going to be out of town this weekend, already looking for a suitable trail run to replace the one I'll be missing here.

Eats: too much has passed in the last week, some of it best forgotten for our purposes here, so I'll just start again with today's comidas.

That ticker up in the corner of the page is starting to make me nervous.