Marathon Pre-Training, Week 9

It was a low mileage week.  I went to the gym alone on Sunday because Kourt's ankles were hurting, took our rest day on Monday, and then skipped again on Tuesday because...  well, now I don't remember why.  Skipped again on Thursday because it was a hellish night at work and I was beyond exhausted when I got home.  Usually, I'd be all about taking out my frustrations on the cable machine and treadmill, but I barely had the energy to cook dinner when I got home and all I wanted to do was go to bed right after punching a few people. 

I didn't do that second part.

But despite only doing 4 workouts this week, the stats are as follows:

• 3.98 treadmill miles
• 2.98 outdoor miles
• 2 hours on the elliptical machine
• 3 weightlifting sessions
• 2 pounds lost

Total pre-training stats:

• 9 weeks
• 65.34 treadmill miles
• 30.34 outdoor miles
• 15 pounds lost (@ 200)

In the end, what I ended up skipping this week was just one hour on the treadmill and one hour on the elliptical -- we did all our strength training -- and the low total mileage was partly due to only having a one hour walk scheduled for Saturday.  I made up for some of the calories I didn't burn at the gym by spending Saturday afternoon turning over all the dirt in my garden bed with a small trowel.  I ended up tearing my hands up pretty good (blisters suck!), but discovered that I have a ton more stamina for that sort of thing than I did last year.  I spent nearly two hours digging the whole thing up, turning all the soil over, and didn't walk away feeling sore (except for my hands. ouch.) and worn out like I always did before.  And that was after our 3 mile walk that day.  And that, ultimately, is the point of all this diet and exercise mumbo jumbo.  I'm tired of finding that stuff I want to do wears me out.  I want to be in good enough shape that I don't have to question whether or not I can physically do things that sound fun or interesting to me.

Also, 200!  If I have anything to say about it, that leading 2 will be gone forever by the end of this week!  Now, I've been at this point before.  My previous run at weight loss in 2009 got me down to 199, but then I got cocky and never saw 198, and one year later I was back up to 220.  That is a mistake I will not be repeating.  I will be doing a super happy dance at 198, though.  And then I'll celebrate with, like, a long workout or something.

I'm feeling more and more confident about my speed, too.  I've been basically just randomly concocting different kinds of interval workouts for the treadmill to keep things interesting.  Sometimes I work in running, sometimes I concentrate on walking.  It's whatever I feel like doing when I step up to the treadmill.  This week I decided to do quarter mile walking intervals at 3.5mph, 4mph, and 4.5mph for an hour.  Previously I've put my fastest walking speed for intervals at 4.2mph so I was actually not sure if I could complete all the intervals at 4.5, but didn't have any trouble.  To do a six hour marathon my average speed has to be 4.37mph, and to be honest I've been worried about whether I could even get my short little legs to go fast enough to accomplish that without running.  So to be able to do 4.5 at all with just under six months to go puts me more at ease (especially considering that I should be able to take off another 30 pounds minimum by October).  My sister keeps telling me I have nothing to worry about, but this is all new to me and I can't help constantly running numbers to try and reassure myself.  I get excited when I see improvement like this, but I think I have this fear that at some point I'll hit a limit.  Like it's great that I can walk this fast now, but what if I don't improve any more beyond this?  It's silly, I know, but I have a feeling I'm going to feel less than 100% sure about this until I'm a few miles from the finish line.  And that's okay.  That's what's driving me to keep pushing myself.

In the interest of being able to see my progress, I like to have pictures of myself taken after every ten pounds or so that I lose.  I'll warn you now, what follows is pictures of a flabby 200 pound body wearing a sports bra and yoga pants.  But this is what I've accomplished:

Now with 4.7% less flab!

I do feel, though, like I've crossed some kind of line on this journey.  Now when I see people out running when I'm at work, I feel a little jealous that I'm not out there with them.  I finally understand why people run.  I certainly don't consider myself a runner by any stretch of the imagination just yet, but I have the desire to become one.  I get it.  I didn't used to.  Honestly, I never understood why somebody would go outside in the sun and the heat and do something so uncomfortable and exhausting and claim that it was fun.  And now I get it.  I've even gotten to the point where my days off don't feel right if they don't start out with a workout of some kind.  Seriously, we took a whole Friday a couple of weeks ago and declared it a lazy day.  We slept late, stayed home, played on the internet and watched TV, and I cooked a special meal.  And when all was said and done we both felt like we'd totally wasted the day.  If we get up and work with our trainer, do a morning gym session, or hit the trail, we actually spend the rest of the day doing productive things.  If we don't, we sit around feeling like lazy bums all day.  And that feeling sucks.