It's Cold Outside!!!

I took the plunge on Friday and signed up for a half-marathon race coming up in a couple of months. This move has kind of scared me for a few reasons.

First, I don't handle cold weather running very well. Even though the race is in May, it could still be one of those cold northeast mornings, where the temperature doesn't get out of the 50's, and starts in the high-thirties.

Second, I am still carrying around about 20-25 more lbs than I should be.

Third, I am concerned about my ability to run 13+ miles without falling apart.

I took the weekend to log about 10 1/4 miles on the treadmill (too cold for running outside this weekend), in an attempt to continue the weight loss. I also wanted to take some time on Saturday to see how far I could go in an hour. I made it just over 6.7 miles (I walked another 5 minutes after that, to get to 7.08 miles in total). That is the one thing about a treadmill. You can get more precise measures of your times and progress. However, there is a lot I don't like about them, including the fact that I don't adjust it for inclines, and I know that is something that is going to kill me, come race day.

I do intend to start going outside, and more to the point, run on some trails that will take me up and down hills. With daylight savings time coming up, I can hopefully get out after work, run, and still get home while it is still light out. And who knows, with a little luck, we may even see some days here where the weather gets above 20 degrees...

I don't know if everyone is like me, but I find that when I run on a treadmill, my mathematical mind starts to go into overdrive. I find my mind playing tricks on me, making small calculations about whether I can push the speed up to 7.3 miles an hour from 7.2, and how that could shave 1 second a minute from my time. I use these little tweaks and adjustments to help me feel like I am making progress. Also, I will look at my mile times, and compare them to previous runs, just to feel like I am getting faster, or stronger.

I do feel like I am in much better shape than on January 1, when I truly made the commitment to do this. I can go about 5 miles without stopping (on Saturday, I did this in about 42 minutes, which is a very good time for me). That's the good news.

The bad news is that I am going to need to go about 13 miles, and I have just a little over 2 months to get there. My thought is that if I can get my weight into the 220's, or perhaps even under that by race day, and I can get myself to a point where I can run about 10 miles without stopping, then perhaps by race day, my excitement, and a little luck can carry me the final 5k.

I did a shorter run today (just a 5k), and just wanted to see if I could run 2 miles in less than 16 minutes. I did it in 15:50, and just walked the rest of the time. It felt good, though, to get that old feeling of speed back.

In the upcoming blogs, I am going to have to write about the joys of losing weight, and the things I am doing to try to keep from falling into bad habits.