Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Wanna be depressed?

Here's what landed in my in-box overnight from Land's End.

I'm not ready to think about swimsuit season, thankyouverymuch, especially when I was taking photos of ice-covered dogwood limbs yesterday morning. My daughter the photographer warned me that ice was hard, and she didn't mean when you fall on it.

She was right, of course. Add to that the fact that my camera is still smarter than I am and I think I deserve credit for even posting that crappy photo.

Yesterday's training was an "easy run" of two miles at a 14:10 pace. I've been adding quarter-mile warm-up and cool-down laps to all my runs so far, and I knew that even 2.5 miles wasn't going to be much of a workout, so I also did 15 minutes on the rowing machine. Today is a "tempo run" – five miles total, including a one-mile warm-up, three miles at some insane speed in the 13-minute mile range, and a one-mile cooldown. I'm not sure I'm ready to go that fast and, in fact, I'm not even worried about finishing the race in a certain time frame.

I just want to finish it. Period. I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself, though. I really just hope I can start it! Once I get started, I'm counting on momentum to take me to the finish line.

So I'll see how it goes, running at 13:23 for three miles, and if I have to slow down or even stop, I will. I guess that's why it's called training, huh?

My recent theory that not eating after 7 p.m. will induce better sleep didn't work last night. I was wide awake at 1 a.m., and decided Harry Potter would be the key to getting back to sleep. I didn't close the book until 2:30 a.m., and woke up again at 5. I'm not going to start the evening-snack routine again, though. Better sleep was not the only reason I imposed the rule. I can certainly sacrifice the calories, considering the size of my ass.

I lost a pound this week, wonder of wonders. I love how the little eDiets graph shows your progress for the past two months and then predicts where you'll be a month from now. They've said all along that I'll lose two pounds a week, and it ain't happened yet. In 55 weeks I've lost an average of 1.48 pounds per week, and in the last two months I've lost, um, one. That's an eighth of a pound per week, but who's counting?

Still slogging away on the secret knitting project, which grows ever larger. I thought I would finish it with just one more skein, but have blown through that and am into another one. Soon, though. Only nine more very long rounds to go.

Ninety-five days until race day.

6 comments:

Jack Sprat said...

Debbi:

The last two months included the Christmas/New Years holiday! So losing weight at all is a laudable accomplishment.

I don't know if its inspiring or defeating, but when your weight is essentially stable, one takeaway is that THIS is what maintenance will be like. So you can examine your food (am I eating everything that I like/need/want) and your activity level (can I sustain this level of effort? do more? or am I ready to collapse?) and decide if they are worth it.

-J

Vickie said...

Okay - are you knitting a sleeping bag?

Lori G. said...

I like your photo; I imagine it was hard to get it in focus with the reflected light.

I really have confidence that you're going to finish it and do a fantastic job as a first timer. You'll earn that t-shirt but it's going to be so awesome.

M@rla said...

I very cleverly scheduled my race day to be almost a year away!

Anonymous said...

I have never found Harry to be sleep inducing. Plato's 'Republic', yes, but Harry Potter, not until exhaustion overtakes me.

I hope you are pleased with your times today.

Kit said...

See, I wonder about the wisdom of buying a swimsuit without trying it on first, myself... though I do love Lands'End stuff! But I want a swimsuit for those gym days I don't feel like biking or treadmill-ing, so this *could* be a better solution than the classless confectionaries they call "seasonal wear" at the local Wal-Mart.

I wanted to ask, how do you deal with hunger pangs at night? I usually eat dinner around six-thirty but I'm "snackish" again by 8 no matter what I eat. Even endless cups of herbal tea don't settle it. Any suggestions?