Sunday, February 18, 2007

More snow

The ground, roads and driveway are once again covered. I'm officially sick of winter.

Snow in December is fun – you know, the whole white Christmas thing and all. And it's prettier in December, too, because all we've looked at for two or three months is dead leaves.

Snow in February is just tiresome and banal.

Today's oh-so-appropriate for weight-loss bloggers "Quote of the Day" on my Google home page is:

A waist is a terrible thing to mind.
~ Jane Caminos
Three words, Jane: Thanks for sharing!

The doll:

As I said yesterday, this pattern is from one of the little Vogue On the Go baby books. I did the ruffle around the neckline differently. The instructions said to knit a long narrow strip of garter stitch, gather it and sew it on. When I sew, I use one needle and it's usually attached to a machine. Since I'm knitting, I just picked up stitches at the lower edge of the head, then increased in every stitch every other round. A total of five or six rounds was all it took.

Invincible was pretty good, although nowadays rating a movie means how far did I get through the treadmill run before I looked at the mileage? Heh.

It was Rocky Balboa, The Rookie and The Natural but for pro football instead of boxing and baseball. When are they gonna get an old guy trying out for a spot on the Boston Celtics bench? And it was Hoosiers and We Are Marshall for heart and inspiration.

It kept me entertained for eight otherwise-boring treadmill miles. I thought I was supposed to do nine yesterday, but I looked at the wrong week of the schedule.

The first three miles, at 4.5mph, went by really quickly.
The remaining 20 laps? Not so much. The first time I looked at how far I'd gone I was on the 12th lap [they're quarter-mile laps]. So maybe the key is to just never look at the digital displays. I'm afraid that would mean I'd have to run blindfolded, and somehow that doesn't seem safe.

I slowed it down and ran the last five between 4.3 and 4.4mph, for a total of eight miles at a 13:75 pace.

Today is a rest day, but I'll probably do a weight-training session and 30 minutes walking or rowing. Next week we pick up the pace slightly and do four easy runs – 13:53 instead of 14:01 – for four miles. There is no long run at all, and no speed drills.

I'm thinking about the next race, after the Country Music Half in April. There are half-marathons in Virginia Beach Labor Day weekend, and in Huntington, WV, in November. It'll be one or the other, because they're too close together to do both. Unless, of course, I end up hating running races.

I'm not hating the training, though. It's good discipline and puts a focus on my workouts that is more than just losing weight.

Gettin' strong now ... won't be long now.

Sixty-nine days until race day.

3 comments:

Vickie said...

Now I (think) I know why so many people put towels over the controls on the treadmill! - I always thought it was so no one would know how fast they were/weren't going!

Annie said...

We actually just got snow yesterday that was able to stay more than a couple of hours. The cold temperatures already have me wishing winter was over.

Mary Christine said...

I am also a knitter (but my blog doesn't say anything about it) who is training for a half-marathon.