Monday, April 02, 2007

Crunching the numbers

First, today's Daily Candy writes:

P.S. Thanks to all you April Fools who wrote in about Friday's article on WholesomeWear.

Oh, those crazy kids.

Okay. It seems like a lot of you keep track of your accomplishments and progress with spreadsheets. My Mac and I don't have Excel, but we do have an old piece of software called AppleWorks – a suite of programs which includes a spreadsheet. When I bought the Calorie King program I abandoned the two spreadsheets I'd set up last year. Calorie King has a check-in page where you can record your weight, measurements and a journal entry. I've been using the journal entry to keep track of my running miles.

One of my AppleWorks spreadsheets tracked pounds lost, starting January 1, 2006. The other logged miles walked; I started that one May 1 and stopped using both of them October 1. Incidentally, I reached my lowest weight October 1, as well. As of last Tuesday I'm seven pounds heavier than I was six months ago.

Sigh. Moving on!

I downloaded NeoOffice last week, which includes a spreadsheet program. I haven't even launched the program yet, but it's been recommended to Mac users as a nifty office suite, and it's free. I'm all about free! In the meantime, my Mac and I have a little calculator widget that comes in handy when I feel the urge to figure out just how many miles I actually have run lately. I started the half-marathon training January 22, but I started tracking my mileage January 1. So here's how it stacks up, walking and running, for the year:
I'm not surprised that the average minutes per day has stayed the same. I've done very little exercise above and beyond what's recommended on the training schedule. In fact, I skipped four days in March because I was sick, so this month's numbers might have been slightly, but probably not significantly, better had I been able to get those days in.

I'm thrilled that my pace is getting better as time goes by. That's something that feels pretty static to me, but there it is in black and white – I'm
now running one minute per mile faster than I was last month.

I need to increase the number of minutes of intentional activity per day in order to lose weight. I keep remembering those two-hour gym sessions, back when I lost weight 10 years ago. The increase in minutes doesn't need to be – and probably shouldn't be – road work. More weight training would be most beneficial all the way around.

My day yesterday ended up being in the car and at the mall – no intentional exercise at all, but it was a scheduled rest day anyway. I accomplished everything I set out to do and got home in plenty of time for the opening pitch at 8 p.m.

I was sound asleep by 8:30. And then, woke up completely at 3:30 a.m., ready to start the day. So here I am. I need to run four miles today and I think I'll make it an interval session. Obviously I have plenty o' time to play around with the dumbells and barbells and weight bench, oh my!

Still no update from Lainey herself, but it's so cool that Shauna was there to see her cross the finish line! I can't wait to hear all the juicy details.

Obviously my little cheerleading from the Middle of Nowhere will not reach Atlanta. But just in case: Go, Bucks!

Twenty-six days until race day.

1 comment:

denise said...

Not to worry. I'm in Atlanta and I've relayed your "Go Bucks" message. So, even from the Middle of Nowhere, it made it!

Being a PSU grad, I'm no big Buckeye fan, but I'm definitely anti-gator, so I 2nd the cheer!