Racing Weight

At the start of last 2011, I weighed about 150 pounds (10 st 10, 68 kg). After years of figuring things out, I finally managed to gradually drop that to about 145 pounds (10 st 5, 66 kg) by the end of the year, without dieting or any other silly stuff. My reward was a year of fantastic progress with new PBs all over the shop; while improved training has much to do with this, carrying fewer pounds had an impact as well, I am in no doubt.

I was hoping this trend would continue, but not much luck yet. The arrival of lent came as a welcome excuse to partake in this quaint ritual again, even though I am not religious. For the third year in a row I am cutting out processed sugar from my diet, with the lack of chocolate being a particularly tough cross to bear (and the fact that I ended up creating some great desserts the other night for the rest of the family was a particularly cruel twist of fate). Anyway, cutting out sugar has worked spectacularly well the last 2 years with the weight dropping off my frame quickly and effortlessly, but so far all I have to show for it are sugar cravings, not weight loss. Maybe I am just impatient, one week is nothing in the great scheme of things, but when you’re having cravings and the end of the slog is not anywhere in sight, a little bit of progress would be nice.

By the way, I have read the book of the same name. I found it a good read but not too helpful; I guess my weight was already too low and my diet disciplined enough for generic suggestions to be of much use.

Anyway, running is much more fun than dieting. Donadea is still in the legs but last week’s easy mileage helped a lot and recovery is going well. While I never was sore, there was a certain “heavy legs” feeling. That pretty much went away on Tuesday; the first 2 miles of that run were the same, then all of a sudden I felt better with each step and was flying on the way home. Running was fun again.

I won’t kid myself and pretend to be fully recovered. 50 km take a bit longer to get out of the system, but I felt sufficiently encouraged to try some sort of workout on Tuesday. The plan was mellow enough, just 12 miles at 7:15 pace, and despite the breezy conditions it felt so easy that I inadvertently overshot the target and ran 7:10 pace instead. No problem, that’s close enough and the legs are perfectly fine. Maybe the nice mornings are helping, it’s a nice change from all the rain we seemingly had all winter.

And of course it’s Ballycotton on Sunday. Maybe it’s not the best preparation for Connemara, 4 weeks later, but I can’t miss it, it has become too much a fixture in my calendar – despite me saying I would not do it again after my first time there.

27 Feb

8 miles, 1:03:34, 7:57 pace, HR 132

28 Feb

8 miles, 1:02:42, 7:50 pace, HR 136

29 Feb

12 miles, 1:25:57, 7:10 pace, HR 147