Friday was a nice day. It didn’t quite start out that way, though. I had planned to get up and do five miles in my quest to burn some extra calories, but I ended up oversleeping. I thought about trying for five anyway, but then I decided I’d just do four and allow myself to relax a bit, since I had a little extra time for four miles. However, as it turns out, I was feeling pretty good and ended up with not just a good run, but a great run:
I’ve had faster miles (not many), but that’s the fastest one with this watch, and definitely one of my fastest overall. It was also my fastest four miles since last summer! So, yay!
Later that day, my sister-in-law and I had a girls night at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
We spent 3 hours strolling through the American and European galleries, and it was great fun. 🙂
By Saturday morning, after a week of no chocolate and no wine ( 😮 ), I was ready to earn some activity points to enjoy later that night. Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn’t so obliging. It was pouring rain! And yet, despite the fact that I hate running in the rain, I did try…I stepped outside with the intent to brave it, because I really wanted to run 10 miles, but there was just no way. The rain was driving down in sheets, propelled by strong winds sustained in the 20 mph range! I just couldn’t do it, so instead, I headed out to the barn and–ugh–ran on the treadmill. My intent was to do 8 in there, and maybe then I could do the last two on the road if the weather had died down after that time.
I set the ‘mill at 11:43. Yes, that’s really slow, but it was supposed to be an easy run, and I figured I was allowed to be lazy since I was making the effort to run despite the weather. I was surprised to find that my Garmin had me going at around a 10:45 pace. WTH? The Garmin has an internal “gyroscope” (is that the right word?) that’s supposed to act like a foot pod and calculate my stride. I understand being a little off, but a full minute?? Huh?? As I neared the 7-mile mark, an hour and 20 minutes later, my Garmin was telling me I was at almost 7.5! And then…the treadmill died. Turns out that when you run long distances on the treadmill in the summer, it can overheat. :/ So now I was a mile short of my original goal, to say nothing of the two miles I had planned to do on the road. I went outside and holy crap, it was brutal.
Still raining and twenty-six mile an hour winds: those are nothing to sneeze at, dude. But I was bound and determined to get to 8, at least, and I ran a mile in those winds (and the rain, which thankfully had died down a little.) It wasn’t fun, and there was no way I was going to do another two, so eight it was. At least I did it! I did enjoy my wine that night, let me tell you. 🙂
However, I would like the record to show that I have not had any chocolate in over a week!! And guess what?
I lost 2.4 pounds this week! Now, I know some of it was just from having eaten all that shortcake the night before my last weigh-in, but I figure cutting out the chocolate has to be doing me some good. Surprisingly, it does get easier after a while. I don’t find myself craving it quite so much. (Don’t get me wrong, I still crave sweets, just not necessarily chocolate.) I won’t keep this up forever, but I figure if I’m not dying without it, I might as well keep it up. Now, if I could just lay off the Breyer’s sugar free ice cream. 😉
Being back near 125 is better than I was, that’s for sure, but I definitely want to get back down to 120 again. I know I can do it. I did it back in March for one brief, shining moment. Was it a fluke? A product of the height of marathon training? I don’t think so. I definitely feel better after a week of no chocolate and minimal wine. (Hmmm…I avoided wine all week and then had three and a half glasses on Saturday…is that considered “minimal consumption”? 😉 ) Ah whatever. 🙂 One week–one day–at a time, right??
This is getting long, so I’ll post the hockey update next time. Thanks so much for reading!
PS: Our June rain total, according to my weather station (which is very expensive and very accurate), is 7.47 inches. The average June rain total around here is 3.52 inches. *thud* So yeah, we’ve had a lot of damn rain!! Please pray that my tomato plants survive.
