Mechanical Failure(s)

Let’s start out with some good news:  I got new running shoes!

They’re purple, Jenn.  Just for you. 😉

I’m not a big fan of buying clothes, and shoes kind of fit into the “clothes” category to me.  However, these shoes have a purpose besides just looking good, so I finally broke down and spent $105.99 on them.  I had a coupon that expired on Tuesday, and you know how good deadlines are for forcing action, so…new shoes for me!

DS#1 took these pictures, and he was quite funny about it, making me do all kinds of different poses with the shoes.  I think he might fancy himself a fashion photographer. 😉  He and I went for a run right afterwards, which allowed him to wear his new Under Armour gear (a Christmas present he requested) for the first time on an outside run.

The picture of him in his gear didn’t turn out, but suffice it to say he loves it. I think it makes him feel like a cool athlete, especially when he wears it under his hockey gear. He says it also keeps him nice and warm when he’s on the ice!

So, that was the good news.  The first piece of bad news relates to my Garmin footpod.  I’ve had this thing for a year, but I have been unable to get it to track accurately when using my treadmill.  It seemed to think I was running 8-minute miles.  Um, no.

I mentioned it to my friend Katie when we ran last week, and she asked how fast I’d been running when I’d calibrated it.  I then had a forehead-slap moment where I realized that I had calibrated it back when I was still walking.  Well, that might make a difference!  So last Monday, when I bought my new shoes, I happened to be near my old high school, and I thought I’d take a few moments to recalibrate it at my high school track. Did it matter that I was still wearing my work clothes? Heck no! 😉

After a quick pit-stop at my mom’s (thanks, Mom!), I headed over to the track and ran the required two laps around the track. I couldn’t help but take a quick self-portrait.

It’s so rare that I run with makeup and my hair done. 😉 I wish I could’ve gotten my whole body in the shot so you could see I really was in my work clothes!

I must admit, in my two laps around, I had a little bit of a reflective moment where I thought about the fact that twenty-*cough* years ago, as a high school student, there was never a time when I looked at that track and said to myself, “Maybe someday I’ll run that track…you know, for fun, not because they force me to in gym class.”  I can remember running that track a few times for gym, and I remember it being a miserable experience.  Slow, uncoordinated chubby girl, that was me.  Wish I could magically go back to age seventeen for a few minutes, to run around the track in front of my high school gym teacher. 😉

Unfortunately, despite all my hard work, the calibration seems to have gone in the wrong direction.

Yesterday morning I ran three miles at what the treadmill said was a 10:00-minute pace, but the Garmin told me I only ran 2.81 and my pace was a 10:39-ish.  Argh.  I’m not sure which is worse—being too fast or too slow!  I rarely set my treadmill at 6.0 miles per hour, because it doesn’t feel “comfortable” to me for anything longer than a mile or so, but this time, I wanted a real definitive pace to mark the footpod against, so I bumped it up.

By the time I was done, I was sweating profusely and it (the treadmill) told me my heart rate was in the 140-160 range—that seems high to me, and it definitely felt like I was running faster than a 10:39!  So…back to the drawing board.  I noticed when I uploaded all my stats this morning that the pace I ran for that two laps around the track (according to the GPS on the Garmin) was a 9:25. Maybe I ran it too fast?? I don’t know, but I’m determined to figure this out.  I’m *thisclose* to buying a heart rate monitor to use as another indicator for measuring the true accuracy of both the treadmill and the footpod.

And finally, for the other mechanical failure in my life this week.

Dude, really? Really?? Instead of losing that 1.4 pounds I gained last week, I gained another 1.4.  Yes, I consider that a mechanical failure of the scale. 😛

If I had eaten poorly, not exercised, etc., last week, I wouldn’t be so ticked, but I stayed on program, ran 12 miles, and only used one of the 22 activity points available to me.  I actually broke my own rule of only weighing myself once a week, because my Tuesday weigh-in was so disappointing (up .6) that I figured I’d try again Wednesday. Well, we see where that got me. 😛

I’m trying to stay positive and focus on continuing to just do the right things, but I can’t deny that I’m feeling rather disappointed in having a gain two weeks in a row.  I was going to say that hasn’t happened since I recommitted to the program in November 2011, but I just looked at my weight tracker and that’s not true…I had two back-to-back gains back in October/November 2012. And you know what…the week after that, I lost 2.8 pounds.  So…maybe there’s hope!

Meanwhile, I’ll heed my own advice to just take it one day at a time and remember that the scale is just one measurement. My clothes fit great and I feel really good, especially since I “officially” started half-marathon training this week, so that’s the most important thing.

We have not one but two hockey tournaments this weekend in our family (one close, one far—ugh!), so I’ll see you all on Monday—hopefully thinner, ha ha! 😉

Thanks for reading!