Ah, Reality. . .You B*tch

For those who have never experienced it, the days after a marathon (especially one where you actually met your goal) are pretty much a non-stop high of knowing you can do anything.  Anything, damn it!! 😀  It’s quite a feeling, and I do highly recommend it.  (The running 26.2 miles part…eh, not so much. ;))

Unfortunately, one discovers that, while there are a lot of things a marathon runner can do, one thing they cannot do is eat copious quantities of food and still maintain their weight.  Nope.  Definitely not.  It is, however, a lot of fun to test the theory. 😉

Last week was all about eating and not exercising.  Period.  I didn’t do any exercise whatsoever until Saturday, but I ate some good food in that time.  I already mentioned our trip to Bagger Dave’s on marathon day.  The following day, I had the world’s biggest cinnamon roll, and then I had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch…I do love me some tuna fish, but I only eat it when no one else is around, because most people hate the smell.  I don’t remember what I ate for dinner that night, but I do know I had leftover French fries from Bagger Daves as a late afternoon snack.  That was actually the first day in a long time that I didn’t track my food!

Tuesday was the day I went to dinner with my relay runners, and I had crab cakes, steak, and a chocolate cheesecake for dessert.  Day two of not tracking! By Wednesday, though, I knew I needed to get back in gear, and by this time, I’d done a meal plan and gotten groceries, so I was back to eating more healthy and tracking all my food.  And then…

…this happened:

That, my friends, is a gift from JJ’s hockey team, for all of the pictures I took last season (several thousand), and also for the DVD “highlight reel” I created at the end of the season.  And, as if a huge basket of decorated cookies wasn’t enough, they also got me a $50 gift card to my local running shop!  Most of them know I run, so that wasn’t such a stretch, but I don’t know how they knew that cookie bouquets are my weakness.  Oh, how I love them.  I got one for my 40^th birthday and I didn’t let anyone have a single cookie. 😉  I did share the cookies in this bouquet, but I can’t lie: I ate most of them. 🙂  I tracked them as best I could, but between the cookies and being totally off-plan Monday and Tuesday, I did not fair so well on the scale.

That’s a 1.8 pound gain.  Bummer.  I mean, I still ran a marathon the week before, so I know that I’m totally allowed a pass for one week, but now it’s back to reality and tracking every day and yes, even running!  There were a few times during the week when I was pretty convinced I would never run again (and I was totally okay with it!), but yes, I did eventually find myself itching to get out on the road again to see how it felt.  Saturday was the day, and I chose to run 5 miles, based on Hal Higdon’s post-marathon recovery program.

Jamie is now training for the Kona 10k (third year in a row), and we decided to let him ease back into running with a 1-miler on Saturday.  I ran four without him, at a pretty easy pace (11:20ish), and then I took a rest at home before Jamie came out and ran the final mile with me.  He did a great job, but of course, he was more energetic than me, and he really killed his mile.  I tried to stick with him for a while, but eventually, I let him go on ahead:

I did manage a 10:45 for that mile, which I thought was pretty good, especially considering we didn’t get out there until 9am and it was warm.  We were both proud of our runs.

So, although the scale has definitely not been my friend the last few weeks, overall, I feel pretty damn good.  I did run a sub-5 marathon recently, you know. 😉 I’m back to running consistently again, and I think I might even keep with the 5-day a week program, just because, after eighteen weeks, it’s gotten to be a habit.  :p  I do find that I feel a lot better on the mornings I get up early (maybe not 3:45am early) and run before work.  Mind you, I don’t feel great when I’m attempting to drag myself out of bed when the alarm goes off, but I feel pretty great when I’ve finished the run, and especially now, when the sun rise is so early, and I get to see views like this.

I don’t have any big races planned, just the Kona Run with Jamie and the Strawberry 5k Run with JJ.  I’m going to see if I can speed up my times a bit, now that I’m not focusing on distance, and enjoy some short runs for a change.  Here’s hoping that the running and the healthy eating will get me back down to within range of my goal weight (which right now is basically anything below 120) soon!

Thanks for reading!