Run 49, 2008

Today’s 11 km run puts me at 735 kilometers since January 1st. It was hot (but not by southern standards) and sunny. My pace was 7:25 and it took me 1:21:40. Again, I used Runkeeper Pro on my iPhone and it worked quite well. Still, it almost always shorts me by several hundred meters because it occasionally loses signal in our heavy tree cover. This time I think it was out by about 700 meters or so.

I’m still on track for losing weight, starting out this morning at 177 pounds. My goal is 160 pounds which will put me in my healthy weight range. I’m pretty sure I’ll do it this time. I’ve been maintaining an average of 185 pounds since I began running well over five years ago, starting out at 210 pounds at the turn of the century eight years ago. I quickly dropped to 185 but I could never lose any more. The problem was that I thought I could continue eating as usual and exercise my way out of it. I’ve known for a long time now that I was consuming as much as I was burning. I was not gaining weight but I wasn’t losing it either. It’s taken a lot of tries but now I think I’m finally on the home stretch to achieving my goal.

The moral of the story is, never give up. I’m losing an average of a pound a week. Theoretically I should reach my goal in about twenty weeks.

I’m also having to change my running days since karate summer classes are being held on different days so my runs will be moving to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Then comes the winter class schedule and I will have to change my running days again. I plan to train for a spring marathon again this winter and I need to find a better way to not freeze my butt off. Meanwhile my next race is July 25th and is just over a 16 kilometer trail run. Karate does not start up again until Monday.