30 days to go

There’s two touchstones in my running year: the New Haven 20K on Labor Day, and the Vermont City Marathon on Memorial Day. They’ve kinda become family holy days of obligation – really no thought as to what we’re doing those days except for heading to Burlington or New Haven.

The last couple years, we’ve done the race as a relay, since Melissa’s pretty much targeted fall marathons, and, well, I’ve kinda gotten fat and slow (working on that). Twice with Missy and I splitting the two person relay, and once with the whole family splitting the 5 legs. This year’s another relay; not sure for sure what leg I’m running, but it’ll be one of the 10K or so legs.

I’m pretty confident I can crunch out 10K – the lungs are good, the legs are OK, and I think I’ve fixed my ankle. The thing that’s sticking in my head, though is three seconds per mile. Confession: I’m as fat as I’ve been in years. I thought I was fat when I was at 180 pounds; I’ve been hovering around 200 for the last year. So, my 10 to 11 minute miles should be 9 to 10 minute miles if I were where I was two years ago, and should be 8 to 9 minute miles if I could get down to a non-overweight BMI.

Le sigh.

One of the things that’s interesting to me is that my weight gain has really corresponded with letting the blog slide. Maybe it’s the accountability; maybe it’s just that I’ve been busy with other things.

Regardless, today was a good day – did a Nike+ benchmark, and the legs felt good. I’ll declare victory and move on.

Some things change, some things don’t.

So, this is where I was last year. And, not much has changed in a year. I checked MyFitnessPal, and my weight’s been between 195 and 200 the whole time.

Actually – a decent amount has changed – I do have a consistent year of running and biking back under my belt; I’ve transitioned into a new position that I love, and where I’m getting to develop some really cool stuff, and I launched a kid successfully to college. So, yeah – not too shabby.

Fitness, I guess, is better, which is nice.

May’s coming up, and I guess I just wanted to put myself on report, get motivated, and try to use May to do a couple things:

  • Shift my internal clock: Early to bed, early to rise
  • Start working my core: Melissa did this, and it’s been transformative for her
  • Get back to the consistency I had over the winter – from the Runner’s World Run Streak (#RWRS)
  • Get control on what I’m eating

The last one’s the kicker – I’m pretty sure I’ve got a good engine under some flab, just need to burn it off. And I also think snacks is probably 85% of the flab, though I could probably stand to skip the fries at lunch more often (Fries, I think, should always be considered a snack)