Weigh in, run strong

First things first: I weighed in this morning. It was a day late, because I was out of town for the long weekend. Anyhoo, today's weight: 205.2 (or 206 in Maggie's world). All good! In 5.2 more pounds, I'll  have reached my initial goal. (It only took what, five years, to get here?)

In other news, I am seeing lots of progress on the running front! Yahoo! On Saturday, I ran 10 miles (which was actually closer to 9.5, but the GPS lost me in the woods). It was such a beautiful day; I feel so lucky when I'm able to go outside. I did a run/walk interval combo, running three minutes and walking one. This is making a huge difference in how I experience training. Whereas last week I ran nine miles in two hours and 32 minutes, this week I managed to run about 9.7 in 2:18. HUGE difference. Plus, the way I felt was totally new; last week I was in pain. This week, I could've kept going. Needless to say, I learned a few things;

• Don't do other workout activity the day of a long run. A 10-mile training run should not be tacked onto a swim and weightlifting session.
• Eat carbs for breakfast (thunder muffin, anyone?) and take some gel with you. I usually do this, but I got it down to a science on this run.
• Run/walk instead of trying to run the whole damn thing and then taking long-ass walk breaks.

It really helped! I went from running over a 16 minute mile to running a 13:10 minute mile in one week. So I tried the same tactic last night on my five-mile run on the track, and I hit the 13:40 minute mile mark comfortably. It felt great!

So my hope is that I will be able to run the half in less time than last year. My time last year was an abysmal three hours, 24 and a half minutes, running about a 15.5 minute mile. If I can keep up my recent pace and run at about a 14-minute mile, I would feel pretty good about that. Heck, if I could cut my finish time back to three hours and 15 minutes, that would be a huge win. So, no pressure ... I just gotta do my best.

And keep taking off the weight.