Wednesday Weigh In

It has only taken a week but I am finally back to a regular routine with sleeping and eating.  It was nice that I was able to just fall right back into my diet like I had never left.  I tell you the old me would have been in big trouble if I gave myself a hall pass for a week.
     I have come to the realization that even though this will always be a constant struggle for me, I have gotten over the hump of losing self control, at least for now.  I am constantly tracking every little item I eat or drink on the My Net Diary app on my phone and while I was gone I didn't use it once. Even though I did eat "poorly" with the fried fish and the giant Voodoo Doughnut and what not,  I was excited that I didn't just say screw it and go nuts like I use to.  I bring this up because this is a first for me.  Every other "diet" I have done when an opportunity such as this would come up I would revert to my old ways by the time I got back and wasn't able to recover.  I almost feel like my running has a lot to do with it.  I use running to help take the weight of and when I get to my goal I will use it to maintain the weight.  As much as I enjoy running, man it is a lot of f-ing work and the last thing I wanna do is waste my time running all those miles for nothing.
     My body seems to have also responded well to my regular routine, I was pleasantly surprised to what the scale had to say to me this morning.  So without any more delay the reason for today's posting.

 4/16/14 official weigh in

195 lbs

Change: -3.5 lbs

Total loss from heaviest: 122 lbs

Current BMI: 30.5

Change: -.5

      Today I had my last long run before my taper for my Half Marathon during the Glass City Marathon.  I waited to head out till 1pm due to the cold weather we are having again.  It almost reached 40 degrees when I hit the road which wasn't to bad since it was around 19 when I got up.  There was a hardly any wind, which was a nice change, but I say hardly because I ran a 6 mile loop course and miles 5-7 and 10-12 the wind seemed to pick up and gave me a nice little head wind.  I like this course because it keeps me fairly close to home and has a few hills to give me a little resistance.  At mile 2 I passed a house that I could hear 2 dogs barking and when I looked to my left they both came running from behind the house full speed at me.  I was running on the road and kept my eye on them, well one of them came to a stop and just barked at me while the other kept on coming.  As he got closer he appeared to be a pit bull mix, which is fine but it put me a little more on high alert than say if it was a chihuahua or something, but I couldn't be sure.  Now at this point I was just past the property and he was now coming up on my 7 o'clock.  He came all the way into the street so I turned to face him and tried to keep moving away.  He barked and growled then lunged at my feet and appeared to attempt to bite my ankle.  I gave him my loudest angry yell to back off, which did the trick, because he began to whimper and then turned and ran.  I kept moving and kept my eye behind me till I turned the corner.  No harm, no foul but it sure got the blood pumping.  The rest of the run was pretty uneventful, even when I passed the same house a second time.  Yes I was an idiot and ran by the house again, but I wasn't gonna let a dog dictate a change in my route that I had all planned out.
     My pace was a little all over the place as you can see from my splits.  The graph shows you my pace (green) vs elevation (blue) and how that translates over the 12 miles.  I was trying a new on the run nutrition plan, Clif brand Shot Blocks, which seemed to work pretty well without any GI issues.  I have 8 mile long run next Wednesday so I will give them another try just to be sure.  I took one after miles 3,6 & 10 and you can see from my splits that I slowed down during the miles that I was consuming them.

      Anyway off to my running club meeting then spend the evening with my wife!  Thanks for reading!