The ball is officially rolling. I've signed up (but not yet paid for) 3 races later this year (more to soon follow, I'm sure), and as predicted I was able to shake myself out of my slump and start a daily running routine.

Weekly mileage: appox. 16 miles

I'm excited for the challenging races that I've stuck myself with so far this year: The SoCal Ragnar relay race from Los Angeles to San Diego on April 15-16, the Wasatch Back Ragnar relay from Logan to Park City in July, and the Kokopelli Triathlon here in St. George in September. All huge races; I plan on making them the highlights of my season, and pepper the rest of the warm weather just with supporting acts.

In this week's training, I've come up with an important discovery: Training for a distance event DOES NOT equate to weight loss. I've put on an embarrassing amount of weight since the Hood to Coast relay last summer, and due to injury and an impossible work schedule I've hardly done any running, either. Since I've started training again, my endurance has gone up VERY rapidly, but the pounds haven't followed suit. For example, today I ran just over 6 miles pretty comfortably. Not easily, just comfortably. But, since starting on a training regimen about 3 weeks ago, only a couple of pounds have come off, and I attribute those to a change in my diet. Namely, I'm not stuffing my face with garbage at every holiday occasion. I don't even want to think about what my caloric intake during December must have been when I've been able to drop some weight only by taking a passing interest in what I eat.

I'll say it again here, for emphasis, though: DO NOT, because you're training for a distance event, expect to lose weight automatically. It's not the same thing, at all. Fat guys can run half marathons, too - just ask the guy that passed me 100 yards before the finish line of the St. George half marathon last year.

Weight loss can be a very effective training measure in itself, though. I read somewhere that every excess pound of body fat adds 2 seconds per mile to your running time. Not that much, by itself, but if you're 20 or 30 pounds overweight, that can be as much as one minute per mile, even at the same aerobic fitness level. That's over 5 minutes to your time in a 10K, nearly 15 in a half marathon, and just about half an hour in a full marathon. If you want to incorporate weight loss as part of your training, do yourself a favor and adopt a weight-loss attitude: diet AND exercise. Anything else is like using one half of a pair of scissors.

Of course, if you're already thin, well then la-tee-da, aren't you special.

End Transmission.

Boy, where is Burgess Meredith when you need him?

If you can't tell by the absence of posts by now, it's been a rough couple of months. Shin splints forced me to take a bit of time off after the Swiss Days 10K at the end of last year, and then I became subject to a combination of downward pressures that I woefully succumbed to:

1) My job's heroic efforts to confine me 24 hours a day to my office chair
2) A series of events that lend themselves to overeating, namely my birthday, Thanksgiving, a few days in San Francisco on the company's dime, including a truly opulent holiday lunch, and pretty much all of December
3) Church obligations that lately have eaten into my discretionary time
4) My own constant wrestle with inconsistency

So here I am, several pounds heavier, pretty much starting all over. I don't think that I'll be able to meet my first goal, which was to run in the St George half marathon on the 22nd, but I've gone and signed myself up for several other upcoming things, which seems to be the best way to motivate me. The pressure of an upcoming race event seems to be my best tonic: "Look, buddy, if you don't get out there and bust your hide, you're going to die on this day (insert race date here)."

I suppose everyone has their own favorite motivators for things; this one is mine, I guess.

End Transmission