25 (Days & Lbs)

25 Days

Last Monday, somewhat thanks to this post, I decided to run a half marathon on December 4 in Las Vegas. This is 25 days from yesterday (when I thought up the cool post title).

I found out that a half dozen of the poker blogger people who I was going to be hanging out with all weekend were going to be running it. The course is fun, running up the strip from Mandalay Bay to Fremont St. downtown and then back down the strip. More importantly, the race starts at 5:30PM, so I won’t be missing the NFL games. So, what the heck, I signed up.

Problem 1

I had been working towards running a half marathon on January 27 in Miami. My training has been a little random. Between working OT at work and my two bowling leagues, it is hard to get on a regular schedule to run at night. I am not a morning person, so running at 5:30AM just isn’t going to happen. Up until Monday, I was running 2-3 times a week and those runs were mostly between 3-5 miles. Now I need to run, I think, 4+ times a week to get in a position to survive the half. Pretty sure there isn’t a 4 week training program for a first time half marathoner. I will be doing long runs each Saturday, 8 miles this week, 9 next week and 10 miles the week before the run. I should be able to get from 10 to 13 miles through race-day adrenaline. My longest run to date is 6 1/2 miles and my knees and hips were sore afterwards.

Problem two

I don’t like running in the cold. FYI – It’s cold in Chicago in November. So I am going to be running on the treadmill in the gym. It will be interesting to see if I get yelled at on Saturday when I run the 8 miles. I haven’t seen all of the treadmills in use in a long time, so hopefully the people working there won’t notice. Also, I don’t know how long the treadmills will let me run.

25 Lbs

In other news, I finally hit the 25 pounds lost mark yesterday. My big weight loss graph has really flattened out the past few months. I’m sure it is related to the OT & bowling I mentioned previously. Bowling brings out some of my bad habits, i.e. beer & junk food for dinner. With the OT, I’m pretty sure eating dinner at 9PM and then going to sleep at 11 is not great.

One thing I don’t really understand is weight lost vs. body fat lost. According to my fancy wifi scale, I’ve dropped 25 pounds and 15 of that was body fat. What is the other 10 pounds? Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve gained some muscle mass from the running. That means there is even more mystery weight lost to make up for the muscle. I just don't get it.

Initial Weight: 181.8 lbs

Weight 11/10/11: 156.7 lbs