Day 7 and the end of Week 1: I'm soaking wet but not from sweat.

With Day 7, it is the end of Week 1. I made it! Yay for me!

I woke to the sound of pouring rain. Yes, it's raining here in CilleyLand. Quite a bit. But since I started this whole running thing in the month of January, I'm fairly used to running in the rain. I mean, after a while you just can't get any wetter. So up I got and on went the gear and out I headed.

I wasn't even the only person at the track. There was another gal running and she was quite wet too (she could even be my next door neighbor; I've only seen my neighbor once so...). After a few laps another guy showed up to walk the track, and after a few more laps another guy came to run. He had a very springy, bouncy running pace. The crows showed up too.

Anyhow.

I realized rather quickly that my low back was going to be a problem. It was just enough out of whack that it would press intermittently on a nerve, at which point my left leg would go "Aha! I may or may not stay under you today." Consequently, today's run was mostly a walk. But I did my 45 minutes regardless, thus completing Week 1 of training.

Here is the schedule for Week 2:

Day 8/Sun: Run 35 min.
Day 9/Mon: Rest day. Yay!
Day 10/Tue: Cross training 45 min - 1 hour.
Day 11/Wed: Run 35 min.
Day 12/Thu: Run 40 min.
Day 13/Fri: Rest day. Double yay!
Day 14/Sat: Run 50 min.

The way this schedule is set up, Saturday is the long run day. It'll be a little weird to only go 35 minutes tomorrow. I've already popped my low back around so hopefully that little issue will not reoccur tomorrow.

Next I need to work on my diet. While I've lost inches and gone down a size, I haven't really lost any weight (and no breastage; damn things are still the same size). I strongly suspect that I'm not eating enough calories. Last year I was able to lose 20 pounds just by changing my eating habits; I wasn't really exercising at all then. Occasionally I'd have weeks where I'd mostly eat pizza and wings. As in, a whole pizza and an order of wings. In one evening. By myself. Yet I lost weight. An article in the current issue of Women's Running says that to calculate the calories you need to maintain your weight, multiple your current weight by a factor that depends on your activity level. Even using the low end of the moderately active factor, it says I should be consuming 3,040 calories a day to maintain my weight. For runners to lose weight, it says you shouldn't cut 500 calories a day from that but rather 200 or 300.

I've only been eating around 1,800 and 2,000 calories a day. Runners are also supposed to eat about 60% carbs; I tend to crave protein. Once I get the training schedule down (21 days to establish a habit, right?), I'll work on my diet. In the meantime, while I'm not trying to eat everything in sight I am working on not limiting things.

Well, my head is telling me I need to consume some more fluids. Chocolate sounds good too.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl