Sucky Run

The skies to the west were threatening another rain storm as I stepped out onto the Park to begin my run. I did a quick stretch and took off. I should have stretched more because I cramped up at about the half mile mark and that was it for the run.

I made it home before it started to pour but my spirit was already dampened. Damn! I sure can write purty.

Run Run Rake

I've been running but it continues to be unattractive. My Tuesday night run ended up as a walk for about the last three-tenths.

Last nights run turned into yard work instead. My time was crappy but the yard looks great!

Two Mile Psych-Out

I tried all day to get myself psyched up for a two mile run. When the time came to perform, it was not to be. I made the mile but there was no going any further. I'm going to try and run every night this week and get the mile under me before venturing on to the dreaded two miles.

My time was 12:13.

Our neighbors are out of town and insisted we use their hot tub while looking after their cat. I enjoyed a nice soak and a beer after the run. I will definitely try to keep up with that as well.

Run Phatty Run

After a weekend in California and a busy week before that, I haven't run since March 4th. Wow! That's a lot of wasted time. I was not looking forward to it last night and I was surprised to see I made the mile in 12:10. That is my best time this season.

I will try to run tongight but I am not promising anything as I must meet guys for beers. Nothing good ever comes from that.

Non-Thusiasm

With the change to Daylight Savings Time over the weekend, there is about two hours of light after I get home at night. Of course, the daylight is getting longer every day now and soon it will be light enough in the morning for me to run, if I choose. The question of course is, "Will I?" It seems unlikely with my history.

I should have run tonight but the cold has put an extra damper on my enthusiasm. I'll just continue to plod along and do what I can and then get pissed at myself and then workout more until some other reason comes along to encourage me to stop and then the cycle will continue and this sentence will never be able to end.

Thank God I found that period!

Ski Day Number Three

Susan and I celebrated my birthday by driving to Wallace, Idaho yesterday. There, we stayed at the Jameson Hotel. I would describe this place as how you might picture an old hotel in a frontier western town. It has a total of six rooms. There are no phones or TVs. There are no bathrooms in the rooms but there are a couple of bathrooms and showers down the hall.

On the main floor, the woodwork is beautiful and they have a wonderful old bar. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then walked around town to visited several bars.

We got up late this morning after having drank too much last night. The clocks all moved ahead an hour last night so it was even harder to wake up at 8 when it really was nine.

It takes less than 20 minutes to get to Lookout Pass from Wallace. We got ourselves together and managed to log 10 runs over the next several hours. They had fresh, light ankle deep snow and it snowed all day while the sun faintly shown through the clouds.It was a great day, but man oh man, we are feeling it now. Susan is soaking in the tub right now and I may be in there after her. My left knee particularly feels the stress of the ski day. It doesn't really hurt but it feels weak.

So now I'm a year older and because of everything I ate this weekend, I am sure I'm even farther from my goal.

Ski Day Number Two

It took today off and along with my friend Mark, went skiing. This is my second ski day of the season and it was as fabulous as the first. We had a nice sunny day although the sun did not lend itself much to adding actual warmth. There were several runs were both Mark and I had to stop, not from fatigue, but from the massive ice cream headache we had from the cold.

We got in 13 runs. A superstitious person would have skied one less or one more run, but neither of us fall into that category.

I'm going to get another ski day in this weekend as Susan and I are traveling to Idaho to ski at Lookout Pass on Sunday.

I have to bar tend tomorrow but only for five hours. I have a feeling that I will be experiencing the effects of today's ski day tomorrow as I run for the many customers who will no doubt feel compelled to come in for a visit.

No Zen Tonight

I think this is the first time this running season that I have run two nights in a row. It didn't seem to help in any progressive way as I did not feel the rhythm like I did last night. In fact, it felt like a pretty tough run even though I had a good time. My best time, in fact. 12:38!

A Good Showing

The rain has been coming down steadily for the last couple of days which gave me an excuse yesterday not to run. I had no such excuse today and upon arriving home, I went out to pound the streets.

My run always starts out strong but crumbles after that first block. My muscles and joints ache and want nothing to do with this activity. But my mind makes me push on and sometimes it wins. Today was such a day.

I was really struggling through the first half mile. My breathing was labored, everything hurt and I was not feeling terribly positive about my endurance. But then my body fell into a rhythm shortly after turning the half mile mark and I knew I would make the whole mile. It was actually very zen like. Everything came together and I knew I could go the distance, even more if I had wanted, and I knew I didn't.

I made my best time to date this season with 12:42. The worst part of the run is afterwards. It seems I cough and sputter and spew for quite some time. But it feels good to have done the run and to have done it well...relatively speaking.

Regressive Exercise

It's the First of March and time to live up to some of my Lental Decisions. I ran around the park this morning and it was my worst performance yet. I didin't even make it through the first half mile before I had to walk. I continued to ran and walk for the rest of the circuit but it was really quite pathetic. My time was 15:55 and I still weigh 224.8.

This week, I plan to be much more dedicated to my quest of weight loss, which is now at 11 1/2 pounds to be lost. I know that if I just lay off the beer, that will do wonders to kick starting the pounds removal. Since I won't completly lay off the beer, I must really be sure that I exercise every day this week.