October 2012 Recap

75.2 miles in 16:30:55 and 20 runs.  Max was 6.2m, average was 3.77m and I burned 11,517 calories in my running shoes.  

Rating 7 out of 10.

Set a PR in the 10K and ran two solid 5K’s during the month.  

Added swimming and yoga as cross training, although I need to get more consistent on these two workouts.  

Lost 8#. I bought a pair of jeans, two new pair of work pants, and a new suit this month.  Suit coat is down from a 54” to 48”, and pants are down from 42” to 36”.   I am wearing XL in coats and shirts, and my latest running tights are mens L.  So I have been going through my closet and finding things I can now wear, as well as sending many old clothes to charity.  

I have also been looking at my “average pace” for training runs, and they have improved by 30 seconds to a minute faster this month.  I am looking forward to adding track and speed work and I hope that I can continue to drive down my times and improve my conditioning as I work towards my goal of a PR in a spring half Marathon.  I have ran three races in the last ten days (10K and two 5K) and all three have been at an 11:46 pace.  My goal involves losing at least another 40# and driving that pace below 10:00.  11:46 is a 30 second improvement over early September, so now it is a challenge to see what I can do.  

I am still frustrated with the speed of my weight loss.  I need to keep in perspective that this is over 1.5# a week and I am, overall, doing a good job of restricting my calories.  I am burning a ton of calories with running and workouts, but I don’t seem to be losing weight as fast as pure math calculations would say.  But the next two months are to stay healthy / injury free while I ramp up my workout levels to get ready for the spring racing plan.  And, I am confident with the current pace and what I have felt in my body that this is sustainable long term to keep this weight off.  

I am now over 242 miles for the year and have over 57 hours on the road.  I have 103 miles in the plan for November and 129 miles in December, so I hope to end the year closed to 475 miles. That means new shoes by my birthday!  :)