Tues 16 July 2002

The diet was supposed to begin yesterday, but it didn't. I enjoyed an Annapurna of a cooked breakfast at a Manchester hotel, followed by a large sandwich -- sorry, "buttie" -- and a pint of lemonade at lunchtime, then, in the evening, a large BurgerKing 'meal' on the motorway with a bag of lemon bon-bons for the rest of the journey home... Not a great performance.

This morning I was 207.8 pounds which is actually heavier than when i started the training programme five weeks ago. I need to get down towards 182 pounds (13 stone) by the beginning of the taper, around mid-September. It means losing an average of a third of a pound a day between now and then, but it will be worth it. Let's go.

3.67 miles this evening. A bit slow, but then so would you be if you were as fat as me at the moment.

Wed 17 July 2002

A nice run this evening. 5.55 miles at 10:30 a mile. Which was a disappointing and surprising pace, as I seemed to be bowling along like billy-o for much of the jaunt, and had convinced myself that I was on in line for a something much nearer to 10 minutes a mile.

It was my usual long round-the-block run, half of the one I did so unhappily on Saturday afternoon. Tonight it was cooler and I was in a more positive frame of mind. I even took the extraordinary step of doing some stretching, followed by a half mile warm-up jog before starting the run proper. And it seemed to make a difference. I felt stronger and more confident.

The first day of my renewed diet (yesterday) was a success. This morning I was 2.6 pounds lighter than yesterday. In my quest to be faster and more blister-resilient this time, no single thing will help more than to be... less dense. As a friend of ours said yesterday when we were talking about the difference between running at the weight I am now and the weight I would like to be (13 stone) by taper-time: "It's like running 26 miles carrying your week's shopping."

Gulp. An illuminating insight.

Sat 20 July 2002

It was good to get out finally, late this evening, to do 7.34 miles in a reasonable time. I got round the two circuits of my usual 3.67 mile run in 01:13:51, or an average of 10:03 a mile. This isn't the fastest I've run but I suspect it's among the fastest times over this kind of distance, and that's the crucial point. It's easy enough to run fast (relatively speaking) for a mile or two, but sustaining it for longer distances is the constant challenge. When I first started running, last year, it was hard to run fast for more than a hundred metres, so it's pleasing to run at around 10 minutes a mile for over 7 miles. And I hope that, a few weeks or months from now, I can re-read that and feel embarrassed that I once considered 10 minute miles to be fast...

I made a startling discovery this evening. That warming up, and stretching before a run, makes it easier. Despite it having a prominent position in the runner's Ten Commandments, I've just never done it seriouisly before. It's an inconvenience, a waste of time, something for cissies. But no, it really is a good investment. So I jogged for a mile or so, then spent 10 minutes stretching, and felt much better for it.

It was a great evening. The first circuit had me running west, into a violent sunset. Main wildlife this evening were the silhouetted flocks of ducks, dozens of rabbits darting around the hedgerows in the lanes, and, er, that rotting sheep's carcass that I've been watching gracelessly decompose over the past two or three weeks. The only other fly in the ointment was the kamikaze one that ended up crashing into my tonsils as I panted along the second circuit, mouth agape.

shoes

The weight has continued to fall off in small chunks. I've lost 4.6 pounds since Tuesday. This is way ahead of schedule, but is to be expected. The more you have to lose, the easier it is. It will be much harder a week or two from now.

Next week >