June 30th, 2013 (Sunday)

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228.5 this morning after a road trip yesterday to visit family – too much food!

So it is 2 weeks this morning since the Manitoba Marathon – still feeling very solid and strong – the first couple days after the marathon were very good – I was a bit tired but had no trouble with stairs or anything like that (which is a good).  If I sat for too long I would get stiff in my legs and it would take about 4 or 5 steps before I felt loose again but still that is not too bad either.

I have not run once since the marathon unfortunately.  The work on our pool in the back yard is in full swing and between work and trying to get stuff sorted out there and having to fold up the treadmill for the electrician to work I haven’t gotten in a run.  I have done pretty hefty physical work instead though – last weekend I moved 5 cubic yards of crushed limestone to rebuild your deck area.  Plus I also rebuilt our deck that had to be ripped off the house when we found out that the pool had to be over dug much more than the original plan.

Pool is supposed to be finished on Tuesday or Wednesday and from there I probably have a week of heavy labor getting the yard, fence and deck back in good shape (looks like about 10 cubic yards of river rock, 5-10 cubic yards of crushed limestone and a couple thousand square yards of sod to lay in about a week…).  I have the next 2 weeks off from work to get this work done and then relax but may have to shift the vacation if they aren’t done as planned.  We will have to see.

The current plan is to get back into running this week but probably on a reduced level. Instead of having a plan with 5 days of running a week I suspect I will do 4 days a week and put much more emphasis on speed work.  There are 2 half marathons in Winnipeg in September and I am looking at doing both of those plus one in October – and I would like to see if I can hit a new personal best in the half with one of those races – current personal best on the half is 1:46:11 and I was only 10 minutes off of that in May at the WPS Half marathon so I think it is possible with a concerted effort and concentration on speed work.  This will also require me to concentrate harder on the weight loss as well.

So with this rough plan in place I suspect I should be able to get my weight down in the next couple weeks with the hard labor in the yard in some pretty high forecast temperatures, doing some running in the morning or evening when it isn’t too hot and then swimming in the pool.

Once the yard is all sorted out I will be looking at resistance training in the pool in combination with the running to help increase endurance even more.

To go with all of this I have adjusted my morning protein breakfasts as well.  For a couple months I have been doing 2 protein shakes and really nothing solid and while my weight has been constant I have been a bit zoned out at work but in the past couple weeks I have backed off to 1 protein shake and 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast and I have been feeling much better and even with no running at all I have come down a few pounds (was 225.5 on Friday morning which is the lowest I have been in years).  So if I can continue this breakfast and get a good push on the weight loss this week I think I should be able to get to maybe around 210 or so for September (maybe 207 to give me an official weight loss of 50 pounds since last September?) which will help with the goal of setting a new personal best.

I still haven’t fully fleshed out what this will all look like but once I do I will write it up and post it online.


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