Ow.

Did my ambition outstrip my physical capacities? The thing to note here is that my Achilles went nuts after my second run two months ago, too. I think they're just not used to this kind of workout. Alma suggested a modification to the schedule that throws in a day of walking, something more like:

Day 1: Run
Day 2: Weights
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Walk
Day 5: Run
Day 6: Weights
Day 7: Rest

Might help a little, at least. I only got about 2/3 of a mile today before my Achilles, especially the right one, felt ready to give out. That, of course, is no good. I'm not really sure what to do on this front - the Achilles derailed me last time, and I don't want them to do it again. But by the end of the run today I physically could not keep running - too much soreness in the right one.

Walking will have to be part of the answer, though it takes much longer to go as far and I'm never going to lose five pounds a month walking. Maybe I should do the weight tape three days a week, rest two, and try and run/walk two. For a start, anyway; eventually my Achilles have to stop giving me this much trouble once they get used to things. I really, really hope.

Weight, weight, don't tell me

My legs were still too sore to consider another run today, but I never really got a chance to go for a walk, so instead I did a twelve-exercise program on a DVD of Alma's called "Shaping Up with Weights for Dummies." The video is clearly aimed at an audience of housewives, but it seems fairly effective. I think I'm going to borrow it from Alma and also pick up some weights at Target tomorrow - a smallish set if possible, that goes up to maybe 30 pounds or so (which ought to be plenty for a while). Running will ultimately be the most helpful thing, I think, but it's nice to combine that with other stuff, especially on days when I'm not really up for a run (or if it's raining or whatever). An ideal schedule would probably look something like this:

Day One: Run
Day Two: Weights
Day Three: Off
Day Four: Run
Day Five: Weights
Day Six: Run
Day Seven: Off

That's just a rough estimate, and I don't know that I'll be able to do something five of seven days just yet, but it's something to shoot for, at least.

In the meantime, I'm adding a counter/schedule to the side of the page. You'll see what it looks like. We may finally be getting serious here.

Last chance.

I think there's a part of me that realizes that if I don't do this now, I'm never going to. It's too easy to come up with excuses day after day - "It's too cold out," "I got home too late," "My feet kind of hurt," etc. - and too hard to get into the swing of things on a sporadic basis, or even on the gradual plan I was attempting to use.

So tonight I ran a mile. Non-stop. Then I did ten curls on each arm with a 20-pound weight.

Not an insane amount, but coming off of what, a month and a half of nothing? It was jumping right into the deep end. It was probably a mistake not to do that all along; I've never been good at doing things gradually, and it was far too easy to get lackadaisical about it. I need to push myself.

I also gave myself a little added incentive by making a one-sided bet with Drew. If I lose, I have to buy him a box of baseball cards (specifically a box of 2005 Donruss Prime Patches, and those suckers ain't cheap); if I win, I don't have to. In other words, there's no bribe for winning (never that effective because it always becomes "I can live without [x], and I'm tired"), just a penalty for losing, and one I would certainly like to avoid. The only problem is I'm not sure where to set the bet - I don't want to make it unrealistically high ("20 pounds in a month!") but I also don't want to make it ridiculously low ("two pounds in a month!"). Anyone have experience with this? I figure five pounds in a month sounds about right, if I keep up the following rules:

1. Run every other day. Aside from emergency situations, the only acceptable excuse not to is significantly bad weather. Always run at least a mile nonstop, the goal being to add distance as I feel more comfortable.

2. Lift or similar after every run. Supposedly, the best time to do weight work is after cardio. Drew has 20-pound weights that I'm sure he'd let me borrow; if not, I used them tonight, you fucker, so ha ha. If I'm at Alma's, she has some ten-pounders; sub-optimal considering that I do have fairly strong arms when I work at it a bit, but I can always just do more reps.

3. Eat better. Note that this does not mean "eat less," which failed spectacularly a few months ago. It just means eat better things. Little to no candy, few other snack foods of the unhealthy ilk - in other words, eat snacks, but eat those with fewer fat and calories and more potential health value. Soy crisps, for example, instead of Doritos. Drink less pop (this one has already been implemented to some degree); right now it's entirely diet soda at work, but ultimately the goal would be to go mostly to water - maybe one Diet Coke for the caffeine if I feel particularly tired, but certainly not four or five a day if it can be helped. At restaurants (where you can plow through probably 500 calories worth of soda in short order if you're not careful) it should be kept to an absolute minimum, especially since I'm already eating a pretty good amount if I'm eating out. But this isn't about denying myself food, it's just about denying myself the majority of the utter crap. Can't be that bad.

Put those three together and I don't see why five pounds in a month should be particularly unrealistic... right? I don't want to try and go crazy, though.

I weighed myself at 8:30 PM today, 30 minutes before running. The verdict? 201. Frankly, not as high as I was afraid of, but pretty sad for someone of my relatively compact stature. That's a BMI of 30.6, which is 0.6 over the line into "obese," which is not where I want to be. The "normal" BMI range - according to the CDC website - is 18.5-24.9. In other words, I have to take off nearly six full BMI points. 164 pounds is the first weight that crosses into the normal range for my height - so that's almost forty pounds by which I am overweight for my height. Ugh.

I also ran a tape measure around my waist and came up with about 39 inches. Around my love handles it was more like 41.5. Gross. My midsection is really the only part of me that I look at and go, "You're a fat sack of crap" - I still have fairly trim, muscular legs and arms considering, and while I could lose some weight on my face I don't look like a bullfrog or anything. But I definitely have love handles and they're definitely getting to me.

So there you go. This has run on far, far too long, so feel free to express your disbelief at my latest reformation in the comments. But I think I might actually do it this time.