I ended up getting a last minute project request that had to be done by the end of the day yesterday, so no running for me at lunchtime. It all worked out, though, as the clouds rolled in and cooled things off nicely by the time I got home from work. I picked up a bit and when DH got home, we went running around the ‘hood. It was horrible. I was horrible. My running was horrible. Let’s just leave it at that! I think vacation is coming at the right time - lately I have not had the desire to run. It’s so silly - I would rather walk for 1.5 hours or hike for 3 hours (much harder than running) than just get off my butt and run for 30 minutes. I could get my exercise over in 30-40 minutes and yet I’d rather WALK for 1.5 hours? I think I’m burned out. And I think I’m also feeling discouraged, like why is this still hard for me? Why am I not making any improvement lately?
So hopefully vacation will stir things up a bit and I’ll feel good about running when I’m looking out at the ocean instead of pavement. I had planned on running 3 more days this week, but now I’m thinking I’ll run the 5k twice and do something else the other two days. I guess the important thing is that I’m still out there doing it, even when I don’t want to. Really don’t want to. Like, kicking and screaming “you can’t make me!” type of not wanting to. So, I’ll run a 5k today while hubby mountain bikes, Thursday will be something else (weights? Probably) and Friday will be last 5k before trip. Saturday - who knows. Maybe an easy run around the neighborhood. Maybe we could squeeze in a short hike that morning… ooh! I like that idea.
The scale is being very kind to me. I will definitely hit 177 by the end of the week. Speaking of which, on my quest to find at least some sort of pattern with weight loss (hysterical laughter), I went back to my weight loss graph as well as my journal and looked at my weights following the few days after hikes. I’ve done 4 hikes this year, all 5+ miles and anywhere between 2-3 hours depending on the elevation gain and difficulty.
- 5/24 - Hiked Seven Bridges (moderate), went up 1.4 lbs for one day, then a 2 lb drop… 1 lb loss total for the week
- 5/30 - Hiked Buckhorn (easy), went up 2 lbs two days, then a 2 lb drop… 1.6 loss for the week
- 6/7 - Hiked St Mary’s (difficult), went up 1.4 lbs for three days, then a 1.6 lb drop… .8 loss for the week
- 6/20 - Hiked Fish Creek Falls (very difficult), went up .6 lbs (lowest gain yet) for three days, then 1.8 lb drop… loss for the week TBD.
My theory is that the gains are from water retention from dehydration and sore muscles. My theory on the losses is that my body finally catches up to the calories burned - either by realizing I do have enough food to fuel myself or more likely, that weight loss really isn’t linear. Even though I may burn 2,000 calories from hiking on a Saturday, that loss won’t show up until Tuesday or Wednesday. I wonder why that is. Just another mystery of the human body, I guess.
