Life Off-Label

Each day of week 5 is so different that it seems like it should pan out over a few weeks. Going from 5 minutes of jogging at a time to 8 minutes the next time to 20 minutes right after that is just not me. I’m more of a fan of doing things gradually. I want to push myself, but I have the time to space it out, so there’s no reason to overdo it.

Since I started this before New Year’s, I decided to go back on Weight Watchers as my resolution. It’s a great program to guide you back into consistently eating well, and I’ve been letting the “BLARRGH me hungry must have something greasy STAT” side of my brain make the food choices lately. It doesn’t help that my school has free pizza for lunch pretty much all the time either. I had some success the last time I did WW, and then I went off it and gained most of the weight back. I’m hoping to do even better this time though since I wasn’t really exercising much last time.

I lost 5 pounds the first week, which isn’t as good as it sounds. Ideally, I want to lose two pounds a week tops, because otherwise it means I’m not eating enough or I’m losing muscle mass. I’m pretty sure most of it was water weight though, because I’m eating all my “points” and I’d like to think my workouts are helping me increase muscle mass. But enough about me trying to be humble, let’s be honest… I was pretty ecstatic to lose that much. As long as I don’t make it a habit though, I’ll take it the first week!

I’ve had to cut a couple runs short because the knee pain was slowly creeping back, though still not nearly as bad as it was before. I think it’s mostly due to the increased intensity. The plan is still to keep truckin’, but since I still have about two and a half months until Warrior Dash, I’ll give them a little more rest and devote some time to strength training. After all, it’s not just about running a 5K anyway. I also have to try to complete all the obstacles without looking like a total idiot.

I found a picture today that sums up my training pretty accurately…

No turning back now though. As of about twenty minutes ago I am officially registered for Warrior Dash!