Biggest Looser Update
I dropped almost 15 pounds in February. Although I've only won 1 week of the competition I'm in the overall lead, each week I seem to be fairly consistent with my weight loss. There's another month to go, but I'm hopeful I can hang onto my lead to win this.
Swimming
About 2 weeks ago I heard about a relatively unknown pool in the area from a friend. I've been looking for a good place to start swimming, but I've been concerned about how busy most of the pools in the area are. I'm just getting started with swimming and I prefer not to embarrass myself too much. I've heard lane sharing is common at the Y so I've avoided going there, so for the past 2 weeks Erin and I have been going to this other pool and learning how to swim. It's not like we were completely new to the water, we've just never really focused on getting somewhere quickly in the water. Staring out was as hard as we expected. Wow do we suck. However we are making progress. We've gone 3 times so far but already we're becoming more confident, faster, and able to go longer. It's just like when we first started running, we had a hard time going 5 minutes on a treadmill.
Tempo Tuesdays
I do my speedwork on Tuesday mornings, lately it's been all treadmill running at the gym so I don't have to worry about footing. An added benefit of the treadmill is I can tightly control my pace and force myself to go as fast as I'm planning. A few weeks ago I did my first 1 hour 10k and last week I had a monster run getting almost 6.5 miles in 1 hour. It's nice to see improvements see the gap start to close between my abilities and those I strive to be like.
Saturday Group Runs
The past couple of Saturdays have been cold. 2 weeks ago I saw 22 below at a bank as I ran to meet the group and yesterday was just below zero when I headed out. Both weeks we've run from the downtown Y and I've run from our house to meet the group there. They've been solid runs for me, 20 miles 2 weeks ago and 21.75 yesterday. Unfortunately a problem has popped up for Erin. When we start off her hands are fine and on shorter runs there are no issues. On longer runs she has issues with her hands getting dangerously cold. 2 weeks ago we shortened the route by a mile because of how bad her hands felt, and yesterday Erin got a ride back to the Y from the final aid station with Rick's wife Kristy.
This Morning
Erin was feeling down about not getting her miles in yesterday and we had picked up some goose down mittens that she wanted to try out. I was a little tired, but wanted to get in a recovery run. We headed out without a definite plan or route, just seeing how it would go. Starting out we took the 6 mile route to the store and decided that we'd head back along 42nd street. I mentioned to Erin that if we got 10.5 miles in today she'd have 20 for the weekend. That seemed to help motivate her and we added in a loop to make sure we got the distance in. The first mile or 2 Erin's hands were almost too warm, but after that they adapted and she was comfortable the rest of the way. The pace was a little slow, but very enjoyable. The sun had already come up when we started our run and it snowed the entire time we were out. After our run we finished the morning with brunch at Famous Dave's.
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