Week Four: Running status update

Furthest distance ran so far: 9 miles (3 laps around the outside track of Greenlake)

Newest race time:

-6/28/09 - Fred Hutchinson Shore 5K - 26:11 (Finished 9 out of 35 people in my age group)

Note: Monster hill! Again, I didn't expect it, so my time suffered the consequences. Apparently, I keep forgetting that these races take place in Seattle, home of the hills! Hill/strength training starts now.

Me after four weeks of training.

-Height remains 5' 4 1/2"
-Weight: 117.8 lbs (goal weight met!)
-BMI: 20.1

You can see that I've lost just about 4 lbs after four weeks of training and I was not, by any means, starving myself. See, this is the wonderful thing about regular running. You burn so many calories each week, that you can eat much more than you could if you were just dieting to lose or maintain your weight (dieters are usually allowed a measly 1200 cals per day to lose a pound a week). You need the extra calories to fuel your body when you run or you will burn out quickly. However, you still have to make smart food choices. I'm not trying to say that you can start wolfing McDonald's hamburgers and french fries when you begin a running routine. Poor food choices will also cause burn out.

On average, I eat about 1750 calories daily and on days when I do my long/harder runs or races, I eat up to 2300 calories. It's great! So much better than depriving myself of food for weight loss or maintenance. I never feel hungry and I've lost weight and gained lean muscle. The greater thing is, my caloric intake will need to increase as my training gets harder. As a person who loves to eat, I'm looking forward to this!

*Running added bonus: I achieved a flatter stomach just from running alone. No tedious hours spent doing a million crunches.

Week Four Training
6/29 - Rest day
6/30 - Run 4 miles
7/1- Run 4 miles
7/2 - Tempo work, 6 miles
-One warmup mile
-Pick up the pace for 4 miles
-One cooldown mile
7/3 - Run 3 miles @ 5k pace
7/4 - Rest day
7/5 - Long run - 9 miles

Total miles for the week: 26