Had a couple interesting runs this past weekend.  On Saturday, I did my first official Steady State Run.  Since I’m between training cycles and didn’t want to do a full-out fast thing, yet still wanted a workout, it seemed like a novel compromise.  I wore my HR monitor to make sure I stayed in the right ballpark (83-87% says McMillan).  I did 7 w/5 steady state miles.

It was fun – not so tough as a tempo but harder than a regular run.  Granted, I’m too much of a “get the most done in the least amount of time” person to do Steady State during a regular training cycle, but for in-between, it was perfect.  The steady-state miles were 8:00s and the whole run w/warmup and cooldown averaged 8:13.

Then yesterday afternoon I did 12…though a rough 12 it was.  I was tired and internally moaning from the start.  I didn’t eat beforehand and got thirsty at the end, so I was a big whiner.  I tried to keep the pace down and would tell myself  “9:15′s, keep it at 9:15s” but I kept speeding up, which annoyed me, since it would have been a more comfortable run had I kept a slower pace.  Avg. pace, 9:01.  That makes 51 miles for last week.

On other fronts, I’m finally getting into the weight loss attempt.  Previously, when I tried to quit my horrible candy habit, I didn’t lose any weight after a week, so I’d be all “well hell, if I’m going to stay the same, I’ll keep eating the fun stuff”.  I’m sure it’s because whatever I replaced the candy with was the same number of calories.  Now that I’m keeping track of what goes down my gullet, though, changes are occurring.

I started buckling down with Daily Plate last week, in an effort to see exactly what I’m eating and to finally understand how many calories I need.  The Daily Plate gives you a couple ways of figuring it out and there’s this calculator which is more generous calorie-wise (and I suspect more accurate, I’ll let you know as this progresses).  In the end, my daily average this week was 1830 calories/day.

So I’ve lost a little weight already without being monkish.  In fact, though I hope never again to keep huge bags of Reese’s Pieces and Jelly Bellys in the house, I was given a box of white chocolate Godivas for Xmas (I’m a white chocolate freak) so a couple nights this week I had one or two as my evening treat, but it’s easy to ignore the box for a few days or to be satisfied with that small amount, so my sugar intake is down dramatically.

One other thing I did with the Daily Plate was to join their Gold Member status temporarily, just so I could see how much calcium I’ve been getting on average.  They give you 5 days free when you sign up for Gold, so you just have to cancel before they start charging you.

Anyway, my calcium daily percentages varied from 20-97% of the recommendation (1000mg) so this was a firm reminder to take my daily 600mg softgel.  Ladies especially, do remember to fulfill your calcium requirements to help ward off stress fractures and keep those bones of yours in great condition!  It’s 1000mg/day if you’re under 50, 1200mg if you’re over.  Best way is through diet of course, and if you take a supplement, don’t take it with a meal that features calcium or too large a dose at once, you can only absorb about 500mg at a time.

On other weighty news, I ordered one of these Body Fat Monitors.  I realize they’re not exactly the most accurate of tools, but they appear to be consistent with their own readings which is all I care about, some kind of baseline to measure.

Now, please don’t think I’m going to get all mental about this, I’m not.  I’m too vain to get too thin, and I like eating too much to go hungry, but I am now completely curious as to what it’ll take to maintain a more “runnerly” body.  Right now I’m 5’4″ and 124lbs. (from 126.5) and while my original goal was 120, I’m now thinking 117ish is even better.  It’s closer to 114 that Glover suggests and would put me at 20% BMI instead of my current 21.3%.  Considering that I have a very small frame (5.25″ wrists), this’ll still leave me at an ordinary weight.

What’s keeping me pumped besides the thought of potentially losing my “bat wings” (a.k.a. flabby upperarms) and other fat pockets of resistance, is to see what this’ll do for my race times.  I don’t know if those weight vs. speed calculators are bullshit or what, but they all indicate I’d lose more than a minute off my 5K at 118 lbs.  A minute!

Crazy to think that this year’s 5K goal could be substantially lower than what I was thinking (low 21:xx) and that I could hit the 20′s this year!  Add to that my usual training cycles and I may turn into A Force To Be Reckoned With in my AG before the year’s up.

Stay tuned.

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