Starting to Build Up

Life plods along much like ... well much like the way I run. I've been pretty steadily running 9 miles a week for the last few weeks. I had planned on running another 5K race on 11/12, but have since come to find out that the race is sold out, so the only organized run on my schedule is the 5K on Castaway Cay during our upcoming Disney cruise. I had a vague notion of trying to increase my mileage but I wasn't entirely sure how to do it. Well, I mean obviously you do it by running more distance, but I wanted a way to do it without risking injury and with the best chance of being successful. I happened upon a program in a thread on the Runners World Forums that had a link to a "Novice Spring Training" program by Hal Higdon that is designed to increase from 9 miles a week to 15 miles a week in 12 weeks.  Hey, I'm running 9 miles a week now, so maybe this will work. And it calls for 4 days a week of running, which is exactly what I wanted to do. So I've started that program this week. It gradually builds, starting with 2 1.5 mile runs and 2 3 mile runs until you finish with 3 3mile runs and 1 6 mile run each week. I think that will be great because once I run 6 miles, I can then start thinking about running 10K, which just so happens to be the distance of the Peachtree Road Race.

Its been pretty cold in the mornings while I'm running, mostly in the low to mid 40's, but its not too terrible. I'm still struggling at the end of my 3 mile runs, but I do feel a lot stronger than I was a month or two ago. I just have to keep in mind that this is the long haul, that every run is building something and that someday I'll look at these types of runs as easy ones.

I've been struggling with my eating since I hit a low of 268 at the end of last week.  I pigged out at the fair and have hovered around 271 since then.  I think I'm getting back into the groove now, though eating a McRib sandwich tonight probably wasn't the best idea. I had hoped to get down to 250 before Thansgiving/Cruise time, but I'm probably not going to get there without some serious starving. I just need to refocus myself and I can hope to get below 260 by then and try to limit the damage on the cruise as best I can by making sure I work out on-board. I'm actually looking forward to running on the ship, as there's a track on board that is three laps to a mile.