Day 16

Ok, so no marathon.  It took a little less than a week for that goal to fall by the wayside.  While there were nay sayers (you know who you are), I gave up the March marathon idea mostly because I realized (again) that I don't like running that much.  The 5-6 mile runs were fine, but the prospect of giving up my Saturday mornings (and hence Friday nights) to 10-20 mile long runs was stressing me out.  And since the goal was mostly just push me to lose the extra pounds I've put on, the 5-6 mile runs were more than adequate.  So I'd like to think I'm happier for having decided not to run it, or at least less unhappy, but the trick will be to stay motivated enough to lose those pounds the fat.  That was one of the nice things about the pressures of training for a marathon -- there were no shortage of demands to stay on track.

My streak of treatless days conveniently ended about the same time I decided not to run a marathon.  Michelle and I have since taken to testing recipes from the book Martha Stewart's Cookies.  [More on that to come.]

A little more than two weeks into the New Year, though, what seems to be sticking the most is my goal to flip the number of exercise days (166) and treat days (259) from last year.  For whatever reason, it's thus far proven motivating enough to keep me stretching for it, but flexible enough to keep me from burning out.  Time (and my scale) will soon tell whether it's enough, or whether I need to put something akin to that marathon back on my plate.

Day Five

According to my records, I exercised on 166 days in 2010.  Hooray. . . except I ate treats on 259.  Without accounting for just how many treats I ate on some of those 259 days, I found those figures both sobering and surprisingly motivating.  Couldn't I just try to flip those numbers for 2011?

With that thinking, a Garmin Forerunner 305 for Christmas, and an impulsive commitment to run the Catalina Marathon (my first marathon) in mid-March, I've had my work cut out for me since January 1.  And perhaps what's left me so dog tired these last five days is that I've actually had some modest success: no treats and four exercise days.  I'm batting a thousand.

Of course, I have no real hope of keeping this kind of pace up.  And I don't think I really want to. [It's been all I could do the last few days to keep from whipping up a few dozen sugar cookies to eat with our leftover icing.]  I do hope, though, to have enough success under my belt that when I eventually fall back to Earth (probably this weekend), I'll either feel more inclined toward moderation or at least be quicker to get back on the wagon.  But so far, it's been a good year.