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.